State, In Relation

State, in Relation is a collaborative and personal engagement with the Irish Constitution as a living text through the lens of literature across multiple disciplines including poetry, essay, fiction, visual writings and explorative non-fiction, by fellow-collaborators: Clare Bell, Oein DeBhairduin, Sonya Gildea, Nithy Kasa, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Nathan O’Donnell and Susan Tomaselli, in collaboration with Temple Bar Gallery + Studio and with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland.



Editor Sonya Gildea, Nathan O’Donnell Designer Clare Bell Written by Clare Bell, Oein DeBhairduin, Sonya Gildea, Nithy Kasa, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Nathan O’Donnell & Susan Tomaselli. Foreword written by Susan Tomaselli & Sonya Gildea

CONTRIBUTORS Clare Bell is a practicing designer/researcher, writer and educator, and teaches at TU Dublin. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, she worked for several years as an editorial designer on The Guardian newspaper. (She was recently awarded an International Society of Typographic Designers Certificate of Excellence (2024) for a project undertaken with former Guardian colleague, Mark Porter). Clare is currently completing a PhD and runs a collaborative practice in experimental publishing with writer Nathan O’Donnell. Oein DeBhairduin is a tale-keeper who seeks to share Traveller voices, weaving old tales into modern narratives. Author of Weave, Why the Moon Travels (Skein Press), The Slug and the Snail (Skein Press & Little Island), and Twiggy Woman (Skein Press), his writing celebrates memory, imagination, and the enduring power of our shared cultural heritage.
Sonya Gildea is a poet, and a writer of fiction, creative non-fiction & inter-disciplinary prose. She has published in Winter Papers, the Stinging Fly, Tolka, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Howl, the Common and Crannóg, with the pamphlet ‘Everyone Has A Brother Who Is Lost’ forthcoming as part of the Gorse 14 pamphlet series. She is a Poetry Ireland Introductions poet; winner of the John McGahern Literature Award and the Cúirt International New Writer’s Award. Sonya was dlr Arts emerging Writer-in-Residence 2023-2024.
Nithy Kasa is a Congolese-Irish poet, her work is featured on the Special Collections of University College Dublin. Her debut collection, Palm Wine Tapper and The Boy at Jericho was named among the top poetry books of 2022 by the Irish Times, and shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize 2023. How To Make Love To A Colonised Body, Doire Press 2026, is her second poetry collection. Nithy lives between Ireland and the DR Congo. Annemarie Ní Churrea´in comes from the Donegal Gaeltacht. Her third poetry collection, Hymn to All the Restless Girls, published by The Gallery Press in 2025, appears in The Irish Times Best Poetry of 2025 and among the RTÉ Culture Best Irish Books of the Year. She is the poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine. Visit studiotwentyfive.com. Nathan is a writer, curator, and one of the co-editors of PVA (Journal + Books). His work is grounded in the fields of contemporary art and experimental publishing. From 2018 to 2025, he was a curatorial Associate at IMMA. He was writer-in-residence at Maynooth University 2021–22; and a Samuel Beckett Creative Fellow at Trinity College Dublin in 2023. He teaches on the MA/MFA Art in the Contemporary World at NCAD and in 2026 he will curate the Dublin Art Book Fair for Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Susan Tomaselli is founder and editor of gorse journal. She has written for numerous publications, art catalogues, and anthologies. She was writer-in-residence at Maynooth University 2020/21, where she completed a novel-in-essays, Traces. She is currently working on Perspectives, an experimental aural portrait of Irish women artists.