Kristen Sinclair

The dark upstairs room of an old sports bar in Belfast is an unassuming venue for a revolution. Against a backdrop of silver streamers and placards from the pro-choice rally that has just taken place, a small crowd gathers as Sister Ghost blast out a rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Love Buzz’. Vocalist Shannon Delores O’Neill sings in impassioned yelps, continually falling to her knees, eyes closed, and dropping the microphone at the end of the song. Nirvana played the track at the first ever Rock for Choice benefit in Hollywood, California, in 1991. Sister Ghost are performing it at a fundraiser for the same cause. One of many placards in the Ulster Sports Club Amid the threat posed by Brexit, civil rights struggles and a paramilitary resurgence, the political situation in Northern Ireland remains fragile. The country is gasping in a political vacuum without a functioning government since 2017, after disagreements between the two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and ...

'The North is Next' as it appears in print (Source: my own) “The North is Next” read the sign held aloft by Sinn F é in’s Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou McDonald as the landslide victory of Ireland’s Repeal the 8 th referendum was announced at Dublin Castle earlier this year. Though for some, there was the underlying feeling that not all Irish women had reason to celebrate. Whilst the Republic’s constitutional ban on abortion would now be lifted, the six north-eastern counties of Ulster remain faced with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. In the last few years, the Republic has been a leading light across the world for becoming the first country to legalise same sex-marriage by popular vote and also electing an openly gay Taoiseach. A once devoutly Catholic state has become a liberal and progressive society, dwarfing its conservative and backward northern counterpart. The four small words that make up that alliterative slogan – “The North is Next...

This article originally appeared in The Tab here . Source: All photos my own. Yesterday saw close to a thousand people take to the streets of Belfast to march in the city’s second ever Rally for Choice, in support of abortion reform across Ireland. Taking place two weeks after the sixth annual March for Choice in Dublin, the City Centre was awash in a sea of purple as people of all ages, genders and sexualities united to call for an end to the outdated and discriminatory abortion laws which harm pregnant people in the North and beyond. Assembling at Buoy Park, the procession made its way through the City Centre past the City Hall, before finishing in the Cathedral Quarter with a series of guest speakers. Marching to a slightly different drum beat than Belfast residents are used to, hundreds lined the streets in solidarity with the protesters who led chants of “Get your rosaries off my ovaries”, “Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide” and “Hey mister, get your laws...

In Celtic mythology, the spirit of Ireland is commonly portrayed as a woman. Bygone nationalist symbols such as Róisín Dubh, Kathleen Ní Houlihan and the old woman of ‘Mise Éire’ personify the romantic view of the island embodied in the feminine ideal of Mother. Bríd, a Gaelic pagan goddess associated with fertility, later Christianised as St. Brigid of Kildare, is now one of Ireland’s patron saints. As a hallmark of Irish society, this concept of Mother Ireland, a gendered land to be fought for and possessed, requires male intervention to vindicate her sovereign rights. She is something of a supernatural being and incarnation of Ireland’s womanhood, a sacrificial heroine of the family. The ideal of Mother or virgin, further fuelled by the dominance of the church over the centuries, subdued women into becoming patriarchal stereotypes. Centuries ago, Irish women who, among other allegations of heresy, did not fulfil this archetypal ideal, were often accused of witchcraft. Last recor...