14 – 29 October 2011

26 Treasures Exhibition

Level 5

Gallery of Applied Arts 1. Prisoner of Love2. Venice Chair

Discover Art3. Irish Man 4. Toby Jug

The Hull Grundy Collection5. Bog Oak ‘Tara’ Brooch

Level 3

Window On Our World Walkway6. Ivory Basket Seller

Living World / Earth’s Treasures 7. Meteorite8. Spar Box

Ice Age Staircase9. Mammoth Tusk

Level 2

Early Peoples10. Stone Club11. Malone Hoard12. Gold Lunula 13. Downpatrick Hoard 14. Drumbest Horns

Takabuti Gallery15. Mummy16. Isis & Horus

Saints & Scholars17. Clonmore Shrine 18. Shoemaker’s Last 19. O’Neill Seat20. Iron Helmet21. Bog Butter

Armada22. Salamander 23. Silver Jug Spout

Plantation to Power Sharing24. Beggar’s Badge 25. Air Raid Siren

Discover History26. Chinese Puzzle Ball

Level 1

Window On Our World27. Basalt Column

As one of the foremost cultural and learning institutions in Northern Ireland, it is very appropriate that National Museums Northern Ireland have developed this exciting partnership with “26”. In bringing together some of Northern Ireland’s most creative talent, we hope that this initiative will encourage visitors to use, in new ways, the treasure house that is the Ulster Museum.

Paddy GilmoreDirector of Learning & PartnershipNational Museums Northern Ireland

Nicholson & Bass is delighted to support this wonderful exhibition. As a printing company we are fascinated by how powerful communication can be when there is a rich fusion between the traditional and the modern, between craft and technology. We feel that there are many treasures in life, one being the printed word and image, hence our passion for print and our support for this exhibition.

Please enjoy the 26 Treasures.

Jonathan MegarryManaging Director, Nicholson & Bass

If the Ulster Museum’s most precious objects could talk, what stories might they tell? It’s a question many of our most successful poets, writers, artists, designers and photographers have pondered.

26 pairs of writers and visual artists have hustled, bustled and negotiated their way to creating personal responses to these intriguing objects. And you can discover exactly how and why they were inspired in the exhibition in The Belfast Room.

But first, follow the trail of treasures in the museum. Beginning with the Prisoner of Love in Applied Arts, try to find each of the objects. Take a moment to ponder how they make you feel, imagine who might have made or used these amazing treasures and what those peoples’ lives might have been like all those years ago.

As you make your way back to the ground floor, visit the exhibition in the Belfast Room. There, you’ll find a wonderful mix of visual and verbal responses to these special artefacts that have so many stories to tell about who we are and where we come from.

You might even be inspired to write your own 62 word response. I hope you will.

Gillian Colhoun Writer. Organiser of 26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum

326 Treasures Ulster Museumwww.26treasures.com Introduction Index

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Welcome to

26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum

4 Level 5 Applied Arts 26 Treasures Giovanni Fontana: The Prisoner Of Love

1. Prisoner of Love

LIP LIP

SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP CUP CUP

SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP

ROSEHIP ROSEHIP ROSEHIP ROSE

SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP

GRADE DEGRADE GRADE DEGRADE GRADE

AHEM AHEM AHEM AHEM HAW HAWTHORN HAW

BILL COO BELCOO BILL COO BELLEEK

Verbal ResponsePaul Muldoon

Visual ResponseFrank

526 Treasures Venice Chair Level 5 Applied Arts

2. Venice Chair

Desdemona’s lament to the negative space

O sleek and discreet. How we loved to play!That you were night and I was dayHadn’t fazed us at all. Till the ship went south.Equals you said. Take those razors from your mouth.Love and lust such unlikely bedfellows? No whore, ILost before I had a chance to fight forOur all consuming, carnal dance. Weak. Vain. Moor.

Verbal ResponseGillian Colhoun

Visual ResponsePeter Anderson

4. Toby Jug

We’ll use the Fillpot. Spoutly tricornered, A pot with its own pot; warming his clay-dried, toil-cracked hands.

