Culture

Sara Keating: Echoes of Yeats’ September 1913 are everywhere in Ireland’s Venice Biennale entry

Eimear Walshe’s multimedia installation is undercut by a deep objection to the sacrifice of personal security for capitalist gain

Eimear Walshe’s Romantic Ireland which was curated by Sara Greavu and the Project Arts Centre runs at the Irish Pavilion in Venice until November 24. Picture: Faolán Carey

“What need you, being come to sense,/But fumble in a greasy till/ And add the halfpence to the pence/And prayer to shivering prayer, until/ You have dried the marrow from the bone/ For men were born to pray and save:/ Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone/It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”

The opening stanza of WB Yeats’ September 1913 is not cited in the extensive notes that accompany Eimear Walshe’s multimedia installation which represents Ireland at ...