ARRIVAL: Ballindoon House
ARRIVAL, Ballindoon House
Field Notes from a living landscape shaped by movement, memory, and encounter.
At the edge of Lough Arrow, Ballindoon’s nineteenth-century boathouse meets the full force of the elements.
Ballindoon Boathouse
Field Notes, 4th March 2026
A cold March wind crosses the lake,
rain striking tin and stone.
The roof answers in sharp, irregular bursts,
as water presses steadily against the walls.
A low surge. Settling into rhythm.
Metal. Water. Wind.
Meeting without pause.
Brick and stone, weathered into layers.
A circular opening edged in burnt sienna and softened red.
Walls shifting through raw umber and grey.
Timber doors, washed in olive and time-worn green, slightly open.
Inside, water moves through the structure itself.
Between worlds.
Iron bars holding their line at the far edge.
The lake continuing forward, indifferent to boundary.
A pause at the edge.
Then the crossing.
This exposed edge marks the beginning of ARRIVAL, a new artist residency at Ballindoon House, Co. Sligo.
ARRIVAL is funded by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), National Built Heritage Service, and the Ballaghaderreen Arts Festival. March to September 2026. The residency culminates in a public event and exhibition at Edmondstown House as part of the Ballaghaderreen Arts Festival.
OS Map: 1837. A day of research at Ballindoon with Des Bryne from Lotts Architecture.
Developed through site-responsive research and in collaboration with students from St. Nathy's College, the work unfolds across visual art, poetic prose, sound, and mapping three ways of attending to the same landscape.
This online diary explores Ballindoon as a living heritage landscape, shaped through design, movement, memory and perception.
Ballindoon estate unfolds through a series of layered sites: a nineteenth-century house, a boathouse at the water's edge, the ruins of a Dominican friary, an Iron Age ringfort, and a network of paths, outbuildings, and thresholds.
Each element carries its own story, revealed through how the place is approached and experienced.
At the heart of this project is a question that is easily overlooked: how do we arrive at a place, and how does that shape what we see, feel, and understand?
Through slow, attentive walking, ARRIVAL traces three distinct approaches to the house, each with its own character and mood:
A formal northern route, sheltered and composed.
A shoreline path from the south, open to weather and water.
And a worn path leading from the boathouse toward the house, where a strong line of sight draws water and dwelling into relation.
Each approach reveals a particular relationship between land, design, and encounter, offering new ways of knowing the landscape.
As the residency develops I will share regular updates via my newsletter and instagram feed.
Ballindoon House: undated image from John Nash: A Complete Catalogue 1752–1835, by Michael Mansbridge (1991). Note the absence of the modern conservatory. Image courtesy of John Beattie, Architectural Conservation Advisor, National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), National Built Heritage Service.
This Project is funded by Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes Events Fund 2026. (NIAH). National Built Heritage Service and the Ballaghaderreen Arts Festival. March to September 2026. The residency culminates in a public event and exhibition at Edmondstown House as part of the Ballaghaderreen Arts Festival.
