I lost five of my students to suicide in my first five years of teaching.
I am marked. Darkened, lessened, wounded and numbed. This ever increasing number is the source of immeasurable pain. Yet, this number has hardened my work ethic. It has propelled me to speak out. It has driven me forty meters into the sky to install drawings aimed at provoking change. I get to reshape this pain and create something beautiful.
Angels. I don’t believe in them. Yet, I have two. I have the makings of a small clay figure hidden in the roof tiles of my art room and another sitting on the window sill in my bedroom. They don’t look like your typical angels. They are rough, one in fact is ugly. I love them. I often forget about them but they sit there night and day just watching. They were made by a student I lost. Her fingerprints are on them. The energy used to make the form still lives in them. I miss her.
I hear these words on the corridors of our schools, on the streets of Ireland, in shops, bars, restaurants, public spaces, everywhere…
Mental, bat-shit, mad, a fruitcake, crazy, the town loon, nuts, psycho, insane, freak, odd, demented, disturbed, crazy, schizo, bonkers, crackers, oddball, gone in the head, off their rocker, attention seeker, deranged, escaped from the asylum, fucked up, head case, that lad is helpless, irrational, her nerves are at her, reject, get the straight jacket, psychopath, split personality, troubled, voices in your head, you belong in a home, call the white coats, the nut house, the unit, the madhouse, bedlam, the asylum, basket case, mad hatter, looper, whack job, cray-cray, the warehouse, sectioned, sanatorium, cuckoo, gaga, daft, bananas, batty, touched, around the bend, not all there, out of their mind, stark raving mad, paranoid, their mind has been taken, few screws loose, unhinged, unstable, volatile, maniac, scary…
How do we learn such wide-ranging, emotionally-charged and negative terms about mental health difficulties? It is important we change this narrative. We are capable of educating and encouraging our people, both young and old and in between to become more empathetic. We are capable of counteracting ignorance with knowledge through prescribed and deliberate interventions within school and community environments. We are very capable of extinguishing this prejudice. Why are people allowed to be wounded everywhere except their mind?
I realise that every time I myself have used those particular words and phrases, I hurt specific members of my family and alienated a number of my most valuable friendships. I cannot control the choices others make but I can highlight the negative inference and can choose to amend conversations. I can turn off a certain radio station or podcast. I can choose to not buy a particular paper. I can unfollow, block and call out poor professional practice. I can mute those that troll. I can offer empathy, educate and make it my priority to become less of a problem and more of a solution.
Installing ‘The Volunteers’ artwork on the walls of Collins Barracks, Dublin
The wind and rain was relentless as we installed the paper drawing on Collins Barracks just over a month ago. I had to stop. The North Atlantic Drift had thrown us into the end of a Caribbean hurricane. It was 5pm and we had been working on the piece for three days and nights. I couldn’t continue without seeing her. I walked across the Liffey and into the ward where my friend was. She cried as I walked in and I cried as I left. I retraced my steps back over Sean Heuston Bridge, climbed back into the basket of the cherry picker, attached my harness and finished the install with her energy and beautiful spirit by my side. The piece was for her and the thousands like her living with a mental illness or a mental health difficulty. Beautiful people branded with a life-long black mark or character flaw that determines and categorises many of their future opportunities.
Asking someone to be in a drawing is a big deal. To represent an important social issue is a considerable request. To be represented correctly. To give away ownership. To be brave. Cormac Coffey spoke of a song, an important song. A song intrinsic to the memory of a lost friend. His best friend. As if by some surreal twist of fate that song began to play in the background nearly an hour into our first face to face conversation. Loud enough to be heard over the clanging cutlery and the lunchtime chaos. His eyes welled up and his breath was taken from him. Does this happen to politicians? Is Leinster House a place for happenings and gut instinct? A place of doing the right thing?
The above paragraphs are purposely separated as considered thoughts. Stories, some deeply connected and others not so much. Welcome to the inner workings of my mind. “They put their hands on your life”, stated Éanna Walsh as he described his bipolar diagnosis. He as a twenty-eight year old is constantly watched and assessed, sometimes medically and sometimes lovingly. This watch tower can at times eradicate his autonomy. In this four story drawing I needed to illustrate his capacity to address life. Both Éanna and Cormac are connected in a pose of mutual support and dependency. Should one move the other would fall. We need to hold one another, comfort one another, mind one another and be present with empathy and compassion for one another.
We need to root before we rise.
Read Éanna Walsh’s experience of being a part of ‘The Volunteers’ here.
Read Cormac Coffey’s experience of being a part of ‘The Volunteers’ here.
‘The Volunteers’ by Joe Caslin is a powerful new collaborative multimedia piece of public art and film, the second of a three-part series highlighting the importance of volunteerism in tackling some of Ireland’s most pressing issues: drug addiction, mental health, and direct provision. The project reflects upon Ireland’s century of progress, and asks us what battles we must fight in the present to remake the country for the better. Read about Joe Caslin’s first part of this series focussing on drug addicition here.
This piece of cultural commentary features Cormac Coffey, a twenty year old advocate of volunteering and Gaelic Athletic Association athlete, and Éanna Walsh, a twenty-eight year old man who in 2014 was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This piece attempts to humanise the complex narratives around mental health and mental health care, placing treatment as a health issue and not an offense to be shamed and hidden away. The Volunteers is about the preciousness of life, and the ways we betray it, as well as the ways that we honour it with our time, passion, and attention. Drawing from the example of the 1916 Volunteers, who made their lives offerings for a new world, this piece looks at those who offer themselves to transform their country in a different way, today. All photographs were taken by Gavin Leane.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
- Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:
Support Our Campaign
We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our work and so far together we have achieved great things! Please do continue to support us so we can provide future generations in Ireland with the resources to recognise and talk about their emotions, and equip them to navigate the ever-changing world around them as they grow
