The Vast Silence

FULL PROGRAMME

09.00 EDT
Introduction by chairperson Jane Haberlin
“I am English, as my Da often reminded me, ‘by accident of birth’. My Irishness is neither visible in my voice or my name. I understand the feelings of guilt and shame felt by those leaving Ireland and the envy towards those who do not to be a co-created relational dynamic encapsulated in the stinging gibe of being called a ‘Plastic Paddy’ – a term which expresses the contempt for the cultural appropriation of Irish identity by the non-native Irish. I am interested in the complex mythologizing of the Irish Diaspora, often represented in the vein of loss, tragedy, secrecy and the romance of heritage. For a culture so accomplished at the written, sung and spoken word, it is fascinating that so much about the emigrant experience has been unspeakable, a vast silence of untold stories, not only of trauma and shame but also accomplishment and flowering.” – Jane Haberlin

09.15
Dr Oonagh Walsh
Ancestral Voices: Trauma and adaptation across generations in Ireland
The course of Irish history has been both turbulent and rich. Its citizens have been shaped by catastrophic events such as the Great Famine (1845-51), as well as a complex culture that has evolved as a means of navigating an often challenging, if not explicitly hostile, world. This paper examines the role of the Famine in precipitating significant modifications in the Irish population that are both biological and cultural (expressed through epigenetic change, an increased religious and social conformity, large-scale migration, and fundamental shifts in marriage patterns), and situates the Irish case in a broader global context of heritable adaptation.

09.45
Q&A

10.00
Dr Michael O’Loughlin
The Consequences of Familial and Cultural Occlusions Across Generations: The case of Ireland’s Great Hunger
Access to historicity and ancestral lore appears vital to cultural formation. If that access has been barred, and if cultural traumas are rendered unspeakable, the risk is high that emotional occlusions will pass down the generations. This presentation will focus on both familial and cultural occlusions of the kind that result from colonial oppression, unmetabolized trauma, and hidden stories. He will draw on his own autobiography, on Irish history – particularly on The Great Hunger – and on developments in psychoanalytic postcolonial theory to explicate the melancholy that can result from such events. In conclusion, he will explore possible clinical solutions.

10.30
Q&A

10.45
Break

11.15
Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Drawing Their Lines on my Insides
How do we learn to live alongside the ghosts of our collective past? How do we honour the suffering of the land we came from in a way that still leaves room for hope? How do we take the first steps away from trauma towards a path of proper healing?

Kerri ní Dochartaigh in conversation about her book Thin Places and the ways we might make peace with the past, root ourselves safely in the present and plant seeds of hope for the future.

11.45
Q&A

12.00
Break

12.20
Siobhán McGee
Aligning the Cauldrons
Trauma and in particular oppression, works to disconnect a people from their power and wholeness. Going underground often becomes the only possibility for survival or potent resistance. The land, like any Body, has stories to tell. Reconnection can emerge through a practice of deep listening, opening portals of relationship and descent to these subterranean passageways. In this session, Siobhán invites us to explore the possibilities for healing that can emerge from reweaving the threads, rekindling the fires and stirring the cauldrons of an ancient wisdom lineage that sits beneath the land, poetry, and ancient myths of Ireland.

12.50
Q&A

13.05
Panel Discussion

14.00
End