Paddy Bloomer & Nicholas Keogh

Ireland

To date, many successful expeditions have been completed, exploring all sorts of places, including underground. Using DIY mapping techniques, with an aim of navigating the underworld, we have carried out extensive investigations underneath the streets of Belfast. Due to potential flash floods, noxious gasses, and not very many ways out, future work in this area has been postponed. During a more pleasant voyage, we travelled on splendid inflatable craft underneath Slieve Binnian in the Mourne Mountains. We’re not entirely sure what lives in there. Tenzing Norgay’s grandson once climbed Everest to find 53 climbers crowded around the summit. We have, to date, met nobody in the sewers. The only unclimbed mountain we have ever scaled was the undiscovered mountain of undelivered Evening Posts underneath Donegall Pass.

We had a great time during our stay in Limerick. We were underground, overground, outside and inside. Our investigations took us through the arteries and giblets of the city, to good places and bad places. To improve subterranean conditions we used horticultural high-intensity lighting – ideal for rejuvenation and germination.

(Text: on the border of each other catalogue, 2003)