This thesis project aims to create an Irish language institution based around alternative methods of learning on Tory Island, Co. Donegal. Within the programme, the project aims to address social, political, and geographical challenges that are associated with the peripheral islands of the west coast. Due to its isolated nature and its geographical location within the Republic of Ireland, Tory island embodies the sense of strandedness, alienation, and isolation more so than any other island on the west coast.

 

These cultural associations exist regarding any island, however, Tory is unique in so far as its under developed nature has allowed these atmospheres to concentrate over time. The origin of the thesis lies in the process of the inscription of time and memory upon space. The island’s cultural, geographical, and societal conditions have allowed it to become a carefully staged reliquary.These relics are material allegories of the unconventional aspects of the societal past, present, and future of the islanders.It allows us to view the island not only in its current context, but it offers us a lens into an ‘otherworld’; its past, present, and possible futures.

​