Kerri ni Dochartaigh on healing the trauma of the Troubles
The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Kerri ni Dochartaigh on healing the trauma of the Troubles
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Kerri ni Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places, talks about the aftermath of growing up in Derry at the height of the Troubles, as the daughter of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Forced to come to terms with trauma and survivorship guilt, Kerri found healing in the dark magic of the Irish landscape and Celtic mythology.
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Please note the transcript is automatically generated and may not be completely accurate.
Katherine May 00:06
Hello, I'm Katherine May and welcome to the wintering sessions, the podcast that sets out to learn from the times when life is frozen. This week I'm talking to Kerri ni Dochartaigh, the writer and critic whose new memoir Thin Places connects the painful history and the subtle magic of the Irish landscape. Terry grew up in Derry in the 1980s, at the height of The Troubles living on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, raised by a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, and dwelling between the brutalities of modern day poverty, and the dark mythologies of the Celtic fringe. She's a native of liminal spaces, including that of trauma. In this episode, we talk about the moment when she realized she had to learn to flourish, rather than to merely survive.
Katherine May 01:02
Hi, Kerri, It's so lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you for agreeing to join me.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 01:06
Oh, thank you for having me, Katherine. It's really lovely to be on. Thank you.
Katherine May 01:10
So I, I got to read your book a couple of months ago, now very lucky to have had an early copy. And as soon as I started reading it, I knew I had to talk to you on the podcast, because it really is about so many different winters that you experience growing up and as an adult, and it's just completely beautiful. And I hope everyone will buy it and read it for themselves. Well, first of all, I think it's really interesting, because before we started the recording, the first thing I did was ask how to pronounce your name properly. Because you switched your name. And this is like a key to a lot of your story isn't it? You made the decision to switch your name into Irish spelling and pronunciation a little while back.
01:53
Yeah, I did a number of years ago. And it was an interesting choice, I think, because I didn't learn to speak Irish at all. And because of the school I went to, but I just had become increasingly drawn and increasingly aware of the fact that my identity was somehow linked with the loss of the ability to speak the language. So yeah, I did quite a bit of research into my own family background. And in the story I talked about, as you know that no one on either side of my family line learn to speak Irish, so it really was quite a big deal to do it. So yeah, it's Kerri ni Dochartaigh.
Katherine May 02:30
And the "ni" means?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 02:33
The "ni" means daughter of. So it just means that I am from the Daugherty family, and that I'm unmarried. And if I was a boy, I would be Oh, my be all Doherty
Katherine May 02:44
Amazing
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 02:45
it felt like a very small thing that I could do that might help me it's almost like a key that might take me in a little bit deeper and allow me to move a bit more into the parts of my like history and identity and culture that I felt had been kept away from me because of the history of my homeland.
Katherine May 03:07
So let's dig slightly into that via your own history. So you grew up in Derry in the 80s. Yeah. And I mean, I grew up in the 80s in England, and our news was full of your news at the time of The Troubles and all the terrible things that your community went through during that time. But we're going to talk today about you returning to Derry in around 2018 to go back there and you stopped drinking at that point, too. I wonder if you could sort of tell me how that came about?
03:41
Yeah, so I actually moved back a little bit before I stopped drinking, so I actually moved back and the year of the Brexit vote, I moved back in April before the Brexit vote. So I obviously didn't know at all, when I moved home, what would be entailed, really, and that? Yeah, I had been living away for new first kind of like most of my adult life, but it felt I kind of reached a real a really dark period. And I knew that a lot of the healing that I needed to do because of the trauma that I experienced in my life was I somehow knew that it was held in the land where I came from, specifically in the city that I'd experienced most of it. So I moved town, and then obviously, the Brexit vote came. And it just, I suppose in a way, it really defined the rest of the time in which I live in the city that I came from, for the first time as an adult. it's been quite a wild ride.
