Beyond The Water

Sister Ghost is the project of Irish artist Shannon Delores O'Neill. On Halloween 2024, she released her debut album, Beyond The Water. The album is an amalgam of sorts—a portrait of her 20s as a queer woman from a tiny village in rural Ireland, and her experiences both near and far beyond the waters of home. The artwork was designed to reflect this.

Water is the central theme, with illustrations drawn from the Irish sea, rivers, and flora to the L.A. coast where the album was recorded. The figure on the front transforms Shannon into Sionnan, the goddess of the River Shannon, surrounded by a dreamlike landscape that merges the natural and astrological inspirations behind her music.

Each design element was hand-illustrated and physically soaked in water to create organic, unpredictable textures, encapsulating the album’s theme and raw, unfiltered sound. To reinforce this, hidden messages in Ogham feature throughout, including on the A and B sides of the 12-inch vinyl disc.

The result is a cohesive visual world that blends Irish mythology, nature, astrology, tarot, and Sister Ghost’s gothic energy, creating an untamed yet refined narrative for the music.