Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh is a visual artist, researcher and MTU Crawford Graduate. Their research grows from their connection to rural queer existence in Ireland. This project examined (de)colonial queer loneliness / identity performativity in contemporary culture and how it is informed by our history. Over the last forty years, we have seen a rapid shift in queer positionality in Ireland arriving at a point of queerness being synonymous with words like “new” and “radical”. With this project, Maitiú looked back at Irish history and questions how colonial occupation and persistent Roman Catholic hegemony has purged, burned and shipped off so many queer stories and histories. How can you fully know your identity when you are denied its lineage and how is heteronormative culture able to utilise this against us? This research fits into the wider context of their practice which looks at mechanisms of group assimilation, self-annihilation, and ascension within isolated queer, white and Irish communities. Maitiú’s work was formalised through bio-installation, print, sound and video.

Since completing their MA in Artistic Research in 2023, they have been awarded a residency in Casino Display (LUX), been shortlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards 2023 and selected to exhibit as part of “Person, Presence, Perception”, an all island of Ireland travelling exhibition with the OPW and NI Department of Finance. Recently, they presented their work as a part of Radio Solstice in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024 and have been awarded the Agility Award 2024.

This residency and subsequent solo exhibition builds upon the artist’s focus on rural queerness and agricultural processes in Ireland. During this residency, they focused on the history and effects of loneliness on rural queer experience and how it is connected to ideas of sterility, community monoculturalism, homogeneity, White guilt and queer assimilation into dominant heteronormative culture. This work was an extension of Maitiú’s research into Irish agri-policy and how it is informed by the histories of colonisation, globalisation and western superiority.

This project aimed to reclaim queer Irish presence and identity performativity through the voice and tradition of na coainte (nomative plural of coaineadh). Growing from their existing material practice, there were three elements to this research. The first being an ongoing research publication commissioned by Bad Penny Publishing (Den Haag, NL). As material research for this, Maitiú continued exploring the bioplastics made with lubricant and worked with Dr. Declan Tuite to create a queer motet or polyvocal monastic choral piece. This residency coincided with the Cork Pride Festival.

During Culture Night 2025, visitors were invited to keen, moan or whisper and become part of Maitiú’s installation by listening and to joining with their own whispers, singing and screaming to create their own keening score/recording. This interactive intervention was part of Maitiú’s project that questioned what is included in histories, lineage or inheritance – where is the deviant voice and what would it sound like? Lastly, as a conclusion to their residency in the Triskel Sample Project Space, Maitiú presented their work in progress, when faggots scream, which explored the intersections of Queer identity and rurality, examining ideas of loneliness, erasure and the absorption of acceptable Queerness into Irish identity.