Katherine May 04:42
You know, it's had an extraordinary effect really, hasn't it?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 04:45
Yeah. So it definitely has. Yeah,
Katherine May 04:48
I picked out a quote from your book that I wanted to read out actually, that I think sums up a little bit about how you felt about returning to Derry because early on when I was reading I wrote in the margin, why does she go back to Derry? And I think we might uncover that later. But I just wanted to read this quote to kind of frame the way you see it. There are places that are both hollowed and hallowed. All in one. What is that noise in my room? Hang on a sec. Oh my god, I think my next door neighbor is sweeping her chimney. Oh, for the love of God.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 05:28
That's a that's a thin place thing right there. You know
Katherine May 05:32
That is, it's the thin wall.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 05:34
And it's something that is hollowed and hollowed in the Irish intestine. It's actually really quite, it feels quite special. You know, the hearth, in Irish tradition and folklore and culture is literally the kind of the thinnest place in the home. It is the place that holds all of you gave all of your sorrow to the fire. You gave all of your wishes and desires and your promises to yourself. Quite intriguing.
Katherine May 06:04
That's amazing. It wouldn't surprise me at all, because my next door neighbor is just this wonderful kind of slightly witchy woman who if anyone was gonna pick up on this would be right in there. so noisy? Can you hear it from where you are?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 06:18
I can hear it. But it's not annoying. Really. I think she stopped she stopped. Right, I'm going to try read that quote again, hang on.
Katherine May 06:28
There are places that are both hollowed and hallowed. All in one. They have wounded us, but we must return to them. If we want to try and lose their tight hold on us. The places watch as we lose our way, as we are sent away as we run away. They wait in stillness for us to find our way back. And that's about your relationship with Derry the fact that you had to come back to this place that was such a sight of trauma for you.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 06:55
Yeah, it was really beautiful to read. Actually, Katherine really lovelly. It was, I suppose a real cost moment and my story were. So in the book, I discuss how that I use particular places in the landscape as a form of healing. And I had been going to places when I lived in Scotland, when I lived in England, I'd also been going to Wales, places have always had that hold over me. But then I think I realized, one I was at a real breaking point actually, in my life, I realized that the place that I thought I'd buried away, actually was the place that held the answer, really.
Katherine May 07:36
So you move back to Derry with your partner.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 07:40
Yeah, my partner lived in Derry and I. And we'd only been together for a handful of a very small amount of time long distance when I lived in Bristol. And it was quite a big decision, I suppose for him as well to allow, this person who was in probably the lowest part of their life, kind of moved wise and state wise to move in with them. And I suppose to be the safe place that I would that I would go to especially because I think at that point, when we've been together any discussion that we've had in the very, very early months was a more of a long term thing, you know, that eventually, I had hoped that my partner would move to Bristol and live with me there. But not entirely sure if something about the process of falling in love with someone having someone kind of care for me, maybe brought or liked a lot quicker. Maybe I wanted to heal or I knew I needed to heal in a much, much more obvious way because it was no longer just me that was experiencing. I suppose the negative side of what I wanted lived through there was suddenly someone else I suddenly felt as though there might not have been that but in hindsight, it feels like potentially, that my partner could have been a very big part of me understanding, that my home like long time is part of the answer.
Katherine May 09:05
Well, it becomes I think, for you like a kind of catalyst for delving into your past, but also beginning to understand your response to it, you know, beginning to see it as trauma, rather than, I don't know, just various things to escape from, and realizing that you're drinking to dull that trauma.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 09:26
Totally. And I do feel like I think it's a fairly commonly accepted thing that people do run away from places as well as from people and as well as from situations and sometimes it's quite difficult to untie the threads so we tie them all up together. So I talk about this a bit in my book, where different places where I've experienced, as you said trauma in different places, and suddenly the place itself becomes really mired by the experience. Yeah, you know, which is an utterly devastating thing actually, because what it can mean for people who've experienced abuse or trauma or violence or, or anything really in places that they really love, you know, people can end up never going back to their hometown. I know some people who have never once returned home, you know, to different places, not just in the north of Ireland, but you know, people who come from places where they've experienced worse things than I have.