The grueling, ponderous brew leaches, Through the potter’s beard (of a Potter’s Pot). Sat squat on his pedestal; comforted by leafy stew.

An outlandishly devised container. Pouring from his own selfless hat, His vertebrae (shielded) stands a scalding to bring a common cup.

Verbal ResponseRichard Weston

Visual ResponseSonya Whitefield

6 726 Treasures Irish Man Stoneware figure by Jill CrowleyLevel 5 Discover Art Level 5 Discover Art26 Treasures Toby Jug Stoneware by Peter Meanley

3. Irish Man

The oul blood pressure. That nurse, you can see the reading in her face after she puffs the thing up and then lets it aff. Can’t look you in the eye. ‘Cut down the drinking, don’t pile the spuds on your plate, no cheese.’ And salt. In the name of God. If only somebody could design a saltcellar wi no holes.

Verbal ResponseBernard MacLaverty

Visual ResponseCara Murphy

the original

unearthed from

a bog but

a Victorian copy

carved from

bog oak

as worn by

Victoria

in Ireland

funereal black

brooch

gold pin

& catch

the lynch pin

brooch

mourning

a layer of

bygone time

where forest

once grew

over centuries

hewn down

the stumps

preserved by

the acid soil

until dug up

& cut into

this design

Not

Knot

8 26 Treasures Bog Oak ‘Tara’ BroochLevel 5 The Hull Grundy Collection

5. Bog Oak ‘Tara’ Brooch

Verbal ResponseCiaran Carson

Visual Response Jamie Neely

6. Ivory Basket Seller

How can I like you carved so painstakingly out of shameful ivory?

But I am embracedby your smile

charmed by your face Weighed down by your baskets

yet unburdened Your body is your shopeverything has its place

Jostling for favour eager to please and protect

Intricate weavings and details a stark contrast

to your simple life How I envy you

Verbal ResponseRosamond Bennett

Visual ResponseTandem

926 Treasures Ivory Basket Seller Level 3 Window On Our World Walkway

7. Meteorite

Before here.

Deeplocked in another place

smithereened not now there.

Shatterings blizzarding skyward one flake

pockmarked, burnished, black floating weightless alone

on gravity waves shunning countless suns

pulled towards ours and us.

Punching through the blue fiery stonebird

hissing, screeching, slamming into desert sands

now held fast in another place.

Window to the past timestretching mindopening

once more at rest.

Until again.

Verbal ResponseJim McGreevy

Visual ResponseMammoth

10 26 Treasures MeteoriteLevel 3 Living World / Earth’s Treasures Level 3 Living World / Earth’s Treasures 1126 Treasures Spar Box

8. Spar Box

Poor Man’s Treasure

Worth nothing to anyone. Worth everything to someone. Mantelpiece star. Miner’s showpiece. Coal’s more exciting, less valuable cousin displayed in the talked-about-box; the when-people- come-round-to-visit pride and joy. Added to by Da’s underground toil. Curated by Mam’s over-the-top enchantment. Now in a museum. Curated by an actual curator. By ‘eck , would you ever have thought it?

Verbal ResponseMike Fleming

Visual ResponsePeter Richards

9. Mammoth Tusk

1. Annually, a clipper fleet gathers.

2. Nestled in a frosty inlet, civilisation arrives, shattering the silence.

3. The gathered houses, enjoying an isolated solitude broken but once a year, sit barren, icy cold.

4. Beneath the towering mountain.

5. The fir-lined cove lies empty.

6. The third bay beckons.

7. The twin coves, icy and inhospitable.

8. Until the secluded silence is forever stolen by the steamer’s embrace.

Verbal ResponseChris Murphy

Visual ResponseRob Durston

12 Level 3 Ice Age Staircase 26 Treasures Mammoth Tusk

10. Stone Club

What have we here? Fred Flintstone’s hurley? Barney Rubble’s baseball bat? Finn McCool’s toothpick? A Neolithic nightstick? A Stone Age shillelagh? A totem pole for the little people? A prototype Irish boomerang? Probably not, though it could be all of the above. Urged to explore, engage, enjoy, we’d really rather extrapolate. Even a blank slate stone club can sire a shaggy story.

