Ireland has a wonderful history of courageous heroines, women who really stood up for what they believed in. Ireland was also had the last matriarchal society in Europe, even when the people converted to Catholicism, they held onto the divine feminine. When you travel in Ireland, it is shrines to Mary that you will find, throughout the countryside. Shrines to the Mother.
Ireland is so lush and green, the abundance of water, bringing so much life to the Island. Keeping her really fertile. It's no wonder, that we feel so connected to the mother. Eire, the gaelic word for Ireland, is believed to have come from the word Eriu, which is the name of an Ancient Goddess.
I certainly grew up feeling very connected to the land I still do. I always struggled with idea of worshiping within a church. When surely, it is the greatest creation of all that should be worshiped, Nature.
Ireland also has a history of persecution and oppression of the feminine, of the female. When religion came to Ireland, women began to be treated very differently. Even though, the worship of Mary continued, Irish women, like many in the world, were devalued and abused. There is a dark history of women and baby homes in Ireland, where young pregnant women, were send to work and have their babies. Which where then taken from them and mostly sold abroad by the church. Those young women were often the victims of abuse.
Not many spoke of those days, none that I heard, except for one woman, who got alienated and attacked when she did. A woman, who was the voice for the silenced, for the oppressed, who used her own voice, in such a beautiful way, to spread awareness. A voice that held so much powerful, held so much pain and so much passion.
Sinead O' Connor.
When Sinead sang, she sang for everyone. When she sang Irish songs, songs which often spoke of loss and suffering, of our troubled past, it's like she helped to release some of it, that was the power of her voice.
When I read the following question, put forward by the Ladies Of Hive Community, a few women came to my mind.
With which woman in the history of your country do you identify, and why?
At first, Granuaile, The Pirate Queen came to mind. And I was all set to write about her. But then as I sat to write, it was Sinead that came to me. The Irish Warrior, that lived true to who she was, even if that changed a lot over time, as she explored many different ways of living, especially through her faith.
She was someone who seemed the truth, who went to great lengths to find it, to live it and to share it. She came from a troubled home and that experience, fueled her. I can identify with that. With her Warrior Spirit and her strong connection to the Isle of Eire. It's still hard to believe she is no longer here. But her spirit is as strong as ever.