Katherine May 10:27
It's hard to imagine what those things would be they Kerri because your childhood was full of horrific events that from the outside seem impossible to survive. But you show so much resilience? Can you describe the Derry of your childhood, the kind of atmosphere that was in place there at the time?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 10:47
Yeah, I think it's, it's always very interesting to discuss Derry with anybody who, who is not from there. I suppose. There's always something held in between the description and the reality. I think that increasingly, that's something that's being acknowledged in various discussions around trauma. So when people are from the same place, I know, people who are also from Derry, who also grew up in and around the same time, but didn't experience those things. Again, that's something I write about in the book, you know, I went to a fairly, it was quite posh at the time, the school that I went to, and it's not anymore, but it was at the time. And a lot of the people that were in my class wouldn't have had a clue about, what was happening on housing estates or or anything like that. So I think it's really important to note that there are lots of Derrys. Yeah, there are lots of Derrys in the 80s. And hindsight like looking back, I'm always really intrigued. I think it was Robert McFarlane talks about childhood as being another place almost in itself. It's like, the equivalent of a fenland and or, you know, where we look back at it, then, of course, you're looking back as who you are now, I suppose writing helps us to try and place ourselves back to where we were, how we felt, but it is very difficult, because with trauma, trauma distorts reality, and can make you forget things and can make you hide things away, or it can make some things feel like they were a bigger deal than others. So I suppose when I think of Derry now, only recently, it's been only really since probably since I moved to this cottage that I live in now, where I've been able to fully get an overview of weirdly, the Derry of my childhood, rather than the Derry that I just left. Well, I think if I had to describe it, I would describe it as feeling totally normal. In the way that always feels for anyone I've ever I've worked for years with children who are experiencing trauma, who experience in everyday it's part of the fabric of their life. I've taught kids where their everyday life has just been when I look at it, I think, oh, my goodness, that's horrific. It's harrowing, but it's fully normal for them. And I guess, obviously, you know, children who live in serious war torn areas, now children who are in refugee camps, I can only try to imagine that when they look back at their childhood, they'll still have the memories of.. depends, some people hide trauma away or, some people forget, as well, I think, I think in general, when I think back on my childhood, there are things that glisten, you know, there was a lot of muck and mire and a lot of a lot of deep trauma. But you know, I tried in the book, I tried in Thin Places to sort of get across the idea that even in the midst of real heartache and sorrow and loss and fear and struggle, there can be these glistening moments, of beauty and of resilience building and nurturing and of hope, really, I think,
Katherine May 14:05
Yeah, and it's it's an incredibly redemptive book that really comes across, you know, the, the way that it's possible for us to heal despite the traumas that happened to us or perhaps even because of them, perhaps that healing that healed self is very particular to the self that's been through trauma,
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 14:24
I think so. I think increasingly there is going to have to be more dialogue around what you've just beautifully said the healing the self because I think that we have a lot of us have been brought up with this idea that there is a centered us that's that's just completely who we are and that anything we've been through that we will always carry it with us or that you know, that things will always remain how they are and I completely reject that as a concept. I believe that we always make a choice and for a long time I chose to try and drown night things that I've been through by alcohol by extreme self hatred by, by then also been quite abusive to someone very close to me, and then eventually really properly broke down. And I suppose I had the choice to do one or other things I could just keep in that cycle that was that felt unbreakable. Or I could step out and I, I think with lots of intergenerational trauma, which I believe is an incredibly important thing in the north of Ireland, I think, on the island of Ireland in general, because of what we've been through before the troubles so, you know, looking at famine and looking at sort of colonialism and loss that has seeped into the soil, really, and into the people.
Katherine May 15:47
I was talking to an Irish friend a few weeks ago, funnily enough, and because I went on holiday to Ireland last year, and I said, What amazed me was all these beautiful old houses that were left in ruins. And she said, Well, what you don't understand is the trauma that's associated with those big houses, you know, the abuse that happened quite regularly. As you say, the colonial past. She said, like, these are sites that nobody wants to touch, and they're littered all over my country. And I found that really startling, because I think we in the UK mainland only barely understand it.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 16:22
Yeah, I would agree. And I think that there's been a balancing act in Ireland, that's kind of find a funny tipping point, in recent years, where people that have long been silenced. And stories that have long been, like suffocated, hidden away are beginning to rise to the surface. And the thing is that spaces like land mass houses and places like mother and children, mother and baby homes, and there's been an increasing clamor for, I suppose we need we need to listen, we know that we need to listen more. And I think that's making its way to other other places, the UK and sort of other places are listening to the stories that Ireland is beginning to tell. I think it's ultimately a good thing. I think that with any sort of trauma or persistent, I guess, long term damage that's been done to places and people, there is a definite way of allowing things to come to the surface, and to be safely held allowing the people who share those stories like of abuse, and, you know, really horrific things. There's especially for women, actually, in Ireland, there is an increasing move towards safe holding, which lots of us are really ready for I think.
