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Mairéad McClean, 1967–2017

Letter to my Father 1971, 2017

Mairéad McClean’s drawings and letters trace the artist’s attempt to reach her father, held without trial in Long Kesh Prison in 1971. Created when she was five, these drawings and messages become powerful historical documents, revealing how political violence enters the intimate space of family life. McClean, daughter of one of the 14 ‘hooded men’ who were subjected to sensory deprivation and psychological torture, revisited this material in her award–winning film, No More (2013), which is part of the IMMA Collection. The drawings expose the collision between public authority and private experience, showing how a child’s hopeful sketches quietly resist the machinery of conflict. These early drawings and letters form the core of McClean’s ongoing exploration of memory, truth, and inherited trauma, prevalent in post–conflict societies. 

MediumPhotographic print
Dimensions Framed, 28 x 23 x 3.2 cm
Credit LineIMMA Collection: Purchase, Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection, 2017
Item NumberIMMA.4027.009
On viewTechnologies of Peace: Art in Transition 1989 - 2026, 11/09/2026 - 09/05/2027
Copyright For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].
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Image Caption
Mairéad McClean, Letter to my Father 1971, 2017, Photographic print, Framed, 28 x 23 x 3.2 cm, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA Collection, 2017

For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].

  • About the Artist

    • About the Artist

    Mairéad McClean, 1967–2017

    Mairéad McClean is a visual artist with a career spanning more than 30 years, working across various media such as film, photography, drawing and installation. She frequently incorporates found footage, historical and family archives, filmed performances, and televisual material into her work. Her art explores themes such as how individuals navigate systems of control, the ways we remember and how the language of filmmaking influences our perception of what we see.

    McClean was a Reader in Film and Video Arts at The University of Greenwich, London where she taught Documentary, Experimental film and photographic practice for 12 years. She left academic life to pursue her own work in 2012. Since then she has won prizes (MAC INTERNATIONAL ART PRIZE, 2014 Belfast, Kinoskop 6, Experimental Film Festival, Curator’s Award , 2024) and has presented work in the Turkey, Poland, USA, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and in museums across the UK and Ireland.

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    Artworks by Mairéad McClean

    Note to my Father 1972 Mairéad McClean 2017

    Drawing for my Father 1972 Mairéad McClean 2017

    Practice 1972 Mairéad McClean 2017

    No More

    No More Mairéad McClean 2013