Why just Ireland ?

This exhibition is a tribute to Ireland and its people, and I hope that I have selected images and texts that convey my often very personal impressions and experiences to others.

The landscapes of Ireland never cease to amaze me, leaving me speechless as I experience their many facets.

Irish music is deeply rooted in Celtic heritage and yet is always part of shared everyday experiences.

Ireland's history is largely characterised by centuries of foreign rule by
Vikings, Normans and, above all, the English, by the tragedy of the Great Famine, the suffering of displacement and emigration, but also by many forms of resistance and rebellion.

Despite all the misery, the people of Ireland treat strangers with empathy, friendliness, cosmopolitanism and the ability to show ‘immediate humanity’ even in everyday encounters.

So there are many reasons to travel to Ireland again and again, to have joyful and
enriching experiences, to be impressed, to change, to find myrself and to set off for new horizons again and again.

Rolf Thärichen Murnau 2025

All strangers will experience one thing:

Ireland lives on the edges of time.

The further the journey leads from the fertile east
to the brittle west,
the deeper the past
has dug its traces into the land.

Timelessness, roots into yesterday,
scenic contrasts,
constant changing of the tides...

Ireland has a magical aura.

The stranger enters its circle.

Peter Schünemann 1961

Why Worry ?

In life, there are only two things to worry about:

Either you are well or you are sick.

If you are well,
there is nothing to worry about:

But if you are sick,
there are only two things to worry about:

Either you get well or you die.

If you get well,
there is nothing to worry about:

But if you die,
there are only two things to worry about:

Either you will go to heaven or to hell.

If you go to heaven,
there is nothing to worry about:

But if you go to hell,
you will be so busy shaking hands
with all your friends.

You won´t have time to worry.

So why worry ?

An Gorta Mor - The Famine

From 1845 onwards, Ireland was ravaged by potato blight.
Of the 8 million Irish people, more than 1 million starved to death,
even though food was constantly being exported, mainly to England.

As a result, more than 1.5 million Irish people emigrated, mainly to America and Australia,
an enormous human and cultural loss.

Hundreds of monuments throughout the country keep this national trauma alive in people's consciousness.

Kindred Spirits

After the United States purchased Louisiana from France at the beginning of the 19th century, sugar cane and cotton production began there, based on the exploitation of African slaves.

The Choctaw Nation's ‘Indians’ were robbed of their sacred land and deported to Oklahoma in 1830/31.

Many of them, especially children and the elderly, died on the ‘Trail of Tears’ during one of the harshest winters in living memory.

When some Choctaw heard about the great famine in Ireland and the suffering of the people in 1847, they donated $170, a huge sum at the time.

This monument in Midleton, County Cork, was erected as a token of gratitude.

When Irish people heard about the current problems of the Choctaw during the coronavirus pandemic, they donated more than half a million dollars.

Landscapes are vessels
for the history, beliefs
and culture of our people,
which date back thousands of years.

Manchán Magan 2022

The Gift of Wonder

It comes without warning

Astonishes us
Takes our breath away

Stops the flow of words and thoughts

Opens a door of silence
right into the heart

Rolf Thärichen 2024

The Irish landscape is
full of memories,
it is littered with ruins and other evidence of earlier cultures.

It constantly surprises
with ever-changing views
that amaze the eye
and conjure up the imagination.

This landscape is wild,
yet at the same time friendly
and multi-faceted.

John O´Donohue (Anam Cara)

Molly Malone
Dublin's secret anthem

A beautiful fishmonger,
a floozy who hung out with the students
of Trinity College,
but above all a person
who loved life above all else.

As with many Irish stories,
the factual core remains obscure.

Don´t let truth get in the way
of a good Story

Faoiseamh a Gheobhadsa
Máirtín Ó Direáin

This song in Irish is part of a project in which artists
from Ireland and Scotland express their shared Celtic roots.

It describes the feelings of returning to the Aran Islands in Galway Bay.

Der Burren

An Bhoireann - The rocky place

Perhaps the most ‘Irish’ landscape, a desolate-looking karst
with lakes that appear after the rain and disappear again, where in spring every crevice in the rock
is filled with an impressive display of flowers.

The landscape is the firstborn of creation. It was already there hundreds of millions of years before flowers, animals or humans appeared.

The landscape was there all by itself. It is the oldest thing in the world,
but it needs
the presence of humans
who can recognise it...

...the mirror of the mind enables
diffuse, infinite nature
to become aware of itself.

John O´Donohue (Anam Cara)

Walking in Drizzle

The fog can't decide whether it wants to turn into rain

The wind seems bitingly cold and yet is just a gentle breeze

The sun doesn't really want to show itself,
remaining just a vague guess in the diffuse light.

Life pauses for a moment, doesn't seem to know for sure
where it wants to storm on to ...

Soaked through, the refreshed mind has no choice
but to sink into the open arms of a hot cup of tea

Rolf Thärichen 2024

Dedicated to those who gave their lives in the cause of irish freedom

Garden of Remembrance , Dublin