Katherine May 17:41
Yeah. And actually, one of the other quotes that I wrote down of the many was, grief is more like a moth than a butterfly you wrote. And I think that speaks such a wonderful truth. You know, there's a different kind of beauty there. But there's also that attraction to the dark, and that association with the colder times, but nevertheless, something fragile and extraordinary. That's there amongst all of those people you're talking about
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 18:10
Totally, and something that is its own thing. I mean, when I when that sort of idea came to me of the grace mass thing that you just read, I think that was when I really fully began to realize that there is I'd spent a long time defining myself in a negative way by the loss and the grief I'd experienced and the sorrow. And then I think, eventually, it just sort of dawned on me that there is something that's in me and another people who have had particular experiences in their life that is different from if I hadn't have had those experiences. And it doesn't necessarily have to be different in a good or a bad, right. It's just different in a different way. But when you look at a moth, or you look at a butterfly, for me they're both exquisite, and they're both so beautiful, but there's something about a moth that speaks like grief, does that speaks of fragility, delicacy, and resilience, which is Yeah, they're pretty good things. I think
Katherine May 19:16
They're pretty good adaptable as well. You know, they're the ones that change their colors to suit their environment. fantastic things
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 19:23
Yeah. and like there are particular moths that have been so I live right beside the central bog land of Ireland and very particular moths that have been flying above the bog land that are birthed in the bog that you know, that are born on the bog cotton, and then same variety of moths that have been flying there since people were building stone circles and the hills around here. You know, they're they're literally hardcore.
Katherine May 19:51
They're the true Irish resident.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 19:55
Exactly.
Katherine May 19:57
That's wonderful. We'll be back with more from Carrie in a moment. But first I want to tell you about my online course wintering for writers, which is back online after a successful first run this summer. wintering for writers is designed to be a beautiful reflective process for writers who are currently struggling, as so many of us are in this pandemic year. If you're feeling blocked or losing hope it's packed with videos and thought provoking texts to help you to rethink your practice. And there's an exclusive workbook to support your reflection. Best of all, you can work at your own pace and incomplete privacy as you write yourself back into your creative flow. To find out more, go to katherinemay.com, and click on courses or follow the link in the show notes. And now back to Kerri ni Dochartaigh.
Katherine May 20:53
I just want to outline your story slightly for the listeners. But I don't think it's fair to make you dwell on it necessarily. But just to tell your story a little bit. You grew up as the daughter of a Protestant father and Catholic mother. Is that right way round?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 21:06
That's correct. Yeah.
