Din Heagney

An Dorchadas (The Darkness) is my PhD research into Irish folklore, emigration and design.

RMIT Supervisors: Associate Professors Dr James Oliver (School of Design) and Dr Brigid Magner (non/fictionLab, School of Media and Communications).

The first part of this project (CoC) was presented at the Practice Research Symposium at RMIT Design Hub in Melbourne in October 2023, and focused on the main findings from genealogy, immigration records, and familial records in the Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann (National Folklore Collection) at University College Dublin.

The second part (2MR), presented at RMIT PRS in October 2024, focused on the fieldwork undertaken in Ireland (April–June 2024), and presented the first publication: a book of AI visual ideations based on my non/fiction narrative that responds to historical events and 19th century folklore from Western Ireland.

The third part (3MR), presented at PRS Australia in October 2025, presented new creative publications including: a two-year reflexive research journal, a collection of fieldwork photography, a 90-card oracle deck and a 208-page guidebook.

The final part will be presented at PRS Australia Examinations at 2pm on Wednesday 21 October 2026, and will feature an exhibition of the collected works at RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, open to the public from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October.

Follow the project on Instagram.

Abstract:

Folklore, Memory and Absence: Irish Migration and Decolonial Creative Practice in Australia.

An Dorchadas (The Darkness) is an interdisciplinary, creative practice research project that explores how inherited cultural identity is shaped not only by archival records and documented histories, but also through absence, imagination, and the enduring presence of folklore. 

Situated within the context of Irish migration to colonial Victoria and Australia’s ongoing settler-descendant realities, the project investigates how creative practice can engage with the unknowable dimensions of ancestral memory and diasporic inheritance.

The thesis develops a model in which publication design becomes a methodology for engaging with absence. Drawing on folklore archives, speculative narrative, genealogy, fieldwork, reflexivity, and ethical design practice, the creative artefacts exhibited operate not as illustrations of research but as methodological sites of inquiry. Through iterative making, reflection and critical analysis, knowledge is generated via embodied creative practice. 

The exhibition comprises five interconnected publication artefacts: a reflective fieldwork journal; a fieldwork photography and folklore collection; an oracle card deck and guidebook; a visual storybook; and a speculative fiction novella. 

The research contributes to knowledge in three ways:

Culturally, it offers an alternative approach to understanding Irish migration in colonial Victoria by foregrounding folklore, inherited memory, and affective experience alongside conventional historical narratives, while acknowledging the entanglements of Irish settler identities within Australia’s colonial project. 

Methodologically, it proposes an interdisciplinary model of creative practice research through design that integrates reflexivity, liminality, and speculative narrative to investigate complex cultural questions. 

Practice-based, it demonstrates how experimental publication forms can function as legitimate modes of scholarly inquiry, extending how creative practice research can engage with personal and cultural histories that remain fragmented, unresolved or absent.

Ultimately, this research argues that creative practice is uniquely placed to engage with histories that cannot be fully recovered, while demonstrating how making absence legible can be a productive space for generating knowledge.

Keywords: mid-19th century, Irish emigration, Australian immigration, Irish diaspora, Irish folklore, Australian folklore, Language, Absence, Divination, Historical fiction, Folk horror, Artificial Intelligence, Image ideation, Visual storytelling, Publication design.