Doireann Ní Ghríofa

speaker

408 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 24 May

Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.

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Brendan O'Connor · “I was so moved by the experience of hopelessness I shared with these women” · 24 May 2026 podcast

I just felt such compassion for them.

And I should say that the process of coming to know the individual women who were

who were being held in this institution was with thanks to Cork City and County Archives, who facilitated me coming there over years and years to read the case books that have survived this institution.

So this, unfortunately, isn't something that's available in the aftermath of every one of these hospitals around the country.

But in Cork,

This amazing squad of four psychiatric nurses that were known as Our Lady's Historical Society went into the basement as this institution was closing and saved every one of the case books of all the patients who had been there since the 1800s.

I did in some ways.

And, you know, that's something that I draw the reader to question on the page.

I think it's really important to acknowledge that is that when we, as people living in contemporary Ireland, research this difficult history, when we go to primary sources like those surviving case books and we read about the people there,

Well, the doctors at the time were writing these notes, I think, I suspect, mostly towards each other, kind of so that there would be building up this sense, in a very similar way to how doctors write notes now, a sense of this patient as time was passing and how their treatment was going.

No one foresaw that a very nosy woman would arrive there a century later and want to find out about these people who had been once held there.

And I really...

I did grapple with it.

I really did.

And I still do.

And I think that that's important, particularly when we're making our way towards a felt history, which is very much what I attempt to do.

I feel my way into this history and I wish that I was able to be able to ask each of these women, can I read these pages about your life?

Is that OK with you?

Can I can I think about it?

Can I dream about you?

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