Katherine May 21:07
And so that meant that as you grew up, you felt like an outsider in loads of different ways. And at the height of the troubles, you know, your father got tangled up in things and found himself carjacked, which must be absolutely terrifying. And after he left your home, that meant that you were vulnerable to attacks from the outside because you no longer you were, you know, you no longer had a Protestant in the house. So you are now a Catholic. And there's a absolutely chilling scene in your book where your house is fire bombed. And you know, you wake up to the to your cat wakes you up to the house full of smoke. And there's a sense of kind of raw survival throughout your childhood. But also there's this sense that you survived and others didn't, you know, there's so much loss around you in so many different terrifying ways. And I think, again, the trauma seems inevitable to me. But when I speak to you, you kind of like oh, well, other people suffered loads to. Is that how it feels in I mean, Northern Ireland, in particular, and Ireland in general, is that the experience of living there of being party to suffering in so many different ways in so many different people that almost it doesn't seem exceptional?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 22:31
Yeah, it is a very, very difficult thing to write about what you've been through, when you're from the north of Ireland. Because no matter what I mean, already, I've had various messages from a variety of different people who've kind of said things along the lines of that should be my story being published, because this happened to my father, and this, that and the other, which is completely understandable. Because the thing is that the human condition is such that I feel from experience that we have an inbuilt victim mentality that's there, because we are actually an empathic creature. Because we are so empathic, it actually creates this almost, I suppose, is it like a measuring up against other people and against ourselves? So there is always that thing of, you're kind of almost constantly being told you've, you're telling yourself but then other people are telling you to? Well, if you'd been born 10 years earlier, it would have been much worse. Or if you had children during that time period, imagine how hard it would have been then or it doesn't just happen when you're from the north that happens. Like I hear mothers doing it to other mothers like I've recently through the pandemic, I've seen things even on Twitter, where it's almost been like a competition
Katherine May 23:54
Competitive suffering.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 23:57
The thing is, it's really, really human. But I think I came from a situation where everyone around me seemed to have an idea that their suffering was more was more like suffering was more valid, or because they'd suffered a lot. It somehow meant that it was to stop me from suffering. I do think, you know, there's this this term, sort of ceasefire babies, so children that were born in and around the ceasefire, the ending of the troubles. They're the ones that technically should, should have suffered the least. But actually, the suicide rate amongst that group of people is exceptionally high. The unemployment is so high, like...
Katherine May 24:39
So interesting, isn't it?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 24:40
My generation and the and the youth that have come after we're still carrying those scars they might not be against as a harrowing backdrop I mean, there might not be constant bombs and sort of constant rivalry amongst the sectarian groups, but the thing Is that sometimes it's a lot harder to map, the trauma that settles in on the like, of people that come in the middle of something or in the, or in the part after.
Katherine May 25:12
And it's, it's more indirect somehow, you know, like, you can't get a handle on it in a way, it's a gift to be able to say, Well, actually, I'm traumatized, because this happened to me, because you can work with that. But..
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 25:22
You hold it in your hand, somehow, if you've got some, I do think for, for me, myself, I have created that difficulty that I've gone through, as well, by accepting constantly when I was told that my suffering wasn't valid, that my feelings weren't valid, that my experience wasn't bad enough. And it ends up that you then you're lying to yourself constantly. And then one day, you just kind of sit down and you realize that it's totally okay to feign ache and deep sorrow a lost childhood Yes I did have a childhood, but it could never be anything other than the childhood that it was, which was one that, you know, my two my parents did what they could within their ability where we live, to keep us safe, and I'll be ever grateful for that. But the thing is, when you've got something raging around you, and two really young people, they were very young. They were just trying to just trying to do their best in a situation that no parent should have to have to, no parent should have to go through that. And I know even in saying this now, I can almost hear people saying in the background of my own mind, well, you know, people lived through the Second World War and had children or people live, or currently, you know, walking across Sudan with, you know, unaccompanied minors, so everybody has some form of idea of suffering that's somehow more valid. And I think in recent times, the pandemic has brought something out in people that I hadn't really seen in as extreme a level as what I'm seeing now, where when someone posts about having a bad day on Instagram...
Katherine May 27:08
You don't know what a bad day is.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 27:10
All these disclaimers underneath like, Okay, I know how lucky I am. PS I know, I should be really grateful. You know, and I sometimes feel like, yes, we need to hold the experience, the greater picture, but it is really quite detrimental to your own person, if you're consistently challenged yourself that you don't have a right to hurt.
Katherine May 27:32
It's so funny. Just before this conversation, my friend texted me and she has been quite unwell lately. And I said, I'm so sorry, you're having such a hard time. And she texted back "well, everyone's suffering at the moment, aren't they?" And I texted her back and said, like, that doesn't diminish the fact that you personally are suffering right now that you know, you can't defer it. You shouldn't feel bad about it. They these are hard times. And everyone is you know, going through their own particular thing and your stuff is irrelevant.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 28:00
Completely. And empathy. I'd like I fully feel like I'm constantly trying to work on my empathy. Because in a weird way, somehow, one can overdo empathy, and then it effect and then you don't give yourself any empathy. Yeah, but then the balance still has to be there. So I, and I'm, I'm okay to admit this, like I occasionally I see people complain, and, and I think you've got such a, you know, your life is so good. You know, get it together. And then I have to, I have to stop myself. And remember that it's totally okay for everyone to feel that at that moment, what they've gone through is really hard. And they'd rather they didn't have to go through it. And I think that we'll see how the months and the years after the pandemic end up going. But I'm intrigued by it. I'm intrigued by that sort of by this benchmark idea. Or kind of who gets to complain?
