Work > Moving Images
All Ways Home
Short Animated Film
To mark the historic occasion of Ireland’s first mission to space, the EIRSAT-1 satellite, UCD Arts and Humanities and UCD Research commissioned me to create a three-minute animated film of the poem written and voiced by some 12 secondary school students. The poem was themed on the significance of home. It was such an inspiring and hopeful project to be part of celebrating Ireland’s first mission to space! In addition to the animation, UCD Artist in Residence Emer O’Boyle created an engraving of the poem onto the actual satellite.
On 1 December 2023, EIRSAT-1 launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Upon reaching orbit, it became Ireland's first satellite.
Credits
Director: Alan Dunne
Producer: Jane Allen
Music & Sound: Phil Brookes
Commissioned by: UCD Arts and Humanities (Emer Beesley, Emma Loughney and Caroline Byrne)
The poem was written by secondary school students working with the MoLI Museum, JCSP Library Project, UCD English, and UCD Research, edited, crafted and curated by writers Paul Perry at the UCD School of English, Drama, and Film, working with Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi and Jessica Traynor. There is also an Irish language version of the animation as well translated by Eoin McEvoy of UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies & Folklore.
Watch film below!
Awards
The poem
All Ways Home
A lone pilot searching for home amid starry frescos,
And little blood waves that mimic the tide-pull.
Our insignificance! Our planet a crumb on the fabric of spacetime,
Sharing the same sky, you and I, wherever feet are anchored.
I will write your name on the moon with my fingertips,
An apparition cast from memory's design.
Universe-whisper, orange as goldfish.
All I want is the delicious scent, the dark blue muddy shoes
and ruined grass of starlight, home.
Strawberry moon in the cloudless, blue black mystic, one day it could all be rain.
Those wind-swept words; voices clutched to our warmth,
Courage plucked from conversation.
Breezebreath, feel the blush dust my cheeks, the stars like old photos.
Leave the porch light on. The children dance, their mothers sing.
Everything changes all at once, the sky, the sun.
Bound with images of mystery, like lemongrass and sleep, except for the tree.
I look up. I see stars. They live forever inside me.
Home is the wild bitterness of backyard blackberries,
A bay tree, its fragrant leaves,
Breathing easy,
A smell so familiar it has none.
