Sample-Studios and Triskel Arts Centre will host a preview of Róisín, a new film by Elinor O’Donovan, on 6 October 2026 from 2-3pm. This preview takes place in advance of O’Donovan’s exhibition of the same name, which opens in Sample-Studios Gallery: The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion on 10 October 2026 as the culmination of the Sample-Studios Spike Island Summer Residency 2026.

Róisín explores the life of Charlotte Grace O’Brien (1845–1909), O’Donovan’s great-great-great-great aunt. A writer, campaigner and plant collector, O’Brien worked on behalf of Irish women emigrating to America in the late nineteenth century, campaigning against the conditions they experienced in Queenstown, now Cobh, aboard emigrant ships and upon their arrival in New York. Taking the form of a ‘desktop documentary’, the film’s narrative is illustrated by browser windows, archival materials, drawings and digital imagery, mirroring O’Donovan’s research into O’Brien’s life. Moving between analogue and digital ‘desks’, Róisín recreates fragments of O’Brien’s story through the materials and connections encountered during research. This process took O’Donovan from Cork to Dublin, Limerick and New York, through archives, libraries, botanical collections and places connected to O’Brien’s life.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A hosted by Elinor O’Donovan.

The Sample-Studios Spike Island Summer Residency is delivered in partnership with Spike Island Cork and Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.