Katherine May 28:59
Yeah, what are we what are we gonna start saying like, unless you spent a month in hospital, and several family members have died, you've got to pipe down, you know, like, actually, some of the people that are that are really struggling at the moment are the people who've been relatively untouched by it but that they are kind of locked away in absolute fear of it coming, you know, like that. it's not a direct form of suffering in terms of the fact you're not sick. But that fear is absolutely huge for loads of people.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 29:29
And that loss. I mean, it's a collective grief. And I think that there's something about maybe this is a terrible thing for me to say. But I do think that there's something very particular about sort of a shared generic grief that affect but it's almost like it affects us deeper because so many people are suffering then I think like with Northern Ireland as well, that's the same so I have friends who grew up more or less completely untouched, as they would say by the troubles like we had no really direct experience of it. And if they heard about things that happened to me, it was like, it was difficult for them because they only saw out on the news or heard about, you know, whatever, newspaper, but they still, I think they're still carrying something about, in their respective a lot of friends. In my year group, like a lot of us still keep in touch with each other, which a lot of my English friends would find, like really quite strange. And the generations that come like my siblings do keep in touch a lot more with the people that they went to school with. And they have like, lots of meetups. And I do think that if we really unravel that, that there is an element of them, like a trauma that's not really properly unraveled there.
Katherine May 30:45
It's almost a kind of distributed tumor.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 30:47
Totally Yeah, where the trauma that's been experienced by a handful of people in a group all kind of floats up into the sky and then falls down in a much more, like, evenly distributed way. So that is why I had like, really difficult experiences. But I do feel okay. I mean, I didn't for a long time, but I do now, but then there are people who maybe didn't have what they would say is anywhere near have a bad experience, but they still moved away straightaway. And they come back maybe once a year, they have no involvement with the city that they're from. I know a lot of people who would have a real negativity if they weren't talking about Derry at all, they would be like a lot of people are with places where they've come from where there's been negativity or trauma in the past.
Katherine May 31:34
Yeah, it becomes somewhere that you escape from.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 31:37
Yeah, exactly. And it's, there's a lot of that, and people who, who would tell you like if you were talking to them, they'd say that they didn't experience troubles, but they're in my age group. And, you know, the bulk of the people I went to school with live in Australia, America, New Zealand, London. I mean, I know I think in what a year group there might only be maybe 4, maybe 5 people out of the 130 whatever that live in Derry.
Katherine May 32:01
And then we jokingly wonder why there's Irish bars all across the world with it's like that is actually rooted in quite a traumatic history of people needing to get out
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 32:10
Completely. And they're not being opportunities I speak about that a lot in the book is that something that made it really difficult for me, my relationship with the hometown that I love, and equally, have been broken by, I suppose part of the difficulty that I experienced for a number of years was that I watched from afar as Derry just lost more and more and more like more people left as soon as where they work, shutdown, people left, because there were no opportunities. There was no money, even now like with Brexit, obviously, it's increasingly difficult. I mean, during the pandemic, there was a point where Derry had one of the highest incidence rates in the UK. And, you know, I read an article on it. And people were saying What does have to do with the fact that Derry is on the border, but also, it's one of the poorest areas. It's an area where we've got like, high unemployment, high addiction rates, still, I suppose it doesn't, it shouldn't have to take a pandemic for those things to be discussed. But since the Brexit vote, all of the fundings been pulled out for like addiction units in Derry for all the good things. This is something that a lot of us experience here from Derry or who lives there and aren't from there. All of the good things that seems so full of hope. And that you could really begin to see proper deep healing happening for the study, are just lost, they just don't stay and there's something that can lead you to either be really resentful of a place even though it's not the places fault, or it can leave you to just bury your head in the sand and try to forget about the place and we've got both from people who come from Derry in my age group.