Verbal ResponseStephen Brown

Visual ResponseHamill Bosket Dempsey (HBD)

1326 Treasures Stone Club Level 2 Early Peoples

14 26 Treasures Malone Hoard

12. Gold Lunula

Insular Gold. See the maker. Feel the idol. See the faithful gazing, loving, obsessing. See change charge ahead, trampling over life and death alike and wait with confidence for the heat of the sun. Centuries of lying lost, tucked away, hidden, forgotten under Ireland’s layers of infinite green has no bearing. They continue to worship. This faith will never be shaken.

Verbal ResponseCatherine Minford

Visual ResponseHurson

1526 Treasures Gold LunulaLevel 2 Early Peoples Level 2 Early Peoples

11. Malone Hoard

In coffeeshops on the Lisburn Road we eat with mobile phones beside our plates: our shiny black talismans. Sixteen-year-old girls lol-ing, hoarding our trove of digital images; text and symbol. Uploading, but less loading up treasure – not to grind an axe – than laying the present moment, heavy and useless, ceremonially in the thick dust of itself. Our lives, bright relics.

Verbal ResponseLeontia Flynn

Visual ResponseThought Collective

13. Downpatrick Hoard

Worn by? No idea. Worn how? No idea. Worn why? Ah, yes, Our ancient needTo decorate And beautify.Millennia Later, these areStill glorious; Of course they are. In our deep core We are the same. But what will weLeave in a hole On Cathedral Hill, Downpatrick, That will produce Some thousand years Hence, the lively Pleasure that these Do?

Verbal ResponseCarlo Gebler

Visual ResponseCarole Kane

16 26 Treasures Downpatrick Hoard

14. Drumbest Horns

Breaking News Born to deliver sound All tones and moods Joy, sorrow, warnings and news News of birth, death, war, harvest, rain, hope, despair Trumpeting my master’s bidding. Borne on the wind I share my news with all who listen I command you; listen and respond Reverberating with joy. Sonorously and gloomily I weep for the fallen Listen to me, simply listen.

Verbal ResponseAlastair Fee

Visual ResponseBag of Bees

1726 Treasures Drumbest HornsLevel 2 Early Peoples Level 2 Early Peoples

Hear the sound of the horns at: www.bagofbees.co.uk/26treasures

16. Isis & Horus

Goddess Holding A Fly-Whisk

Prithee, unpin me. All movement lays us bare, Of the sage-coloured cloak, The tawny velvet cape, The breast-cloth, The transparent apron.

The blue god Is kissing spines With the shoulder-blades of God. Her lying-in girdle And fine bearing-sheet Were sewn with a human bone Needle for making sails.

A quarter of an angel Means an indulgence Of 26,000 years And 30 days.

Verbal ResponseMedbh McGuckian

Visual ResponseStephen McGilloway

1926 Treasures Isis & Horus18 26 Treasures MummyLevel 2 Takabuti Gallery Level 2 Takabuti Gallery

15. Mummy

and once when I woke in the night and could not sleep again for fear of the dark, of all that might be lying in wait, he came and knelt by my bed and said you are the best girl in the whole world, and you know that I will be there for you, always always always, because I am your daddy

Verbal ResponseGlenn Patterson

Visual ResponseMark Chambers

17. Clonmore Shrine

Look again. Inside my whirligig wallplates & once-jewelled roof I hold proof of Heaven. Aye: to your eye bone-chips & toenails, greasy hair-twists, shrivelled skin. But God sees what we cannot: seeds of transcendence. We will arise, as these Saints have risen, transfigured, imperishable as flesh is perishable. I promise you: Believe in me, and though y’are dead, yet shall ye live!

