Luke Casserly grew up beside a bog in Co. Longford, and that formative experience – together with the end of the peat harvesting industry in Ireland – inspired this highly original performance that takes audiences on a journey into the Irish bog landscape.
Performance Times: Tuesday at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm, and Wednesday at 2pm and 5pm. Very Limited Availability.
Suitable ages 12+. Please note there will be moments of gentle participation throughout, including an invitation to hold and smell organic materials.
Luke Casserly collaborated with renowned perfume maker Joan Woods to create a unique distillation of the Midlands bog as the starting point for an olfactory encounter which looks at our human relationship to place. Dedicated to the future of our broken landscapes – in the hope that by listening to them, we might be able to better understand them. Distillation premiered as part of Dublin Theatre Festival in 2023, and has since toured extensively both in Ireland and internationally.
★★★★ “This ode to our landscape will give you a new perspective on Ireland’s bogs. All of the senses are engaged: not just sight and hearing but also touch, smell and even taste” – The Irish Times
★★★★ “An imaginative attempt to anthropomorphise an environment, and to tell a story through smell: an olfactory essay.” – The Stage
Luke Casserly is a multidisciplinary artist from Longford, Ireland. His work weaves together ecological research, autobiography, sound art, and place as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscapes. His projects have brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, beaches, and a bog in the Irish Midlands which have led to the creation of a network of wildflower meadows across Ireland (1000 Miniature Meadows, 2020-23), the planting of 1000 indigenous trees (Root, 2021), and the development of an organic perfume made using botanicals from the Irish bog (Distillation, 2023). In 2024, he was appointed as a Biodiversity Artist in Residence with Dublin City Council. He holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies (Trinity College Dublin) and a Diploma in Art and Ecology (NCAD).
Distillation premiered as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2023. A co-production by Abbey Theatre and Solas Nua, commissioned by Solas Nua. Supported by Goethe-Institut Irland, IMMA, Druid FUEL, AXIS Ballymun, and Backstage Theatre. Developed through the support of an Arts Council Theatre Project Award.
Presented as part of the Earagail Arts Festival 2026.
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