Living in a Friary- two weeks in Multyfarnham by Ruth Lyons

In the Franciscan Friary tucked away in a hidden valley that squats below the radar of internet and phone coverage, it feels as though you are in a place that exists in another time, sometime that is out of sink with that of Mullingar; the nearest town. Multyfarnham is a quiet hide away from the noise of society it is inhabited predominantly by old people, some in and some out of the nursing home, lots of good looking cows and four Franciscan friars. There is a nice feeling about the place and especially in the sunny weather with the yellow morning haze over the fields and the dozing cows gently warming their massive bones, Multyfarnham appears cinematically idyllic.

The grounds of the Friary and the neighbouring nursing home are tightly manicured. Tended to daily by the local gardener, the lawns remain closely cropped; a uniform bed of obedient green, decorated intermittently by luminous flower beds. The Friars envisage this land being cultivated in the near future to grow crops and possibly graze animals, in keeping with the Franciscan ethos of integrated ecology.

The Franciscan way of life has much in common with that of an artist. For both vocations one must be content to live a transitory lifestyle and be able to work in diverse locations. The resident four Friars have only been stationed at Multy, as they like to call it, for the last three years before which there were other Friars there. At present they are awaiting the tri-annual meeting that will dictate whether they will be permitted to stay on at Multy or moved elsewhere. The artist in residency programme is an initiative that they hope will further their cause for remaining in Multy. The weekly routine of a Friar is seemingly as unstructured and diverse as that of an artist. Any given day could see one or even all of the Friars being called away on various appointments to some where around the country whether it is for counselling, a Franciscan meeting, art therapy, classes or social gatherings. Given the state of constant flux in the Friary the sudden presence of four artists in their midst seemed to impinge little on their way of life and we were assimilated easily into the daily workings of the community.

The friar responsible for this initiative; Father Joe, who prefers like, all the other friars to be called only by his first name, is also a ceramic artist who runs workshops with the local community and always has a full kiln. Joe is very excited about the residency programme, he hopes that having artists around will help them formulate a new vision for the Friary in an effort to maintain the Franciscan ethos even after all the Friars have passed on. All that the Friars ask of the artists is their presence and a willingness to discuss their ideas on what should or could be done with the space. What is important to the Friars is that the quiet calm of the friary is maintained and that a spirit of creativity can foster, the artists are not required to adhere to or adopt any of the religious beliefs of the order, although the artists are invited but not obliged to attend mass and prayer, to gain an insight into the friar’s way of life.

Each of us was given a little room like a monks cell with a single bed, desk, sink and a wardrobe. Each of them was lovely in its concise neatness. Our rooms were on the same corridor as the friars, it is their intention that visitors and friars live side by side and that their life styles will compliment each other. Morning mass is at 7.30, it was an unusually early morning for me but I was a little excited about trying out early rising again. Mass is in a lovely stone church adjacent to the Friary and is usually attended by up to six people which meant that the first morning we doubled the numbers. After mass there are prayers in the church, then breakfast in the kitchen at about 8. The Friars maintain a fully stocked fridge to which we had open access. After breakfast there is quiet prayer in ‘the community room’; which is a homely sitting room with open fireplace. Then everyone does their own thing. Wilma the resident poet found some sunfilled space outside to write in her notebook, while myself, Jess and Paul made a effort to fill our airy studios with some mess of paint and things so as not to feel too lost in the vast spaces.

My Studio which once was a dormitory spanned about 10 x 5 square metres, a luxury size by any artist’s standard. There is a huge amount of space in the Friary which is both their burden and their gift, but which if these residencies prove a success will certainly please many artists. There is an immense arching hall which Joe has some plans to divide into six or eight generously sized studios. For the short two week residencies artists are not expected to produce a piece of work or much work for that matter, the intention of these short invitations is for the friars to meet a bunch of artists of whom they will invite a few back on three month stays. Given the time constraints I decided to research for a future contextual project while simultaneously taking advantage of the space to complete a large scaled painting piece. The lengthy studio walls enabled me for the first time to work on the ten metre span of the painting as a whole, the finished work will be exhibited in the Grennan Mills Gallery, Thomastown, during the Kilkenny arts Festival.

