who we used to be | Virginia Mallon

Irish Americans, Fort Lee Irish Immigrants

Mallons (bottom) Rose, Jack, Charlie, Aloysius, Esther, William
(top) Harry, John Henry, and Frank six months after Charlie's and Aloysius's birth and their mother's, Bridge Smith's, death.

“There is no foreign land. It is the traveler only that is foreign.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

This photograph inspired "Who We Used to Be," a series in paint that followed the themes developed in "Bird on a Wire," in photography. Both explore family secrets and intergenerational trauma.

I discovered the photograph in early 2021 in the midst of the early days of the pandemic. It revealed Irish American relatives I never knew existed. Their story began in the late 1800s when an Irish immigrant family fled the Great Hunger for America, only to arrive during the violent end of the Civil War.

It's about a large family who endured hard, heartbreaking, and harrowing lives. Each generation plagued by trauma, abuse, addiction, and violent death. Although I didn't know these ghosts until 2021, I immediately recognized them as my own.

This body of work uses both traditional and unconventional portraiture to confront a secret legacy rooted in Irish American history.