Go Leor

17/06/2026

It was amazing to chat to Dylan from Hearthfire Tales, joining from the professional studio they use to record podcasts, campaigns and so much of the work that has grown around Hearthfire Tales.

What stayed with me most was how genuinely inspiring it was to hear him speak about the emotional connection behind the entertainment they create. With Hearthfire, it is much more than entertainment. It is belonging, purpose, friendship, performance, and the weight of decisions shared between people building a world together.

From Dungeons & Dragons and LARP to live shows, podcasts, collaborations and audience-led storytelling, Hearthfire opens fantasy into something social, visible and shared. Dylan spoke so thoughtfully about roleplaying as a space where people can find confidence, try on different versions of themselves, and feel part of something bigger than the game itself.

Make sure to subscribe to their Patreon and keep up with Ryan, Jim and Dylan through Hearthfire’s social media. I’m really looking forward to seeing the content, collaborations and future adventures they have ahead, as well as catching up with everything they have already built through their website.

Read the full article here:

Around the table and out in the field, Hearthfire opens fantasy into something deeply human, helping people find confidence, community and a place to belong.

13/06/2026

It was a real pleasure to feature Francois Got Buffed in Issue 10 of Go Leor.

His work brings such a bold, colourful energy to the magazine, but what I really appreciated in our conversation was how much thought sits behind that brightness.

FGB spoke generously about street art, skate graphics, cartoons, graffiti, found paintings, colour, process, and the way public artwork has to respond to the place it lives in. His murals don’t just sit on top of a wall. They notice the wall, the light, the street, the awkward details, and the people moving past them.

What stayed with me was how knowledgeable he was about how artists use colour - not just as decoration, but through materials, limitations, available palettes and the demands of scale, place and public space.

We also spoke about the work behind the finished image: the planning, drawing, prep, problem-solving and physical labour that goes into making something feel immediate. In a time when images can appear instantly online, there is something important about showing the process and the hand behind the work.

I’m very grateful to FGB for taking the time to chat so openly about his influences, his practice, and why he does what he does so well.

Read the full feature in Issue 10 of Go Leor:

Street art becomes a way of reading the city differently, where bold colour, sharp humour and careful placement turn ordinary walls into public acts of attention.

08/06/2026

When I spoke to Iseult McCormack for Issue 10 of Go Leor, I was struck by how much the conversation moved - between colour, confidence, meaning, accessibility, teaching and the realities of making art.

Iseult spoke so thoughtfully about finding her own visual voice, learning to trust her mark-making, and building confidence through her incredibly vibrant use of colour, texture and space. But what stayed with me just as much was how generously she spoke about supporting other people in their own creativity.

Through her abstract painting and mixed media classes, she helps people loosen up, experiment, and find forms that feel like their own. That feels deeply connected to the energy of her own work - bold, layered, instinctive, and full of movement.

With a new exhibition coming in September, I’m really looking forward to seeing how that confidence continues to make itself visible in new ways, especially through the scale, space and colour her work deserves.

I’m also personally manifesting a future lotto win for her, because Iseult’s work deserves all the room and materials it needs to keep growing.

Very grateful to Iseult for taking the time to chat, and for speaking with such insight about where her work has been, what it has taught her, and what comes next.

Read the full feature in Issue 10 of Go Leor:

https://go-leor.co.uk/iseult-mccormack-on-colour-mark-making-and-authentic-connection/

Iseult McCormack Creations

Colour, texture and bold mark-making become a way of trusting the unknown, giving shape to instinct while carrying connection outward through each new layer.

06/06/2026

In Issue 10 of Go Leor, we are very proud to feature an essay by Charlie, a sixteen-year-old student writing about the environmental, social and personal harms of generative AI.

Charlie’s piece looks at the hidden costs behind AI tools: data centres, water use, energy demand, misinformation, online harm and the effect these technologies can have on young people and vulnerable users.

What makes the essay so powerful is the way Charlie brings together research, news coverage and personal experience. He writes with real clarity about his own experience of becoming dependent on an AI chatbot app, while also asking wider questions about what generative AI is doing to communities, creativity, education, journalism and the environment.

It is a real pleasure to welcome Charlie as Go Leor’s first featured young writer, and I’m very grateful to both Charlie and his mother for sharing this piece with the magazine.

Read Charlie’s full article here:

Submitted to Go Leor by his mother, this essay by sixteen-year-old student Charlie considers the environmental, social and personal harms of generative AI.

03/06/2026

Issue 10 of Go Leor is here.

This issue looks at Irish creativity in the age of AI, bringing together artists, makers, writers and storytellers whose work is rooted in process, labour, community and lived experience.

Inside, there are conversations around abstraction, fantasy, fashion, folklore, street art, printmaking, illustration, environmental harm, creative confidence and the value of making something by hand.

I’m also very proud to feature a guest essay from Charlie, a 16-year-old student whose piece was submitted by his mother, looking at the human and environmental cost of generative AI.

A huge thank you to everyone involved.

Featuring:

Iseult McCormack Creations

Francoisgotbuffed

Elisabeth Neveux Illustration

Hearthfire Tales

Beaded by Ciara

Chiara Mattozzi

Barry Keegan

Read Issue 10 now at go-leor.co.uk

11/05/2026

Shirani Bolle Art’s work is artistry in its purest form.

Speaking with Shirani, I was struck not only by the force of her work, but by the generosity behind it. She is a genuine force of nature - bold, curious, open, and completely herself - but she is also constantly uplifting the people around her.

Our conversation moved through colour, family, fear, anxiety, childhood, inherited stories, textiles, monsters, masks, and the strange ways we learn to understand one another. At one point, Shirani even managed to get a few childhood stories out of me, and in doing so helped me reframe how I thought about fear and anxiety within a family setting.

That is the power of her work. It does not sit politely on the wall. It asks questions. It unsettles. It reveals. It gives shape to the things we try to cover up with niceties.

As Shirani says in the article:

“Everyone thinks they’re right. No one thinks they’re the monster.”

And elsewhere:

“They’re revealing the reality of who we are… the parts we try to cover up with niceties.”

I’m incredibly thankful to Shirani for her time, openness, and the access given to her exhibition. I’m also grateful to Miguel Amado, whose curatorial work helped contextualise so much of the exhibition at Sirius Arts Centre and allowed the full force of Shirani’s world to come through in the article.

Read the full feature in Issue 9 of Go Leor.

https://go-leor.co.uk/shirani-bolle-monsters-survival-the-power-of-colour/

11/05/2026