Lisa Hannigan will sail up the River Lee onboard the LE James Joyce next month to celebrate the Irish Naval service's contribution to alleviating the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.

Heartship, a new art project by artist Dorothy Cross and the singer and will be showcased at the Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival on Saturday, September 14.

Heartship involves a ship that will harbour the relic of a human heart, while a lone woman is visible wandering around the deck.

The L.É. James Joyce ship will sail up the River Lee from Haulbowline Island. Lisa Hannigan will be on the ship and her recorded music will play out loud.

Lisa's songs are about the heart and will be accompanied by the glass armonica, played by Alasdair Malloy. The music of a glass armonica is formed by fingers running water over glass.

The ship will dock in the city centre, in the dockland area and the audience will be able to hear a live performance by Lisa from the ship. Admission is free.

Filmmaker Alan Gilsenan will also work with Dorothy Cross to create a film that embodies Heartship, which will be screened at The Crawford Gallery upon completion.

For Heartship, the Navy vessel will contain the relic of a human heart that was discovered in a crypt in Cork in 1863. 

The heart then was acquired by General Pitt Rivers, the ethnologist and archaeologist, who was stationed in Cork. It later became part of the collection of artefacts housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. The heart will be on display in The Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, until September 23.

"Heartship has been haunting me for the past three years… wishing to honour the many hearts of migrant people who disappear below the ocean surface and lie unnamed on the sea-bed. A human heart will be harboured within the ship - a sacred cargo of an unknown person found in Cork in 1863," said Dorothy Cross.