For Our Grand (m)Others

In 2022, Creative Places Tuam invited UK-based artist Mark Storor to Tuam, to collaborate with residents of Gilmartin Road as part of a residency project. This project is a celebration of each person who makes up a family and families of all kinds. Those we are born into, those we make for ourselves and the communities that tend to them.

Through a number of creative processes, this newly formed group worked with Mark to make a new narrative drawing on the rituals of daily life. Through shared conversation, creative exchange, action, remembering and dreaming, For Our Grand (m)Others has evolved over time. It is the creation of all of its collaborators and belongs to everyone.

The project concluded on the 30th March, 2023 with a public sharing of work on Gilmartin Road. This sharing unfolded in small special moments throughout the day, meaning that passersby might stumble across a special moment or encounter.

Experience the Project

A Song for Gilmartin Road, read by For Our Grandmothers collaborators

My Story is Their Story, written and performed by Kathleen Keenan

Fully Fledged by Jennifer Cunningham and Tim Acheson

Collaborators on this Project

Peggy Hughes, Peggy Fahy, Breda Warde, Patricia Farragher, Fergus Farragher, Finbarr Farragher, Agnes Curley, Jennifer Cunningham, Timothy Acheson, Emily Acheson, Kathryn O’Keeffe, Cora O’Keeffe, Isaac O’Keeffe, David O’Keeffe, Don Kerman, Jacqueline Daly, Kathleen Keenan, Fiona Hession, Joanna McGlynn, Carolyn Collier, James Ryan, Carolann Courtney, Mark Storor, Mike Carney, Julie McHugh, Mike Connolly, Laura Britton, Ciara Finan, Ria Corcoran, but particularly the residents of Gilmartin Road, whose generosity, commitment, daring and kindness is inspiring.

Mark Storor is an award-winning artist with an international reputation and extensive experience of working collaboratively with a wide range of organisations and communities, including work in hospitals, prisons, schools and housing estates. Working in the unique space between live art and theatre, he has been described in the British press as: ‘a genuinely visionary theatre maker,’ ‘an alchemist,’ and ‘one of the most distinctive voices in British theatre’. Mark specialises in platforming the voices of those we all too rarely choose to hear and usually works over several years to create extraordinarily beautiful, tender and uplifting work in which community participants and professionals work side by side in genuine partnership.