Irish author visits AIC
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SPRINGFIELD--Irish author and award-winning filmmaker Brenda (Ni Shuilleabhain) Sullivan came to Springfield to interview local Irish women for a new documentary. Sullivan attended a reception with some of the women on Tuesday, March 25 in the International Room of Lee Hall.
At a luncheon in Adams Hall, Brenda presented a signed copy of her book to AIC President Vince Maniaci.
Sullivan won The Audience Award at the Kerry Film Festival, for a series of programs she made called "Na Bibeanna" (The "bibs" were the aprons which these women wore every day), which was shown on TG4, a National TV Channel. The programs and accompanying book recorded memories and recollections from the lives of a generation of women ranging from 60 - 90 years of age.
After the success of this series she was commissioned to do a similar program about women from the West Kerry Gaeltacht area who went out to the U.S. and spent their lives there.
"I would like to meet as many of the women as possible in two days. I find that when I talk to them, they understand that their experience is important and valuable, and that they are willing to participate. This work, at this time, is creating an invaluable resource for both our countries," Sullivan said.
"These women have lived through such a period of change, and have managed it so well that they are unique in history, and symbolic of women the world over. The last century is going to be closely studied. It was a period which was well recorded," she said.
In her book, "Na Bibeanna," 20 women from the Dingle gaeltacht look back on their lives and the changes they have witnessed from childhood to the present day. The accounts they give are intimate, recalling their personal lives, but their memories and experiences extend beyond the personal. Collectively, they provide a commentary on the changing face of Ireland. These women, who are familiar with the hedge schools and the famine from the first hand accounts of their grandparents, now connect with their grandchildren on their mobile phones. In their youth, healing relied on the use of herbs and such traditional healers as the bonesetter; today they have medical centers and home help. They have seen the arrival of radio, television, flush toilets and the page-three pin-up; new-found affluence and political, clerical and local scandal.
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