11/09/2026
We got the keys to a beautiful place.
Built around 1875, on the corner of Glebe Street, back when that corner was still a market square with a well in the middle of it. For a hundred and fifty years it’s where this town’s money was counted. You can still read ULSTER BANK cut into the stone.
We’re calling what happens inside it GAUZE.
Fine woven cloth. The dictionary says the word is “said to be named from Gaza” a city of weavers for centuries. It’s what we reach for when something is torn. It covers a wound without sealing it. You can see through it. It holds because the threads hold each other.
Em Berry’s poem ‘Because of Us’ turns on that, and asks how many of our wounds have been dressed because of Gaza. Look it up before you come. We’ll be reading it in the building.
And thanks to the man who owns these walls. He painted it himself, fixed it himself, and handed us the keys because he wanted the place used, not just kept. He knows who he is.
https://thestudio.slinua.org/events
14–17 September. Free. Slí Nua Nexus, Ballinrobe. HandsUpProject Palestine FreeEvent MayoArts
