Diana Baker Smith
152 Tonnes of Irish Soil
2026
Vinyl wall text 325 × 25cm

152 Tonnes of Irish Soil is part of a body of works drawing on the story of Irish convict Henry Browne Hayes, who in the early nineteenth century reportedly shipped more than one hundred tonnes of Irish peat, bog and soil to Sydney and laid it in a trench around his house at Vaucluse. Believing Irish soil would repel snakes, Hayes attempted to protect the property by surrounding it with earth from Ireland.

The work takes the reported quantity of soil as its scale, rendering the movement of this material between Ireland and Australia as text.

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152 Tonnes of Irish Soil was developed through the Vaucluse House Creative and Cultural Residency Program with Museums of History NSW.

Diana Baker Smith, 152 Tonnes of Irish Soil, 2026. Installation view, Sydenham International. Photo: Katherine Lu.