Katherine May 33:56
I love the way you say there. Oh, it's not the places fault, like the place is a person. Because I feel like that's how you see place. And maybe actually, maybe that's a good time to ask you about Thin Places and what they are. It's a concept I've been obsessed with for years. It's not part of my culture. It's a it's a Celtic idea specifically, isn't it?
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 34:17
Yeah, but you're really drawn to Cornwall, though aren't you as well, Katherine?
Katherine May 34:19
Yeah. Well, Kent is also a Celtic area is one of the lesser known Celtic areas, but we are we do have Celtic culture here. It's just not as visible as it is another places.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 34:31
I know, but it's still there. And I think there is something that particular people are drawn to it. And whether or not that's a blood, genetic, whatever thing or whether it's just something you know, but yes, so Thin Places. So yes, I do have a very particular view of place. And I'm always I always feel a bit dodgy when I tried to talk about it because I guess in nature and place, right And recently, there's been a lot of bashing of this idea of us viewing ourselves as separate from nature or separate from place or whatever, which I completely agree with, we are a part of the natural world, we are the natural world. And as such, we're fully responsible for it. And it's not just, it's not just there for our well being, it's not just there for like to make us feel better, or whatever. But I think because I am so fully embedded in the idea of the outside world. And it has been the place where I spent most of my time, naturally, I do have the view that some places do hold something. It's not that they owe us anything, or that we're taking anything from them. But it's just that there are certain places in the world where when you go there, you feel like you're neither here nor there. And you're not really in the moment necessarily. It's talked about a lot, and I guess like the Christian world. So the Catholic Church, and we talk a lot about, you know, like ancient sacred sites where saints have been involved with and holy wells and stuff like that. But my experience is that, yes, they can be very liminal spaces, they can be very sort of special places.
Katherine May 36:18
And they reside in this idea that the veil between this world and the other world is very thin. But that also kind of seems to be about what human stuff has happened here. It's like the memorialization of stuff that happens in this world that kind of carries on echoing through time, almost
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 36:38
Totally through time and through non place, almost. So think that when I try to describe Thin Places, it is very difficult to not sound kind of almost airy fairy, but they're really not. I mean, they can be brutal places as well, they can, the feeling that you can get when you're in the type of places I've sort of tried to talk about in the book can be really quite raw, the experience that you have, there doesn't necessarily have to be a good experience. In fact, a lot of the time, places that I've spent time in I find it very overwhelming emotionally where I've come away feeling like I've been sick for a week or something just because they the concept of meeting your own honest self somewhere is sometimes a bit overwhelming.
Katherine May 37:28
And you've You seem to have like visited, you know, Celtic places all over the the British Isles and you know, even broader, and you You seem attracted to those places, like Iget the sense that they they bring you into yourself in a way that maybe you struggled to be there at other times.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 37:49
Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. And I think when I've tried to explain it before, I've always said that Thin Places for me the way if you're a swimmer, like if you're if you swim outdoors, I'm not going to say wild swimmer because I know theres a lot of negativity around that, And in ireland like we don't call it wild swimming we just call it swimming . It's just swimming that's outside. You don't have to pay to go to the swimming pool. Like you can be in a...
Katherine May 38:15
Yeah, but we should call it free swimming, I think is the new term.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 38:18
Right? Yeah. So yeah. So I have a friend who's a Stone Carver, and she talks about when she's in the river, that's the only time that she really feels like she like the form of the body that she's in is the right one. just like when, when she's in the actual physical land based world she like feels almost like cumbersome, more like she's not in the body or something. But when she's in the river that goes and I would echo that, not necessarily about the bodily elements of the, the me the actual core of me that when I'm in the water, or when Im in a Thin Place. I feel like I'm okay with me, no matter how much I've been hating myself up until that point or struggling with the past or, at times, not even wanting to still be here, you know, and feeling really distraught and really negative. As soon as I'm in a place that I feel quite held. It's almost like you can rest back in the place. And I'm not saying that in any kind of taking way or in any kind of using the place way I'm talking about being slotted back in almost.
