State, in Relation

State, in Relation is a publication that responds to the Constitution of Ireland as a historical document and as a present-day living text outlining the evolving legal relationship of citizen to state.

This literature project was led by contributing writers Sonya Gildea and Susan Tomaselli with written pieces from Clare Bell, Oein DeBhairduin, Nithy Kasa, Nathan O’Donnell, and Annemarie Ní Churreáin. Between March 2024 and May 2025, the contributors participated in a set of workshops together so as to jointly create State, in Relation.

Together, the seven writers, who come from a variety of disciplinary and literary backgrounds (as well as a range of discursive/subject positions), discussed and developed new work reflecting on their own knowledges and experiences in relation to the Constitution and the state. They devised strategies to think through, register, and express how lived experiences are shaped by legal realities.

The result is a set of constructive reinterpretations that subvert, reclaim, reinvent, and challenge Ireland’s historical understanding of, among other things, community, family, religion, gender and bias, and exclusion. State, in Relation is a contribution to an ongoing conversation about the social after-effects of the Constitution, as a threshold of the law, an interface with the state, as well as a document, at times, of exclusion, omission, and erasure for many constituencies.

The book was accompanied by the installation, Omitted Provisions which was situated in the Atrium of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, (where the publication was launched), during Dublin Art Book Fair 2025.

The design of the publication directly reproduces the vernacular of the publicly available official printed Constitution of Ireland (as issued by the Government of Ireland), using the original publication's size (110 x 172mm), its typeface, grid and typographic hierarchy. However, deviations occur where appropriate in order to subtly advert to the aim of the content: to express and reveal narratives occluded by life as lived according to the text of the Constitution itself.

Using images sourced from the writers’ personal archives, a visual essay at the end of the publication seeks to visually ground some of the many discourses and personal testimonies that remain marginalised, unacknowledged and unspoken in relation to the Constitution. The harp on the publication's cover is taken from a photocopy of Report of the Commission on Itinerancy, published in 1963.

The text is set in Times in accordance with the vernacular of standard governmental publications. The paper specified is Munken Bookwove at 80 gsm. The colours used are Pantone Black U, Pantone Blue 072, Pantone 872U.

This project was developed with creative support from Clíodhna Shaffrey and Órla Goodwin at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, and made possible by a Literature Project Award from the Arts Council of Ireland