Artist Méadhbh O’Connor commissioned for No. 11 artwork

Artist Méadhbh O’Connor selected to create contemporary piece inspired by Ireland’s cultural and scientific heritage

The Irish Heritage Trust and Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann are delighted to announce that artist Méadhbh O’Connor has been commissioned to create a major new public artwork for No. 11 Parnell Square, Dublin, under the Per Cent for Art scheme.

This landmark Georgian building – one of the finest in Dublin 1 – is currently undergoing a significant conservation-led restoration, managed by the Irish Heritage Trust in partnership with Poetry Ireland. The newly restored No. 11 is due to reopen in 2026 as a dynamic cultural hub, home to Ireland’s national poetry organisation and a vibrant centre for literary and heritage engagement.

A Meeting of Heritage, Art and Innovation

O’Connor’s artwork will be installed in the main entrance hall and grand stairway, creating a powerful contemporary focal point within the historic fabric of the building. The piece will explore the hidden mathematical complexity of Celtic knots — an ancient motif that has shaped Irish visual culture for millennia.

Suspended within the building’s double-height atrium, the work will bring light, colour, and movement into the restored hallway, symbolising the connection between past and present, art and architecture, tradition and innovation.

About the artist:

Méadhbh O’Connor is a Dublin-born visual artist whose work bridges art, science, technology, and eco-futurism. Her practice spans sculptural and multimedia installations, image-making, and writing, often seeking to find resonance between the poetic and the analytic, the natural and the engineered.

Her work has been featured in major exhibitions in Ireland and internationally, including the Museum of Fine Art at Florida State University, The Glucksman in Cork, Berlin Science Week, and the 57th Venice Biennale. O’Connor has also collaborated extensively with scientists and researchers, notably as an invited artist member of the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford.

Selected from over 150 applicants, her design for No. 11 Parnell Square demonstrates the enduring relevance of Ireland’s visual and cultural motifs, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens.

Breathing New Life into a Dublin Landmark

No. 11 Parnell Square is being restored by McCullough Mulvin Architects under the stewardship of the Irish Heritage Trust, an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to conserving and interpreting Ireland’s built and natural heritage. The project represents an exciting collaboration between the Trust and Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann, Ireland’s only all-island poetry organisation. Together, they are reimagining No. 11 as a place where heritage, creativity, and community meet — a space for new ideas and enduring inspiration.

This commission is funded through the Per Cent for Art scheme by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage under the Project 2040 URDF scheme, and supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.