If the Ground Should Open… by Jaki Irvine was commissioned by IMMA and presented the first time on the occasion of the centenary of the historic Easter uprisings of 1916. This work takes as a point of departure Irvine’s 2013 novel ‘Days of Surrender’, which focuses on Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grenan. These were two of more than a hundred women who were ready to die or kill for the possibility of a different Ireland but whose stories were all but written out of official Irish history, consigned to the margins as the narrative was masculinised.

This video and sound installation uses their names as ‘the ground’ of a score for nine musicians. The eleven tracks were composed by Irvine using the canntaireachd system – originally developed as an oral scoring system for Scottish Highland pipes. The basic musical motif in classical piping (piobaireachd) is called ‘the ground’ of the piece, which is then built upon with additional notes and melodies. In If the Ground Should Open… the names of women involved in the 1916 Rising form the ground. In this way they are performed and remembered, becoming part of the ground we walk on in 2016. The project was also developed from the leaked Anglo-Irish bankers taped conversations.