Dara McGrath

The exhibition By the Way is a series of photographs depicting the changing landscape of Ireland’s national road network. McGrath takes direct and arresting images of the current condition of these roads as they expand, sprawl and invade the Irish countryside.

They touch on a range of concerns that are both aesthetic and environmental and are strongly underpinned by non-aesthetic issues such as planning and development (issues of special importance in the Fingal area where Draíocht is located). The exhibition catalogue, By the Way includes a foreword by Frank McDonald, Irish Times Environment correspondent who writes of Dara’s work:

“The absense of reference points for our communal memory is captured by Dara McGrath in his photographs of the ‘borderlands’ of roads under construction – a moonscape of compacted soil, palm trees planted to take the bare look off a car park, or a housing estate looming up behind a vast swathe of useless, buffer-zone green space.”

At the same time they are first and foremost artistic images constructed methodically with a precise and poetic eye for the landscape. Drawing on traditional landscape painting convention, his compositions are poetic, witty, and pragmatic. Fiona Kearney, Critic, who has written the catalogue essay praises McGraths unique vision:


“These photographs render the hinterland of our new roads in acute focus, every element razor-sharp in vivid colour. The concentration and clarity of the image is almost surreal, the human eye could never see so much: every speck of stone in an upturned field, the tiniest fragments of strewn debris, the surface and texture of both fabricated and natural world.”

As winner of the AIB Prize Dara McGrath received €20,000 to assist the production and presentation of this exhibition and catalogue at Draíocht, with part of the award directly supporting Dara in the production of this body of work. The prize also includes the facilitation of a residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo. McGrath is a graduate in photography from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Co. Dublin.


The AIB Prize was open to nominations from publicly funded galleries all over the country. There were three runners up who each received €1,500 each. They were, Amanda Coogan nominated by Eigse Arts Festival in Carlow, Aileen Kelly nominated by the Context Gallery, Derry and Margaret O’Brien nominated by the West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen.