Ireland
- Artist: Josef Koudelka
- Date: 1972
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: image: 349 × 538 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Ireland” photograph by Josef Koudelka, taken in 1972. It captures three men kneeling on the summit of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, a mountain that’s hosted Christian pilgrimages for over a millennium and a half. Below them, the calm of Clew Bay stretches out, giving the image a quiet, almost reverent feel.
Koudelka, a Czech-born photographer who fled to Britain for asylum in 1970, spent the 1970s chasing folk festivals across Europe. He followed these events year after year, printing the resulting images in winter London. “Ireland” is part of his “Exiles” series, a body of work that examines the margins—both geographical and social—of the continent.
Notice the stark, high‑contrast black and white, the grain that adds texture, and how each pilgrim’s pose seems to isolate them from the landscape. Koudelka’s eye for raw, exposed moments turns ordinary scenes into intimate commentaries on exile, wandering, and the human need to find a place even in a foreign land.
See it in person
Ireland is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
