There’s a shocking moment in the film of Claire Curneen making Touched (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Mx8eeENmw). She takes a hammer to one of her older porcelain figures, creating fragments that she then ties to the branches sitting on top of the new figure. Touched refers to the ancient tradition of wish trees, known as ‘clootie trees’ in the Celtic world. Since pre-Christian times, pilgrims to sacred wells have tied offerings in the branches of a nearby tree in the hope that their prayer will be answered. Claire Curneen has recycled her own work to continue this tradition.