Niamh Coffey: Siunta

What to Expect

Siunta takes its name from the Irish word for a seam or a joint, and the exhibition does exactly that: it stitches separate narratives into imagined ecological relationships. Niamh Coffey’s starting point is the Irish Folklore Commission archive gathered between 1937 and 1939, when schoolchildren across the country wrote down the stories told locally. Among those stories are repeated tales of metamorphosis, hares turning into witches, children turning to stone, tadpoles living in boggy ground.

Coffey made drawings from those transformation stories, then collaged and manipulated them, swapping beginnings with endings and letting subjects wander out of one story and into another. The collaged narratives were then translated into textile works, a medium she chose for its links to collaborative storytelling and to queer aesthetics. The framework the show works within is queer ecology, which pushes back against human exceptionalism and places people inside a complex, interwoven system rather than above it. The result asks visitors to reconsider how they relate to the natural world, using material that came out of Irish schoolrooms almost ninety years ago. The show runs alongside Mags Duffy’s The Faraway Nearby.

Good to Know

• Runs Thursday 17 September to Saturday 10 October 2026
• Custom House Studios + Gallery, The Quay, Westport
• Gallery hours: Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, weekends and bank holidays 1pm to 4.30pm
• Admission is not listed online - phone 098 28735 or email info@customhousestudios.ie
• Medium: textile work developed from collaged drawings
• Source material: the 1937 to 1939 Irish Folklore Commission schools collection
• Shown alongside The Faraway Nearby by Mags Duffy, which runs to 17 October

Getting There

Custom House Studios is on The Quay in Westport, about 2km from the Octagon along the R335 towards Louisburgh. Walking or cycling out from town along the Quay road takes around 25 minutes on foot. Drivers arrive on the N5 from Castlebar and Dublin or the N59 from Newport and Clifden. Irish Rail runs from Dublin Heuston to Westport via Manulla Junction. Bus Eireann and Local Link serve the town and a local service runs to the Quay. Public parking is available on the Quay.