Orla Keogh

Student

I have my nose and eyebrow pierced, four earrings in the left ear, and two in the right. I have a full sleeve of tattoos on my right arm, and ‘ bona fide’ tattooed across my knuckles. It’s Latin for ‘good faith’ but also can mean authentic, sincere, true; so everything I touch, I bring positive, truthful vibes to.

Eventually, I will be completely covered in tattoos — I always knew I wanted that — and it’s important to me that on my hands I have something meaningful. Some of the tattoos are just images, of no particular significance, but they all mean something to me because they’re mine. And even though the images might not have significance, the actual moment of getting them done does.

A session is not something you forget. It’s very memorable because of the pain, and so I can remember all the different stages of my life, the things I was thinking and living at the time, through the memory of those moments.

No parent is going to want their kid to do what I’ve done, and at first, my mom was definitely like, ‘ Why?’ Now she understands it wasn’t a stupid, childish, whimsical thing for me — that I really do love them and I know what I was doing — so she understands a bit better. Anyway, you have to love your kids for who they are, and you have to let them find out who they are for themselves.

I would never get my face done, though. I just feel anywhere else is cool, but the face is the one part of you everybody sees all day long. I can still put a jumper on, or wear rings, and no one will notice the tattoos. And its nice not to be a walking tattoo sometimes; to blend in a bit more. I’m sure some guys think I’m not the type of person they want to bring home to their mom, but that’s just a stereotype.