From Hide to Heel (2025 – 2027) by visual artist Pauline O’Connell is a Public Arts project commissioned by Kilkenny County Council for their 2024 – 2027 programme and is supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
Overview of the art project
Tracing a journey from raw animal hide to finished footwear, the project brings together local histories of farming, tanning, and shoemaking, connecting Kilkenny City, County and region through a collaborative and participatory artistic process. The project is rooted in two historically linked sites in Kilkenny city: Padmore & Barnes, ‘The Boot Factory’ on Wolfe Tone Street and the former neighbouring Cattle Mart on Barrack Street. Together, these sites anchor a shared story of labour, industrial production, and skilled handcraft, revealing how global systems of trade, materials, and movement shape local lives.
Join Professor Mary E. Daly for her presentation ‘Irish women’s working lives in town and country from the 1930s’ on 11/4/26, and Emma Gilleece for her presentation ‘Form, Function and Footwear: State Ambition and the Industrial Modernism of Kilkenny’ on 25/4/26, to hear their incisive responses to artist Pauline O’Connell’s project From Hide to Heel, a social practice public art film project that explores and celebrates the intertwined industrial, agricultural, and craft histories through the story of a single, everyday object – the shoe.
From Hide to Heel invites audiences to reflect on the relationship between past and present, labour and land, people and place. The project aims to deepen public understanding of Kilkenny’s living heritage while highlighting the importance of safeguarding social history, cultural and environmental knowledge.
From Hide to Heel creates space for shared storytelling. Through its public engagement, the project encourages audiences to participate by contributing personal stories, shared memories, and family experiences, helping to build a collective dialogue around the work.
*The events will be filmed.
Free public events in response to some of the project themes:
1. Hidden stories: Irish Women’s working lives in town and country from the 1930s.
• Speaker: Professor Mary E. Daly, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Dublin (UCD)
• Date and Time: 11 April, 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm
• Location: The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle, Kilkenny, R95 YRK1
• Capacity: 120 people
Book HERE
About the Speaker
Mary E. Daly is Emeritus Professor of History at University College Dublin (UCD) and served for seven years as Principal of UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies; she was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1991 and, in 2014, made history by becoming the first female president in the 230-year history of the Academy. She has held visiting positions at Harvard and Boston College. From 2000 to 2004, she was Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy and vice-chair of the Academy’s Working Group on Higher Education.
Over the course of her distinguished career, Professor Daly has researched widely and published prolifically, notably: Dublin, the Deposed Capital: A Social and Economic History, 1860-1914 (1984); Women and Work in Ireland (1997); The Slow Failure: Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920-1973 (2006); and, with Theo Hoppen, Gladstone: Ireland and Beyond (2011).
About the Venue: The Parade Tower is fully wheelchair accessible with a ramp at the entrance and a lift to the upper floors. If anyone has any further access needs for this event, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
2. Form, Function and Footwear: State Ambition and the Industrial Modernism of Kilkenny.
• Speaker: Emma Gilleece, Architectural Historian
• Date and Time: 25 April 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm, followed by a factory tour.
• Location: Padmore & Barnes, ‘The Boot Factory’, Wolfe Tone Street, Kilkenny, R95 C1WP
• Capacity: 60 people
Book HERE
About the Speaker
Emma Gilleece is a building conservationist and architectural historian. She created the series 100 Buildings on RTÉ Culture, which explores early–mid twentieth-century structures in Ireland. The series has also been commissioned by New Island Books to be developed into a book, due to be published in 2027.
About the Venue: Padmore & Barnes is fully wheelchair accessible via the front door. If anyone has any further access needs for this event, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Contact email: fromhidetoheel@gmail.com for more information.
Image: Susan Leahy wearing her mother’s Peggy O’Dwyer (nee O’ Hara) leather finger protector.
Photo credit: Pauline O’Connell
