Fig. 1: ‘Anrocomraircnicsiumairne’ by Thomas Keyes, launched in the Royal Irish Academy on 5 November 2024. Image courtesy of Siobhan Taylor Photos.
By Deborah Hayden, OG(H)AM’s Irish Co-Investigator
On the 5th of November 2024, the OG(H)AM team hosted a launch event in the Royal Irish Academy to celebrate the completion of the spectacular new artwork ‘Anrocomraircnicsiumairne’ by the talented scribal and graffiti artist and parchment-maker Thomas Keyes. This piece is the culmination of one strand of the project Ogham Palaeography+, which is supported by the award of an Impact and Engagement Grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to the OG(H)AM team (you can read more about our previous activities here).
The artwork is a contemporary illuminated version of the Old Irish Scholars’ Primer (Auraicept na nÉces), contained in the Book of Ballymote (Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P 12). It takes its title from the word anrocomraircnicsiumairne, meaning ‘all the mistakes which we have committed’, which is quoted in the Primer as an example for the longest word in Irish (in normalised Old Irish, this would be written as an ro·comraircnigsemmar-ni). The Scholars’ Primer provides an origin story for the Irish language that is embedded in biblical universal history. It serves as a warning of man’s relationship with technology and the power of the written word. In the artwork, the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt as the name Neamruad (i.e. Nimrod) in 3D graffiti ogham in a dystopian Dublin with three flaming towers, as the citizens climb up in
‘an attempt on heaven in their fleshly bodies without the permission of God’ (Triall for neam ina corpaib collaidib gan comairlechudh fri Dia) (Auraicept na nÉces, ed. by Calder, 1917, 8–9).
The citizens, represented by a range of anthropomorphic letters from the manuscript, are following the most extreme, modern version of the mantra, initiated by writing, that now
‘the present time is put for all times’ (Praesens tempus pro omnibus temporibus ponitur) (ibid.).
as they record themselves and scroll the internet on smartphones.
The four legendary authors of the Scholars’ Primer are represented in the artwork: Cenn Fáelad has his brain of oblivion smashed out of him by an AI drone in a contemporary re-imagining of the event at the Battle of Moira (Mag Rath) in 637 that caused his brain of forgetting to drip out, leading him to permanently record Irish culture in writing from that point on. Fénius Farsaid, creator of the Irish language, is at the bottom of the tower inscribing a warning in ogham into the ground, while Amairgen sits on the 3D ogham alongside Ferchertne, who is mentioned before him in the Book of Ballymote.
The artwork is made on vellum (calf skin), produced to the same specifications as that used for the Book of Ballymote. Behind the first bifolio, another one can be seen through a hole in the vellum that was created by the lunellum while the skin was processed, and through the translucent patches caused by inconsistent tension when the skin was being stretched.
The original ink and pigments found in the Book of Ballymote – a tannin-based black ink, orpiment, verdigris, red lead and vermillion – have been used alongside spray paint and graffiti markers for the contemporary additions. The outer frame is in yew with bog oak forming the lower triangle; birch-smoked parchment over pine constitutes the upper triangle.
Some of the other things to look out for in the painting include the oghams for the 17 named kings who built the Tower of Babel (using the styles of 17 top modern graffiti artists from across Ireland); DNA ogham; logo ogham; barbed wire ogham; and plenty of biblical references to ground the narrative within universal history, so carefully crafted by generations of scribes, to warn us against our own hubris.
The artwork launch event in the Royal Irish Academy earlier this month featured two public talks: one by OG(H)AM Co-Investigator Dr Deborah Hayden, who spoke about the history of two-dimensional ogham in Irish manuscript tradition and modern culture, and one by the artist Thomas Keyes himself, exploring the process of producing the inks and vellum and his creative inspiration for the piece. Prof. Patrick Guiry, President of the Royal Irish Academy, then spoke to officially accept the artwork into the Academy’s collections. You can read more about the event in this piece published in the Irish Times by columnist Frank McNally.
