EVA International is delighted to announce a partnership with artist Eimear Walshe (they/them) on the highly anticipated National Tour of ROMANTIC IRELAND following Walshe’s representation of Ireland at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
ROMANTIC IRELAND: A National Tour in Fragments will present a restaging of the acclaimed installation ROMANTIC IRELAND (2024) alongside a series of newly commissioned works and events in Limerick, Roscommon, Belfast and Dublin between August and November 2025. The tour will officially launch on Saturday 30 August, as part of the opening weekend programme of the 41st EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Walshe’s work has long addressed the question of Ireland’s representation. Refusing estrangement from the nation’s history, culture and tradition, the work confronts us with stories of empire’s displacement and ruination, the criminalisation of the colonised, and intergenerational conflict and betrayal.
ROMANTIC IRELAND comprises a multi-channel video installation and an operatic soundtrack housed in an immersive sculpture. Set on the site of an unfinished earth build, the video stages soapy, dramatic encounters between character archetypes from the 19th–21st centuries. These figures occupy an abstracted ruin, a site under simultaneous construction and demolition. The soundtrack is a five-voice opera describing the scene of an eviction, composed by Amanda Feery with a libretto by Walshe. ROMANTIC IRELAND was originally curated by Sara Greavu and Project Arts Centre for the representation of Ireland at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. EVA International has worked with Eimear Walshe to develop a National Tour programme which fragments and elaborates upon the Venice presentation.
ROMANTIC IRELAND: A National Tour in Fragments includes an exhibition of ROMANTIC IRELAND (2024), as part of the 41st EVA International in a unique adapted venue (29 August – 26 October 2025, Studio Saol, Limerick). EVA International will also premiere LANCERS/LOVERS (2025), a newly commissioned performance by Eimear Walshe (30 August, St. Johns Pavilion, Limerick). Walshe will present an in conversation event with the National Famine Museum in Strokestown (20 September, National Famine Museum, Co. Roscommon). Events in Dublin and Belfast will conclude the tour, with two concerts of music from the opera ROMANTIC IRELAND (2024) performed by 4 in a Bar, as well as performances by Walshe’s collaborators Amanda Feery, and Dylan Kerr (21 November, First Presbyterian Church, Belfast / 22 November, The Pepper Canister, Dublin).
Bio
Eimear Walshe (b. 1992, they/them) is an artist from Longford. Through a practice that spans video, sculpture, publishing, sound, and performance, Eimear Walshe’s work traces the legacies of late 19th century land contestation in Ireland and its relation to private property, sexual conservatism, and the built environment. They have recently exhibited at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Van Abbemuseum, EVA International, the National Sculpture Factory, and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. Their work is in the collections of the Arts Council and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. They travel widely across the island screening, reading, producing, and performing their work.
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