(i)APPLIQUÉD WOVEN POLYESTER FLAG
(ii)SCREEN PRINTS ON UNICA CREAM FABRIANO
2026
An Camhéachta translates from Irish to “the Starry Plough”, the title refers to the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish socialist republican movement formed in 1913. In O’Connell’s version of the flag, the stars take the form of the NATO symbol, gesturing to Ireland’s changing political alignments in the present day. The works reflects on the stars and skies as contested sites, mediated by the public imagination and political and military interests.
Credits:
Edited description originally written by Niamh Darling for Incubator (2026) exhibition at Fire Station Artists Studios.
Photo by Evanna Devine
Cóilín O'Connell is an artist living and working in Dublin. He makes work as images, objects, installations and writing. Cóilín’s research focuses on places, artifacts and media as a means to address systems of value and belief. His work explores how these principles are symbolically accrued, contested and negotiated through processes of mediation. He is drawn to points of contradiction and humour, opportunities for subversion and where individual narratives meet national ones.
Cóilín is am currently an artist in residence at Fire Station Artists Studios Recent presentations include Memory of A Free Festival (2026), Ormston House, Limerick , A Phenomenon Only Slightly Strange (2026), Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia, In the Cloud of Unknowing (2024), Mildreds Lane, Pennsylvania. He publishes, edits and designs artists publications as Brass Neck Press and is the Campaigns Officer for Praxis the Artists Union of Ireland.