(1-30 May, The Linen Hall Library, Belfast)

According to W.H. Auden in his poem ‘In memory of W.B. Yeats’ ‘poetry makes nothing happen’. But for artist Noel Connor nothing could be further from the truth. Poetry has provided him with creative stimulus and inspiration for over fifty years. Across his long career, he has worked and collaborated with many of our most respected poets, including Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, Gerald Dawe, Maura Dooley and Michael Longley. His remarkable imagery offers original insights into the poetry he has always been ‘drawn to’.

Now, to mark his 70th year, Noel Connor presents a wide-ranging selection of his drawings, prints, photo works and films from his previous collaborations, exhibitions and publications.

The exhibition is dedicated to Noel Connor’s friend, the poet Gerald Dawe, who died in May 2024.

Exhibition Event
(1 May, 6-7 pm)

To mark the opening of ‘Drawn to Poetry: Selected Works at 70’, and as part of Poetry Day Ireland, Noel Connor will read and discuss his work at a special event, which will include a screening of a selection of his short poetry films, including Lost Lines.

‘My friend Gerry Dawe was particularly encouraging of my poetry films and Lost Lines was a favourite of his. I want to take this opportunity to share the piece again as a tribute to him. It will be a privilege to read his some of his poetry alongside his wife Dorothea.

(July 2024)

The astounding beauty of the Donegal coastline around Rosbeg has compelled us to return there for over 25 years, fostering a love of the place which we have tried to capture in this book. The collection offers our combined creative response to an area of such shared significance and our long watchful awareness of each others work.

The Gomer Press in West Wales have worked with Joan and I to produce a beautifully finished full colour hardback book. (which we are proud to publish under our new imprint ‘Hare’s Corner Press’…… the hare’s corner is an old expression for a piece of ground left undisturbed on the farm for the hare to shelter)

A special Limited Edition of 95 copies, individually numbered and signed by Joan and myself, will cost £35 (plus P+P). Unsigned / unnumbered copies will cost £20 (plus P+P).

All profits from sales of the book will once again be donated to the charity Doctors without Borders (MSF). If you would like to order any copies and help support their work, please contact us directly at noelconnoretc@yahoo.co.uk and we’ll get back to you with any further information you may require.

Dawros Bay

This is our landscape,
the headland bracing itself
and facing the brunt
of the Atlantic head on.
And we have clambered
to that bouldered cove again,
our sculpted hideaway,
where the big ocean
makes an exhibition of itself,
a gallery of toppled slabs
and half sunken monuments.
Here I found a fallen block
sheared off from the rock face,
re-shelved it intact on the broken ledge
and gently eased it back in place.
I closed the fracture to a hairline split,
made the pattern and the contours true
and all the jagged edges fit,
last winter’s storms defied for you.

Noel’s photowork ‘Discarded Shoe’ and his accompanying poem ‘A Life Lived Elsewhere’ have been selected for inclusion in the Ruthin International Arts Festival. Centred on the theme of ‘Elsewhere’ artists and poets from over 40 countries have been invited to transform the ancient mediaeval town in North Wales with installations, film works and poetry.

A Life Lived Elsewhere

One small girl’s discarded shoe

uncovered in the dusty debris

or perhaps deliberately hidden

under the corner of the old smithy

for us to discover lifetimes later.

Misshapen by the weight of years,

a bone dry relic of stiffened leather.

Interred between foundation stones

still showing scars of crude repair,

clusters of handmade iron sprigs

scratched and splayed by years of wear

now rusting in the brittle heel and sole

or fallen from the little puncture holes.

No expert excavation made this find,

no slow meticulous inching

through some ancient settlement

or secretly buried royal hoard,

but found by Kevin on his mini-digger

clawing back the rubbled ground.

One small girl’s discarded shoe

a presence from the past,

forgotten footsteps of a life lived elsewhere

and another story we will never know,

tired of treading the sidewalks of Brooklyn

home at last from London or Glasgow.

