Book of Invasions
Compiled by writer and artist Nathan O’Donnell and designed by TU Dublin lecturer Clare Bell, The Book of Invasions combines elements of personal essay and modular writing with transcripts of interviews and archival sources, serving as a repository of place-names, memories, customs, and daily rituals on the edges of the Tipperary shoreline of Lough Derg.
“When you’re in the water, you see the world differently. You’re not vertical anymore. You see things—I mean, the things you’re familiar with, the land—from this flattened position. It’s another kind of orientation, not vertical, not horizontal, but fluid, your orientation becomes fluid, and the imperatives of the land no longer govern how you’re thinking about space—which is now water, not land, you’ve left the land behind—and you’re thinking with your skin, your breath, your body. It’s through your body you know this place.”
The Book of Invasions is available now from Ormston House