Verbal ResponseLucy Caldwell

Visual ResponseAtto

20 Level 2 Saints & Scholars Level 2 Saints & Scholars26 Treasures Clonmore Shrine

18. Shoemaker’s Last

Shoe Last

Shoe last, and last you have these thirteen centuries past Plucked from the bog, cleaned, treated and restored to lasting beauty, of a woody sort

Crafted with care, this left foot now so rare Former of shoes low boots, and slip-ons icons of early-Christian fashion wear

One question stands, unanswered down the years Whose soles have you saved from Antrim’s claggy soils?

Verbal ResponseAlan Morrow

Visual ResponseColin McKeown

2126 Treasures Shoemaker’s Last

22 26 Treasures The O’Neill Seat

19. The O’Neill Seat

Throne Alone

Hewn with axes, bludgeoned without thought an angry ton of drunken stone lurching into

history. This rock, this hard fought place, with no between, fit for The O’Neill who knew his

reign was fleeting. No easy seat, no lounging here with goblets of blood wine late into

the night. This cold Tyrone throne, made for men on the edge, ready for flight.

Verbal ResponseOwen O’Neill

Visual ResponseSparks Studio

20. Iron Helmet

Officer Fitztightly

Officer Ruperde Fitztightly was not sure about the new helmets.

The eyepiece was meant to look less ‘military’ but the angry peasant didn’t seem too convinced.

“Go back to England you Norman bastard!”, he screamed. “And from there go back to France and from there go back to Norway, where your lot belong.”

Dear Christ, Fitztightly groaned. Would this crap never end?

Verbal ResponseNewton Emerson

Visual ResponseJohn McDermott, AV Browne

2326 Treasures Iron HelmetLevel 2 Saints & Scholars Level 2 Saints & Scholars

Bog Butter A2 Poster final.indd 1 05/08/2011 16:07

26 Treasures Bog Butter

21. Bog Butter

All Bog Butter Byzantium Biscuits Apple Flesh Fried in a Fresh Bog Butter Burning Perch à la Beurre TourbièreFour and Twenty Blackbirds in a Bog Butter Pie Hot Bog-Buttered Tollund Man ToastJugged Hung Hare with Bog Butter Beans Lime Frog Legs in a Bog Butter Sauce Utterly Bog-Butterly Cloudberry Scones

From The All Ireland Bog Butter Cookbook (1555)

Verbal ResponseIan Sansom

Visual ResponseSlater

22. Salamander

Do you remember me turning over a stone That stayed wet beside the skinny waterfall, And showing you, when you were a girl, A sleepy stone-coloured salamander?

Can you startle it, now you are a woman, And make of it a shipwrecked golden creature, Its three rubies quenched by sea dark, its empty Six holes filling up with sand and sea water?

Verbal ResponseMichael Longley

Visual ResponseSarah Longley

26 Treasures Salamander Level 2 Armada24 25Level 2 Saints & Scholars

Level 2 Armada 26 Treasures Silver Jug Spout

23. Silver Jug Spout

Bacchus, God of Wine

Bravado – it’s just an Act to Cover up the Crying out of my Heart and mask my dread. Unable to function without you, Safe in your embrace and feeling Good, no great – for a while. Of course it won’t last, but Don’t spoil it with truth. Out of my Fears grow need, then shame.Watching myself Implode and Needing you Even more.

Verbal ResponseGillian McKee

Visual ResponseAlan Jackson

Level 2 Plantation to Power Sharing26 Treasures Beggar’s Badge

24. Beggar’s Badge

Entitlement?

Stood by the PalaceHavin’ a beerAlong she comes againDoesn’t remember how long I have been here Same script every time‘Sorry’ I say ‘All out of change’ We both know it’s a lie Thanks me and leaves, it’s always the sameBut I suppose she can only tryTime moves on, attitudes change Are they any better off now?

