Inis Eile is a fictional island off the coast of Ireland. Information about it is compiled by visitors, who bring back memories and weave stories about the island together.

The island is shaped both by the way it navigates conflict and tension, and its moments of dreamy utopia. It twists and turns around you, contradicting itself and rewriting its previous desires, realities, and landscape. Inis Eile is a place always growing, shifting, and moving forwards, guided by the people who remember it. 

You are being invited to remember.

Inis Eile is not completely unlike its neighbour Ireland, but not completely like it either. It welcomes visitors, but isn’t often visited. It’s a place which places great emphasis on creativity, curiosity, equality, mischief, and nuance.

Ancient and futuristic technologies sit side by side there, traditional craft and ecofuturist technology combining. The island contains wild nature, large urban centres, and everything in between. It has its own cuisine, festivities, customs, and social structure.

While Inis Eile’s aesthetics and traditions share heavy similarities with Ireland, it has its own unique culture, and incorporates elements from many additional outside influences. Multiple cultures, traditions, and ideas intertwine there.

What we know about Inis Eile largely comes from stories collaboratively told by people who have visited the island. 

They meet to weave their memories and ideas about what the island is like, building on eachother’s words to form a clear picture of a specific aspect of the island, such as the landscape, festivals, history, or island infrastructure. 

The artist Ríon Duffy Murphy then takes the collected information and compiles it, making it available on the Inis Eile website, and in publications, art work, events, performances, and more.

There are many ways to take part.

You can take a look through existing data, or join us at an upcoming event. 

Maybe you’d like to tell us about your memories or ideas for the island. 

Whether you are a holidayer, a historian, a biologist, an explorer, an anthropologist, an artist, a planner, or a mystic who saw the island from across the sea, we would love for you to tell us what you learned, so it can be added to the island’s lore. You can do so here.

If you’d like to collaborate or contribute in any other way, you can reach us HERE.

Don’t worry if you’re not an expert in the history of the island - overlapping, contradicting narratives are a core part of this project, and there is space for many complex truths. You can always complicate the existing information, introduce a new point of view, or add a completely new aspect to the island.

We are painting a picture of a place from memory, and there is no set path of progression for the island - The horizon is wide open.

Inis Eile is a socially engaged, participatory project by Ríon Duffy Murphy. 

This collaborative storytelling project explores Irish identity, myth-making, and collective utopian dreaming with members of the public, through discussion and play-based workshops. Together, we will develop the culture and infrastructure of a fictional island off the coast of Ireland, and create a space to for participants to reflect on and re-imagine our home. 

This evolving archive will be accessible online, and provide a starting point for a collection of related artefacts, images, and performances.

Ríon Duffy Murphy (they/them) is a visual artist based in Dublin and Louth. 

Through textiles and socially engaged work, they explore themes of queerness, belonging, connection, and disability. They are particularly interested in creating opportunities for dialogue, curiosity, softness, and play, and in working with fellow queer, trans, or neurodivergent people.

Outside of Inis Eile, Ríon’s work consists of interactive, colourful, human-scale soft sculptures. They are made to be touched and embraced, and intend to provide positive sensory input and whole-body engagement in arts spaces.

Ríon holds a BFA in Textile Art & Artefact from NCAD, and an MA in Gender Studies from UCD. They were awarded the Arts Council Agility Award in 2023, Create’s AIC Mentoring Award in 2024, and a residency in GOMA, Waterford in 2026. Their solo exhibition, SQUISHY!, was held in the Project Arts Centre as part of Disrupt Disability Arts Festival 2025.

You can read more about what Ríon has been up to on their website.