At one o’clock everyone meets for dinner in the dining room, a cook prepares the food for the whole bunch, for the first few days the conversation was polite and censored, but eventually we had very open discussions about lots of different stuff but often understandably surrounding the church and its role in society and the good and bad effects that it has had. The Franciscans do not take the same stand on every matter as the Catholic Church does and consider themselves to be more open to change. One very striking example of this openness is that one Sunday of every month Joe hosts a day in the Friary for gays and lesbians called ‘Multifarious’, the day involves discussion groups, a mass and most surprisingly an hour of Chakra dancing. The group are mostly men in their fifties and sixties who come from all over Ireland. Myself and Paul attended the chakra dancing at which we made the mistake of really dancing for the whole hour and doing all the energies until we felt a bit broken inside, it was only towards the end that we noticed that most people were just swinging their arms and shuffling a little. It was a whole day till I was right again and my heart didn’t feel broken. The friars at Multyfarnham do not discriminate against anyone and will happily celebrate communion with people of other religions also.

After dinner it is ‘do what you like time again’ and I liked to paint a lot, so I mostly did that. The friary is a good place to go exploring too, there is a little theatre and many odd little rooms where you can find interesting stuff, if you feel like adventuring outside, that is nice too and your legs might take you as far as Lough Derravaragh or the local pub. At five o’clock there is some more silent prayer in the community room, which could just be called a communal nap with a lot of head lolling. After that it is suppertime which is ‘help yourself to what ever you like’ in the kitchen and many cups of tea. The evening then is some more ‘ do what you like’ time, the artists have a little community room with a TV and video, which is nice because sometimes after all the masses you want to watch some one cursing or whoring their lives out for cheap celebrity.

After the first day of taking on the friar’s routine of mass and prayer I quickly realised that that was a lot of praying to take on and that for them it is part of their job but for me it just meant that I would get a lot less of my own work done and resolved to attend only the morning mass because it was nice to get up early and meditate quietly. Towards the end I gave that up too because I realised it was much nicer to get up early and go outside instead and look at all the big boned cows waking up and to hear all the world of birds talking to each other. Inside the church I found too much talk of all the incredible pain and guilt of the world.

The Friary for all its particularities is a really nice place to make art, having no other obligations and very little distractions I found the time to be very productive. The constant atmosphere of peace and serenity was at most times insipid and I felt very calm and at other times I wanted for something cruder and more mundane to balance all the serenity but that tension often resulted in strange spouts of creativity. The short residency terminated in an informal presentation of our work to the friars and later a discussion about the future of the residency programme and the friary itself. If the friars get the go ahead to stay at Multyfarnham and continue their work there we should see in a few years a flourishing community of agricultural workers tending the land, artists in residence, the friars themselves and lay people who are attracted by the Franciscan ethos. Half the building will also be given over to Lark, a home for people affected by cancer. The vision is an integrated caring and creative community. The two week residency provides a good insight into their life and is a nice opportunity to help out with the greater project from the beginning by just doing what you do best and making art.

Throughout the residency I had many discussions with father Joe about the similarities between the artist in residency programme in the friary and that in The Good Hatchery and the importance of encouraging art practice and its dissemination outside of art institutions. Located in the midlands not so far from Roscommon Joe was very interested to hear about Mantua arts project also. Considering the diversity of these three spaces but also their commonality as alternatives places of art practice, there is scope for some future collaboration. An uncooked plan as yet exists in the form of a sort of ‘art pilgrimage’ spanning 30 days where by participating artists would spend one third of that in The Friary, then onto The Good Hatchery and finally to Mantua. Between, the Friary, the Hayloft and the old Nursing Home, artists would be sure to find some strange inspiration while at the same time being required to be easily mobile. The coming months will confirm the feasibility of this plan but with all these ideas being knocked around the midlands are beginning to look like a more exciting place for artists to visit.