Honor • 17 • Donegal
16-18 Category • 2026My piece portrays my idea of Ireland as something alive and deeply connected to nature. The figure in the centre symbolically represents Ériu, an ancient Irish goddess who is often interpreted to be a personification of the land and its people. Her calm expression and direct gaze represent respect for the land around her. She is surrounded by native plants and animals such as clover, hawthorn flowers, ferns, buttercups, heather, daisies, a fox, a hedgehog, a lapwing and a robin. These are all species you can see in the Irish countryside; ones I know I have seen throughout my childhood. I picked up buttercups in the yard in primary school and held them under my friends’ chins; played ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ with daisies in the summer as they took over the fields; found a hedgehog once in my garden, sleeping in the chicken run after eating what was left over; peered excitedly out of my window at robins landing on trees and branches; picked heather when we went to Glenveagh National Park; searched shamrocks thoroughly in the hopes of finding a lucky four-leaf clover; and stared in awe when a fox, as big as a dog, once emerged from the fence outside my house. In Irish folklore, animals often act as symbols or messengers of the natural world. Their presence in this painting highlights the close relationship between us, animals and nature in our culture and history. I thought it would be important to include the Lapwing, Ireland’s national bird, which has suffered serious population decline over the past forty years. The old ruin on the right represents Ireland’s history and heritage, showing how nature slowly reclaims what has been built before. I painted the figure wearing a Claddagh necklace, which symbolises love, loyalty, and friendship, to represent the bond between us and the land. Overall, my painting shows that nature is not just something that exists around us in Ireland. It is a part of who we are: our memories, our past and, of course, our future.