Katherine May 39:33
Yeah, yeah. And it kind of reset button being hit somehow.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 39:38
Yeah. And it reaffirms. And it's like I said, it's not always good. So I went to, I talked about it in the book, I went on my grandfather, actually, I had a really good relationship with my grandfather, and when he passed away was at a really low point in my life, but he left me some money and I went on a new wanted to go on a trip and I went to Iceland and I went to a place called Vik I think I've pronounced it wrong, but it's a black sand beach, and I've
Katherine May 40:06
Ah yes I've always wanted to visit.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 40:09
It's incredible. Now I'd heard a lot of chat about it. And I was on a, I don't drive. So I was on a tour bus with a lot of other people. It was really, really stormy January day, and everyone stayed in the tea shop. And I like, obviously was going to the beach. So I went to the beach on my own. And it was a really devastating, like hauntingly devastating experience for the whole time that I was there was harrowing is a word that I probably use quite a lot. But I mean, it really was the meeting of myself that happened there was unlike anything I'd ever experienced anywhere in the UK or Ireland. Really, really extreme. And, like I still dream of it. I still, quite often there's a part of there's a beach in Greencastle that's very similar in its layout, Greencastle's in Donegal and Ireland. I think you've been there haven't I went on holiday last year, and I loved it. Yeah, yeah. So they beach there that has very similar geographical layout. So every single time I go there, I'm overwhelmed by memory
Katherine May 41:17
There's an echo of that place
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 41:18
Completely. And it's like, it's not a good thing. The place probably if I had to say, the Thin Place that I've experienced the most Yeah, the most bleak experience will definitely be there. So it's not necessarily always good. And it doesn't necessarily lots of people talk about Thin Places making them feel out of themselves. Whereas in the book, I talk a lot about my experiences probably quite different than that, like you said, it really being in the right place that has that thinness and where I feel like there isn't anything between me and everything else that I share all of the worlds with that can be a really grounding rinding thing, but not not grounding in the way of that we talk about not even grounding in the way of standing with your feet in the soil, not grounding in the way of breathing in the right way. It's grounding in a way that slide before all that almost you, no.
Katherine May 42:14
Kerri it's been so beautiful to talk to you.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 42:18
Me too.
Katherine May 42:19
I want to stop there because it's just gorgeous. And it leaves us with a gorgeous thought and i i think this conversations been really magical, but I kind of love that my neighbor started sweeping her chimney the minute you talked about Trauma. I feel like you created another Thin Space just in the room
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 42:36
That's really quite special. By the way. I have to talk to you more about that. That's incredible.
Katherine May 42:41
Normally, that's the kind of thing you're trying to excise from the recording. But I think we need my my lovely neighbor doing that to truly understand how these conversations work somehow. So I wish you really good luck with your book.
Kerri ni Dochartaigh 42:57
Katherine thank you so much for having me.
Katherine May 42:59
Thank you.
Katherine May 43:10
That's all from us today. Thank you so much to Kerri ni Dochartaigh for gracing us with her special kind of magic. Thin Places is available from all good bookstores, and you can follow Kerri on Instagram as Kerri ni Dochartaigh or on Twitter as @kerri_ni I'll be back next week with another brilliant writer who is intimate with winter. Thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Kerri ni Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places, talks about the aftermath of growing up in Derry at the height of the Troubles, as the daughter of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Forced to come to terms with trauma and survivorship guilt, Kerri found healing in the dark magic of the Irish landscape and Celtic mythology.
Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry, on the border of the North and South of Ireland, at the very height of the Troubles. She was brought up on a council estate on the wrong side of town. But for her family, and many others, there was no right side. One parent was Catholic, the other was Protestant. In the space of one year they were forced out of two homes and when she was eleven a homemade petrol bomb was thrown through her bedroom window. Terror was in the very fabric of the city, and for families like Kerri’s, the ones who fell between the cracks of identity, it seemed there was no escape.
We talk about:
Growing up in The Troubles
Overcoming trauma
Landscape as healer
Celtic mythology
Links from this episode:
To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack
For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School
Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.