Heartship

Featuring the singer Lisa Hannigan with an accompanying film by Alan Gilsenan

14 September 2019
Sounds from a Safe Harbour, Cork, Ireland

Commissioned by Mary Hickson

HEARTSHIP was commissioned by ‘Sounds From a Safe Harbour’, a bi-annual music festival in Cork, Ireland. It was created to honour the many migrant people who disappear below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea; their drowned hearts lying unnamed on the sea-bed. Heartship also celebrated the Irish Naval services contribution to the humanitarian crisis, where they saved many lives.

In September 2019 the LÉ James Joyce sailed up the river Lee in Cork from the naval base on Haulbowline Island. A lone figure, the singer Lisa Hannigan, was visible wandering on board, wrapped in a silver thermal blanket. Her beautiful, ethereal voice emanated from the ship, recorded with the sounds of glass armonica and water-phone played by Alasdair Malloy. A relic of a human heart was harboured within the ship – a sacred cargo. When the ship anchored upstream an audience gathered on the dockside to hear Lisa Hannigan perform alone from the top deck. 

The relic of a human heart which was placed on board the ship was found in a crypt in Cork City in 1863 and acquired by General Pitt Rivers, the ethnologist and archaeologist, who was then stationed there. It later became part of the extraordinary collection of artefacts which are housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. When found, the heart was encased in a lead cyst in the walls of the crypt – the person within whom the heart beat is unknown and undated. We borrowed the heart for one day for Heartship.

Soundtrack – Lisa Hannigan (singer) and Alasdair Malloy (glass harmonica and water phone).

The film-maker Alan Gilsenan made a film that partnered the event and was screened in the Crawford Gallery during the festival. The Pitt Rivers’ heart was exhibited after the event in the Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork.

Film available to watch here.

LÉ James Joyce , Haulbowline Island naval base Cork

Human Heart wrapped in lead cyst. Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford

Lisa Hannigan performing on board the LÉ James Joyce Irish Naval Vessel, Cork Harbour

Audience gathered on the dock, Cork city

Audience gathered on the dock, Cork city

Lisa Hannigan performing on board the LÉ James Joyce Irish Naval Vessel, Cork Harbour

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Everest Erratic (2019)