The Journal
The Long Walk Home
The
Immersed in the light of the sun, she bathes with the Angels.
Immersed in the light of the sun, she bathes with the angels. 2005. I sat by her bedside, she was laid out in a purple velvet scarf, her red hair gone. My camera was in my bag, my camera was always in my bag. So, I took it out and took her picture, in the dead...
Winter
In Moments Alone
In moments aloneI am proneTo checking my phoneI am a drone I remember beforeBefore the screenI'd lie on the floorAnd check in on my dreams I'd stare at the ceiling and scroll through my mindI'd feel the cold floor, be a body, defined. Ideas would spring out and say...
Self Portrait May 2021
Self Portrait April 2021
Self Portrait 18 x 24cm Watercolour on Paper April 2021
Clouds in Trousers
Clouds in Trousers (Leipzig 2015) By Helen McNulty Time fades as Buckets and spades of logical rain Fall in muddy Prussian streams from the Clouds in Trousers. I sang to Napolean on the hill The royal Corsican. I heard Frank Harte in my heart Refulgent beams in his...
Eugene Street
Ten years ago during the big snow, I lived in this little alcove in Dublin 8 for a wee while, in a gorgeous cottage that was hidden behind big apartments on Cork Street. It turned out to be a bit of a threatening place, in the end, it took a while before I noticed the...
The Old Phone Box
First Car I thought it was silver The night Daddy drove home up Hudson Heights Hill. We were kneeling on the top of the sofa Looking out the window for the surprise. Mummy said one was coming. We couldn't wait to see what it was. A part of me thought it was another...
Duncan Road
The week we moved in I was scratching my skin until it was torn to bits. The house was dormant for a good long time and the sofa had fleas living in it. My skin doesn't like fleas, or ticks, or horseflies or midges or mosquitoes. I flare up like a balloon and back...
Identity
I was 23 when I made this. It was from a dream of a lot of women marching up from the houses in Leicester (where I lived) and going to a hill. The dream is still vivid. The women left behind everything in the houses and went to the hilltop by the light of a very...
Not Elsewhere, Here
Not Elsewhere, Here, Acrylic on Canvas, 40 x 40 cm, 2016 I've been hiding in the woods like a burrowing animal, making a little person, making a home, making a grown-up life and making art. This painting used to hang on the wall in the hall. It's of a house in the...
I Spy With My Little Eye
From a Diary in March 2007 (edited 2020) I Spy. by Helen McNulty Stoney-eyed head peeped out of bed at 3 in the morning. I am a soldier entrenched,Scrambling upwards to fight for an unknown and powerful master. A battle between brain and brawn arisesIn the damp....
Why Are We Lucky
My daughter has taken to asking this question to me on numerous occasions in a day. It is my favourite question. Yesterday, I had a tricky mood day, I was feeling very tired and not in any form of gratitude thinking. In the evening, Venus (my girl) asked me the Why...
Helen’s Tower
Helen’s Tower Clandeboye Estate
Tam Lin
Pebble
Pebble fallen from a mountainor born in the firey belly of the earthonce black or maybe blue?beaten and bashed by wavesfor millennia its fractured edgessuccumbed to the ocean's tumultuous moodsnow here under my footwarm, soft, roundpinkish grey. (c) Helen McNulty 2013
Helios
Salute to the Sun
Helios' Son I swear I saw a yellow ball fly past in a chariot over the sky. There was some young fella holding on to the reigns for dear life while a big winged horse looking creature swooped and swerved all over the shop. There must have been something in that...
Jonah
Address
Wicklow Mountains, Ireland