Screening Coercive
Confinement

Ireland’s Institutions in Word and Image

Curated by Dr James Little

How do we learn about what is screened and hidden from view?

And, when what lies behind these screens can be so hard to come to terms with, how can we better understand the stories that help us see it? 

Over the past five decades, Ireland has published a number of state reports detailing endemic problems with its institutions of coercive confinement: from industrial schools (1970; 2009) to Magdalene laundries (2013) to mother-and-child institutions (2020; 2021). Parallel to this official discourse, writers, dramatists, documentary makers, filmmakers and visual artists have produced an important body of work that exposes these institutional abuses as well as the ways in which they often remain unseen. These creators make visible coercive confinement – in other words, they screen it – in order show us how it has remained invisible, or screened, in Irish society.

This exhibition features the work of six creators who have made coercive confinement visible from the 1970s to the 2020s. In the six exhibition panels, you can listen to interviews with each of the artists, watch video clips and explore a range of archival material related to their work. You can explore the exhibition in whatever order you wish. We hope that Screening Coercive Confinement can serve as a space of reflection, that it may demonstrate how our knowledge of Ireland’s histories of coercive confinement can help undo its carceral presents and prevent us from creating more carceral futures.

A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton 1971

Director Brian MacLochlainn collaborated with Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh to co-script the first television drama that cast a critical eye on Ireland's industrial schools. Not everyone was pleased with this, however.

Our Boys 1981

Director Cathal Black worked with Dermot Healy to create a stinging critique of Christian Brothers' day schools. While critically acclaimed, the film was kept from Irish televisions until 1991. 

States of Fear 1999

Producer Mary Raftery faced significant opposition when creating the three-part documentary series that provoked a state apology to survivors of industrial schools. States of Fear researcher Sheila Ahern explains further. 

Echoes from the Dormitories 2025

Writer Susan Connolly has recently published an autobiography reflecting her childhood experiences of coercive confinement in Goldenbridge Industrial School. The artwork illustrating this panel is also hers. 

The Asylum Workshop 2023

Playwright Colin Murphy was commissioned to write a play about Ireland’s largest psychiatric institution, St Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman. It was then staged on the grounds where the asylum once stood.

Asylum Archive 2007–2022

Artist Vukašin Nedeljković has documented Ireland’s system of direct provision centres in images. The resulting photographic archive provides a visual record lacking for Ireland’s earlier carceral institutions. 

This online exhibition emerges from a project led by Dr James Little (funded by the EU; mentored by Prof. Emilie Pine) at UCD’s School of English, Drama and Film. The aim of the project has been to show how Ireland’s national memory has been shaped by cultural representations of institutions of coercive confinement: from plays, prose and poems about prisons, borstals and other penal institutions to media representations of non-criminal institutions such as Magdalene laundries, industrial schools and direct provision.

We often say that history is written by the victors: in other words, some people hold 'memory capital' while others struggle to be remembered at all. This project seeks to understand which inmates have held 'memory capital' in Irish culture, and how that capital has shifted over time. It asks:

From nationalist prisoners to marginalised women and children to asylum seekers, who has been deemed worthy of rememberance?
How have different artists represented confinement across the twentieth century, and how have they been censored and repressed?
How can a better understanding of Ireland’s 'carceral memory' undo the carceral structures targeting those who seek asylum on the island today?

The focus of this project is on understanding twentieth-century coercive confinement in Ireland, when numbers of inmates reached up to 1% of the Republic’s population (O’Sullivan and O'Donnell, 2012: 9). However, it is difficult to ignore what artist Vukašin Nedeljković calls the 'carceral continuities' that persist in Irish society, particularly with regard to the treatment of those seeking asylum on the island. With these continuities in mind, this exhibition has been created to learn from living creators about their artistic work on coercive confinement over the past five decades.

Six interviews have been recorded with artists whose work has explored and exposed Ireland’s carceral institutions from the 1970s onwards. Extracts from each interview are framed by a collection of archival material that allows visitors to explore the works and their significance in Irish cultural history and society. The exhibition is designed as a resource for schools and universities, and for anyone interested in exploring Ireland’s carceral institutions. Feedback about the exhibition is welcome; please contact little.james[at]ucy.ac.cy.

James Little is Assistant Professor of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus. From 2022 till 2024, he held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College Dublin. His publications include Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space (2020), The Making of Samuel Beckett’s Not I / Pas moi, That Time / Cette fois and Footfalls / Pas (2021) – for which he edited the online genetic edition (2022; see www.beckettarchive.org) – and the edited collection Ireland: Interfaces and Dialogues (2022). He is founding co-editor of the Bloomsbury Academic book series Global Perspectives in Irish Literary Studies and founding director of the UCY Irish Studies Collective.

Credits

Credits

Curation Dr James Little
Project Mentor Prof. Emilie Pine
Creative Direction Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Design David Donohoe
Developer Stuart Cusack
Audio Producers Ian Dunphy & Benedict Schlepper-Connolly

For contributions to the exhibition, and assistance in helping to source audiovisual material, we would like to thank the following.

Sheila Ahern
Spyros Armostis (University of Cyprus)
Cathal Black
Damien Brennan, Ciara Henderson and Lorraine Lamanciuc (Trinity College Dublin School of Nursing & Midwifery)
Rob Canning, Razib Chaterjee, Bríd Dooley, Austin Kenny, Vicky Moran, Patricia Sweeney and Liam Wylie (RTÉ Archives)
Susan Connolly
Alan Counihan
Jenny Donohoe (Grangegorman Development Authority)
Brian MacLochlainn
Katherine Martin (Grangegorman Histories)
Peter McDermott (TU Dublin Conservatoire)
Berni Metcalfe (National Library of Ireland)
Colin Murphy
Vukašin Nedeljković
Simon O'Connor
Jennie Ryan
Katy Simpson
Ella Squire (Irish Film Institute)

Created by the Museum of Literature in Ireland in collaboration with Dr James Little
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Screening Coercive Confinement A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton (1971) Our Boys (1981) States of Fear (1999) Echoes from the Dormitories (2025) The Asylum Workshop (2023) Asylum Archive (2007–2022) Podcast Credits More Exhibitions Visit MoLI