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arts · Saturday 17 October 2026 · Various 
Blawnin Clancy: The Dark Seam
At Ballina Arts Centre · Barrett Street, Ballina, Co. Mayo, F26 NW83
At Ballina Arts Centre · Barrett Street, Ballina, Co. Mayo, F26 NW83
The Dark Seam examines identity, memory and inherited experience as they surface through the Irish landscape. Blawnin Clancy is working with buried histories and collective trauma, and the exhibition aligns itself with the idea of post-memory, the way migration, loss and return get transmitted down through generations who did not live the original events. For a gallery on the Mayo coast, that is a subject with the ground underneath it.
The Atlantic edge does a lot of the work in the show. Clancy treats the coast as a threshold that means departure and homecoming at the same time, and draws on landscape theory to bring out the geographic, emotional and historical undercurrents that shape how anyone encounters a place. It is a serious, slow exhibition rather than a decorative one, and north Mayo is the right place to see it. The run is seven weeks long and overlaps entirely with Anna Spearman’s New Work in the same building, so both can be seen in one visit. Entry is free and there is no need to book.
The arts centre is on Barrett Street in central Ballina, a short walk from the Moy bridge and the main shopping area. Roads in are the N26 from Swinford and Foxford, the N58 from Castlebar, and the N59 from Crossmolina to the west or Sligo to the east. Irish Rail runs Dublin Heuston to Ballina trains via Manulla Junction, with the station roughly ten minutes on foot. Bus Eireann links Ballina with Castlebar, Sligo, Galway and Dublin. Street parking on Barrett Street is pay-and-display and there are larger car parks within a couple of minutes’ walk.
Heading to Ballina Arts Centre in Ballina? Mayo has plenty more to see. Read the Ballina area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.