The Thousand Year Old Boy
Yvette Monahan
PhotoIreland
English
Softcover
Edition of 200
32 pages
148 × 210 mm
2017
ISBN 9780995701847
In 2006, cavers made exciting archaeological discoveries in the Burren, Co. Clare. Within the findings, a poignant revelation was also made: the skeleton of a Bronze Age child. The archaeologists managed to extract DNA from the remains. They tested this DNA against that of 150 children from a local school. One boy was an exact match. This boy lives in a house less than one mile from the cave. This story captivated Monahan and led her to question whether a landscape could hold the individual and collective stories of those that pass over it? Their histories, myths and legends are unseen and yet they are how we define our culture, its hopes, dreams, and fears. The Thousand Year Old Boy explores the Burren as an ancient landscape, one that acts as a silent witness to the lives of those who have gone before. Designed by Ángel Luis González Fernández.
(Source: https://newirishworks.com/project/yvette-monahan-2/)
About the Artist
Yvette Monahan is an Irish photographer and artist whose research-driven practice explores the relationships between people, place, and the intangible qualities that shape both. Her work engages with external and internal landscapes, weaving together elements of geography, myth, and memory to uncover deeper narratives beneath the surface of the physical world. Through a sustained and intuitive process, she creates images that evoke a strong sense of place while examining connection, identity, and lived experience. Her practice often considers how landscapes can embody intangible concepts such as resonance, transcendence, and trauma, drawing attention to the layered ways environments are experienced and understood. Working across film and digital photography, she also incorporates alternative processes including lumen printing, and print intervention, expanding the material and conceptual possibilities of the image.
Monahan has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, including at Photo Museum Ireland, Belfast Exposed, The Royal Photographic Society (Bristol), TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Unseen Amsterdam, Fotohof Salzburg, and the Lishui Photography Festival, China. She has been nominated three times for the Prix Pictet Sustainability and Environment Prize. In 2025, she was one of the award-winning artists selected for Project Groundswell, a major EU-funded initiative led by Photo Museum Ireland exploring climate action through art. She holds an MFA in Photography from Ulster University (2013) and an MA in Geography and Economics from Trinity College Dublin.
yvettemonahan.com
(Source: https://www.yvettemonahan.com/about/practice)
About The Series
Selected by an international panel of 23 professionals, New Irish Works brings you a selection of 20 projects and 20 photographers representing the diverse range of practices coming from Ireland. New Irish Works 2016 is a year long project of 10 presentations and 20 publications that aims to highlight the great moment Irish Photography is experiencing.
newirishworks.com
(Source: https://newirishworks.com/about/)
About the Publisher
PhotoIreland grows the reputation of Irish artists globally through a 360 degree support system and platform for contemporary photography, activated through a diversity of projects. These include events such as PhotoIreland Festival and Halftone print fair amongst others; resources such as the PhotoIreland Collection, a specialised research library of photobooks, and Ireland’s Art Bookshop, The Library Project; via publishing with projects such as OVER Journal and TLP Editions; professional development support through networking and consultancy opportunities; and empowering early and mid-career photographers via our international partnerships, most relevantly through Creative Europe co-funded platforms such as FUTURES and Parallel.
https://photoireland.org/
(Source: https://photoireland.org/about-photoireland/)