(4^th October to 28^th October 2022)

As part of ‘Belfast’s Home of Poetry’ a special series of events for October, the Linen Hall Library has invited Noel to exhibit his work as part of the programme. It will give him the opportunity to show again in the heart of Belfast his film ‘Lost Lines’ and the accompanying exhibition ‘Waiting for the Number 12’. He will also be displaying a selection of his previous publications, collaborations and cover designs.

The Linen Hall Library is situated in the very heart of Belfast opposite the City Hall and is one of the oldest and most prestigious independent libraries in Ireland.

Find out more about Noel’s upcoming exhibition on The Linen Hall Library website here.

(24^th March to 28^th of April 2022)

Noel was born and raised in West Belfast and as a child he would have traveled from his home in Andersonstown into town on the number 12 trolley bus. Trolley buses were finally withdrawn from service on the 12th May 1968. For this project he tracked down and worked directly with the actual bus which made the last journey along the Falls Road, passing Broadway Presbyterian Church, now Cultúrlann.

Using film, poetry and photography …

“ I wanted to explore why the number 12 bus from Casement Park to Castle Street features so conspicuously in my memory, and to examine how events on and around it capture a transition from a childhood innocence into the realities of late 1960’s Belfast”.

For this solo exhibition Noel has developed and extended ideas which were initiated by his involvement in ‘Frontier Work’, the group show he was selected to contribute to at the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny. As in many of his previous exhibitions his own words weave a narrative strand through all his imagery, producing evocative poems and sound pieces as an integral part of the work.

This exhibition funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and organized by Artlink in Donegal has been curated by Garrett Carr, a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. He is also the author of The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border. Four artists including Noel have been specially commissioned to produce new work on the theme of Frontiers.

You can visit the Seamus Heaney Centre website to find out more information about the exhibitions and the other artists involved.

A new collaboration between Noel Connor and Paul Stangroom

(April 2021)

Paul and I have published a new collection of our work, a beautifully produced full colour hardback book. It’s been expertly created for us by Dean’s Printers and Bookbinders at their workshop in Cheadle Heath.

A special Limited Edition of 75 copies, individually numbered and signed by Paul and myself, will cost £35 (plus P+P). Unsigned/unnumbered copies will cost £20 (plus P+P).

If you would like to order any copies of the book please contact me directly at noelconnoretc@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll get back to you directly. Throughout the Covid lockdowns I have used my efforts to support the invaluable work of the charity Doctors without Borders (MSF).

The Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition, Cork.

(November 2020)

Noel’s film ‘A First Victim’, which formed part of his Bovedy Illuminations project has been shortlisted for the Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Prize. It will be screened on-line on 29^th November, as part of the Winter Warmer Poetry Festival in Cork alongside the other shortlisted candidates. They were selected from an entry of 288 films from 49 countries.

A selection of paintings and poems.

Read by Mike Tickell.

Noel and his friend the artist Paul Stangroom have released an audio-visual selection of poems and paintings taken from their previous book ‘In the Pause of Passing’. They were delighted that the acclaimed Northumbrian performer Mike Tickell accepted their invitation to be involved. Noel would like to thank Mike for his wonderful readings of the poems and Kathryn Tickell for the use of her music. Her piece ‘Heavenfield’ was commissioned for Joan Connor.

Listen to the selection below…

‘Drawn from Borders’
Virtual Exhibition Opening

The Virtual Saldanha Gallery, Fort Dunree, Donegal.

(April – May 2020)

This artist led exhibition is the culmination of a nine month project, reflecting on the centenary of the partition of Ireland and the formation of the border. The exhibition had been scheduled to be shown in galleries on both sides of the border, however the Coronaviris crisis and lockdown made this impossible. The completed exhibition has been installed by Artlink in a virtual Saldanha Gallery, at Fort Dunree, Donegal.

The original project was produced by Artlink in association with the Nerve Centre and Tower Museum, Derry. It was supported by the European Union’s Peace programme.

The virtual exhibition is supported by Culture Ireland and Ireland Performs.