{"id":576967,"date":"2026-07-31T10:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576967\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T10:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:26:12","slug":"get-creative-the-art-of-hospitality-self-portrait-as-a-host","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576967\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Creative: The art of hospitality \u2013 self-portrait as a host"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a new series, acclaimed artist Jennie Moran<\/a> explores the road to developing a successful art practice.<\/p>\n

Jennie is a visual artist whose work explores hospitality as a creative and connective philosophy.<\/p>\n

In this instalment, Jennie turns her attention to audiences…<\/p>\n

Let us say that a creative practice is a site of hospitality which makes you – as artist – the host (if this is vexing in its haphazardness, you might cast your eye over the previous installment<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In this article we are going to think about what it\u2019s like for others to visit your work.<\/p>\n

But first, some context. What comes to mind for you? Is it a hearty boisterous proprietor who showers the visitors with an effusive gush of welcome? In medieval Irish society there was a character called a briugu who was a professional hospitaller. This “personage of superhuman stature” (i) was usually external to the nobility but bolstered their social status through their acts of hospitality. There were strict qualifications, however. For the briugu, the obligation to the guest was limitless. (ii) Their cauldron must be inexhaustible (and ideally made of bronze and big enough to cook a boar) (iii).<\/p>\n

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\nIs your cauldron big enough to cook a boar?<\/p>\n

A briugu also had a diplomatic role. In their house we should encounter lapdogs, as opposed to hunting hounds, for people to feel at ease (iv). This was all written into our indigenous legal system, the Brehon laws. There was an epic host from the 15th Century, called Margaret-The-Hospitable-O\u2019Carroll, who is described welcoming her 2,700 guests to the Feast of Dasinchell in Killeigh Co. Offaly from the top of the church, dressed in a fabulous gold cloak (v). The obligation to the guest rested not just with the briugu, but with all households to some degree. To refuse hospitality was to commit the offence of es\u00e1in or driving away (vi). This was especially disgraceful in early Irish society and the resulting notoriety endured through poems and satires. There is even a word in the Brehon Laws, ruice, for the blush of honourable shame that comes across the cheeks of a bad host.<\/p>\n

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\nOur indigenous legal system, the Brehon laws<\/p>\n

These are quite showy examples. Perhaps the host in your head is quieter, more hands-off, mi-casa-su-casa kind of host. They have probably left the key under the mat for you. You can go straight on in and root around in the fridge. They haven\u2019t stressed over your visit. They trust you in their home. You might even end up making them a cup of tea, if you see them at all. This is in fact a very healthy approach to hospitality. Here the host is allowing you to become the guest, which is where things get interesting. The root of the word hospitality is ghostis and it describes neither the host nor the guest but the fizzy, high-risk relationship of trust between the two parties (vii). If the roles flip between guest and host, it is a good sign. This is the kind of relationship I would like to have with nature and am trying to learn how.<\/p>\n

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There is also the reluctant host. I am thinking here of a feisty character from Medieval Ireland called Inghine Guile, or Guile\u2019s daughter. Her father spotted visitors coming and wasn\u2019t in the humour to entertain, so he sent his daughter to intercept them. She discouraged the would-be guests with tales of crooked uneven roads, a horrible narrow crooked front door, famine-like food scarcity, scrawny cats, gloomy hounds, a blear-eyed hag and to cap it all off, a continuously-stinking, fart-streaming putridness, perpetually leaking out of the house. If she were alive now she would be including the lack of housing and services in her reasons to stay away.<\/p>\n

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\nMaire Mullen as ‘infamous host’ Lady Macbeth, in Druid’s production of Shakespeare’s play<\/p>\n

There are infamous hosts too of course, like Lady Macbeth who convinces her husband to murder their guest, the king Banquo, asleep in his bed. This is bad. Protecting the guest from harm is entry level hospitality. Those who engaged in the television series Game of Thrones will no doubt recall the Red Wedding, which saw guests massacred at the hands of their hosts at the dinner table. Worse again. In ancient Greece, the relationship between guest and host takes precedence over kinship and marriage in matters of affection and obligation. This is serious stuff.<\/p>\n

I find it helpful to dislodge hospitality from dwelling places and property. The Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen<\/a> defined hospitality as the creation of a free and friendly space where strangers can meet and become friends (viii). A pocket of possibility. Here hospitality becomes a tool for sharing time. A strategy for spending our days. Granting someone permission to interrupt your life, even for a split second. This is good hospitality. This can happen anywhere.<\/p>\n

So now, over to you.<\/p>\n

Read more from the Get Creative series here<\/a><\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

Gearoid Mac Eoin, The Briugu in Early Irish Society<\/p>\n

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies<\/p>\n

Clodagh Finn, Through Her Eyes<\/p>\n

Emile Beneviste, Indo European Language and Society, London<\/p>\n

Catherine Marie O’Sullivan, Hospitality in Medieval Ireland:900-1500<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new series, acclaimed artist Jennie Moran explores the road to developing a successful art practice. Jennie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-576967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}