Verbal ResponseMark Dougherty

Visual ResponseLiam McComish

26 27

a woman at a kitchen sink remembers a lost lover

her reflection caught in the window’s fading light.

her husband watches the curve of her neck

silent behind a slow blue dance of cigarette smoke.

outside, a sudden scatter of leaves.

a dog barks.

somewhere a gloved hand enfolds a siren handle

as the heavens fill again with the music of Thor.

25. Air Raid Siren

Interior, Belfast, April 1941

A woman at a kitchen sink remembers a lost lover, Her reflection caught in the window’s fading light. Her husband watches the curve of her neck, Silent behind a slow blue dance of cigarette smoke. Outside, a sudden scatter of leaves. A dog barks. Somewhere a gloved hand enfolds a siren handle, As the heavens fill again with the music of Thor.

Verbal ResponseGary McKeone

Visual ResponseJohn McMillan

26 Treasures Air Raid Siren

26. Chinese Puzzle Ball

Song of the Puzzle Birds, Delicacies of Conception

This puzzle ball has bowled me a Google-y…About ten million of them in under a secondThis puzzle ball has bowled me a googly…Twenty of them from one solid sphere of ivory And maybe more than ten million turnsOf mind and wrist to carve such intricacies,Such delicacies of conception, of sleight of hand,To make your head spin

Verbal ResponseTim Cooke

Visual ResponseRoss Wilson

26 Treasures Chinese Puzzle Ball Level 2 Discover History28 29Level 2 Plantation to Power Sharing

26 Treasures Ulster Museum26 Treasures Basalt Column

27. Basalt Column

Once… I was dense… rich… delicate…

Bone, soil, verdure.

Once… I grew… I moved… I lived.

Once… I was consumed, and, in turn, devoured the landscape–

A tide of destructive speed and unfathomable heat.

Wrathful, glorious life....

Now… No longer fearsome,

No longer swift.

Wrenched from antiquity.

You peer and shuffle,

While ever still, Ever silent,

I sit… and I remember

‘once’.

Verbal ResponseShelly Wilson

Visual ResponseSimon Mills

A special word of thanks

Many people were instrumental in bringing 26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum to life. A special word of gratitude must go to Nicholson & Bass and Northside Graphics.

To Richard Weston for sharing his design skills as well as his writing talent. HBD for their generous design support (special mention to Alice McKee). To Pearlfisher for the 26 Treasures identity. To Dan Oparison for his web mastery.

Liam McComish for his enthusiasm and good ideas. John Simmons for his ability to make us not only write better, but think better. To Paddy Gilmore for his vision and ongoing encouragement. To Sara Graham for her outstanding contribution to lost causes. To Rob Self-Pierson for the original idea (thanks Rob).

And to all the people who contributed to the exhibition, on behalf of 26, I would like to thank you for your generosity of spirit and for sharing your talent and thoughts so freely.

Thank you.Gillian Colhoun

Creative Partnerships

Paul Muldoon / FrankGillian Colhoun / Peter AndersonBernard MacLaverty / Cara MurphyRichard Weston / Sonya WhitefieldCiaran Carson / Jamie NeelyRosamond Bennett / TandemJim McGreevy / MammothMike Fleming / Peter RichardsChris Murphy / Rob DurstonStephen Brown / HBDLeontia Flynn / Thought CollectiveCatherine Minford / HursonCarlo Gebler / Carole KaneAlistair Fee / Bag of BeesGlenn Patterson / Mark ChambersMedbh McGuckian / Stephen McGillowayLucy Caldwell / AttoAlan Morrow / Colin McKeownOwen O’Neill / Sparks StudioNewton Emerson / John McDermottIan Sansom / SlaterMichael Longley / Sarah LongleyGillian McKee / Alan JacksonMark Dougherty / Liam McComishGary McKeone / John McMillanTim Cooke / Ross WilsonShelly Wilson / Simon Mills

30 Level 1 Window On Our World www.26treasures.com

26 is a collective of writers, editors and language experts who share a love of language.

Find out more at www.26.org.uk

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