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The Wild Gees View site
  • Day One: 77 Women and a fake Sheela Na Gig
  • Day One: Rathcroghan and Queen Meadhbh
  • Day Two: The Secret Glen
  • Day Two: Carrowmore Megalithic Site
  • Day Two: Constellations Coalesce at Sligo Arts Festival
  • Day Three: We need to talk about William
  • Day Three: Creevykeel, Dolphins, and Ben
  • Day Four: In search of Sheela
  • Random musings
The Wild Gees

The Wild Gees

Adventures in the Irish Otherworld

  • Trip 1
  • Random musings
  • About the Wild Gees
  • Contact us
Day Two: Carrowmore Megalithic Site

Day Two: Carrowmore Megalithic Site

Layers of prehistory at this megalithic site and home to the witch of winter

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Day Two: Constellations Coalesce at Sligo Arts Festival

Day Two: Constellations Coalesce at Sligo Arts Festival

A literary encounter with Sinead Gleeson chimes with our trip’s theme

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Day Three: Creevykeel, Dolphins, and Ben

Day Three: Creevykeel, Dolphins, and Ben

A soaking on Ben Bulben results in some driveby tourism punctuated by dolphins, rag trees and the Morrigan (possibly). A gee-lite and not very wild day.

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Day Three: We need to talk about William

Day Three: We need to talk about William

A trip to Sligo inevitably involves Yeats but let’s talk about how problematic he is.

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Day Four: In search of Sheela

Day Four: In search of Sheela

Our Sile na Gig trip isn’t as fruitful as we’d hoped but at least we weren’t savaged by a Grim

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Clodagh Finn
The Wild Gees Retweeted · Clodagh Finn @FinnClodagh

#ThroughHerEyes
It's great to see that @AnPost is launching a stamp of Lady Jane Wilde for #IWD. She was a multi-linguist, translator and women’s rights activist. She championed rights for married women and more practical clothing for women. And, of course, she was Oscar's ma. https://t.co/VYtJyQzVyB
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My Name Is Bridget
The Wild Gees Retweeted · My Name Is Bridget @NameBridget

Letter retrieved by man illegally adopted through Professor Eamon DeValera. We exposed this story in 2015. Dev was trafficking scores of children in his top job as a Consultant gynaecologist. #illegaladoptions #adoptions #tuambabies #MotherAndBabyHomes https://t.co/eZXEjNFAV7
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Dr Mary McAuliffe 😷
The Wild Gees Retweeted · Dr Mary McAuliffe 😷 @MaryMcAuliffe4

Only 2 more sleeps until #WHAI2021 begins- Fri 5th we have panels on issues such as motherhood,sexuality,war & our 1st keynote lecture from @rmkarras ‘Mutilation as Gendered Punishment;State Violence and Sexual Transgression in Medieval Europe’ All welcome https://t.co/IKDYKOm68r
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Dr Mary McAuliffe 😷
The Wild Gees Retweeted · Dr Mary McAuliffe 😷 @MaryMcAuliffe4

TG4 documentary to lift lid on ‘much maligned’ Peig Sayers - not to be missed, the real Peig! #ieishwmnhist https://t.co/JFLCFGW6nH
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The Wild Gees
The Wild Gees @thewildgees

Gee! https://t.co/gPD8C3WoJK
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Vagina Museum @vagina_museum
coochie, gash, hole, muff, flange, cunt... say it with your entire chest! https://t.co/aM3IVu6pzX https://t.co/kb1OKQyst7
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HerstoryIreland
The Wild Gees Retweeted · HerstoryIreland @HerstoryIreland

Join us tomorrow (Sunday!) night at 7pm for the @candlelit_tales livestream with #Herstory, exploring Goddesses, women, and the devibe femininity and masculinity that we need to talk about more today. https://t.co/GKWW8J5Ecj https://t.co/45e67d7XYk
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The Wild Gees

The Wild Gees
The Wild Gees
Some lockdown reading suggestion coming up for all you Wild Gees out there trapped indoors! First up is 'A Ghost in the Throat' from Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire is an Irish keen or lament that's been described as the greatest poem of the 18th century. And none of the Wild Gees had heard of it. It wasn't on the curriculum when we were at school. The poem was composed by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill after her husband Art's murder. It is a wail of grief, but it's also thirsty af - possibly why they didn't teach it! "what a hearty bed-mate you'd be, what a man to share a saddle with, what a man to spark a child with".

Perhaps the most surprising thing in A Ghost in the Throat is that the author first encountered the Caoineadh at school. The book is her attempt to unearth Eibhlín Dubh's own story, too often told only in relation to the men in her life - her dead husband and her nephew Daniel O'Connell. "How swiftly the academic gaze places her in the masculine shadow" she says. Sadly true of so many women in history. The book sets out to redress that while translating the Caoineadh and finding parallels with her own life. "Literature composed by women was shared not in books but in female bodies, living repositories of poetry and song" Doireann Ní Ghríofa calls this a 'female text'.

It's likely that the poem was passed down as part of the Irish oral tradition. Thanks to Nóra Ní Shíndile, a professional keener or bean caoinadh, the Caoineadh was later transcribed.

If you're a fan of women's untold stories, as we #WildGees are, A Ghost in the Throat is worth a read. If you're curious now about the Caoineadh have a listen to this version in the original gaeilge by soprano Siobhán Cleary at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7pwoZJKi4U&ab_channel=ElizabethHilliard

Here's a lovely interview with Doireann and Rickoshea on Shelf Analysis where she talks about the adventure of uncovering Eibhlín Dubh's story and recommends so many books that our TBR pile may topple over and crush us at some point.

https://youtu.be/19rRH2q0Hag
The Wild Gees
Shelf Analysis - Episode 43 - Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Ep 43 of my live chat show where an author in their home talks to me in mine about books they love and they think you should too. This week poet Doireann Ní ...
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The Wild Gees
The Wild Gees
The Wild Gees are passionate about open access to all of the stories of our heritage. September is #WikiLovesMonuments month - a chance to add your images of historic and prehistoric sites to the Wikimedia commons. This means they can be used to illustrate articles. There aren't many #SheelaNaGigs on the map so let's get adding!

We'll be uploading all the images from our #WildGees trip to the drive, running from 1 - 30th September. If you've visited heritage sites over the summer, or are planning any trips this month, we encourage you to do the same - and you might even win an auld prize

http://wikimedia.ie/programme/wiki-loves-monuments-2017/
The Wild Gees
Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 – Wikimedia Community Ireland
Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 is now open! UPLOAD HERE! From churches to bridges, canal locks to market halls, every red dot on our interactive map is a piece of Ireland’s built heritage that needs a photograph, which means we need your help. Entry into the 2020 competition runs from 1 to 30 September...
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The Wild Gees
The Wild Gees
Quite a few of you here and on Twitter have complimented us on our name. It was born as a reaction to a particularly un-gee-ish day, and generally having a pain in the hole with Sligo's favourite and most asshole-y son. Usually we're all about the womxn, but it's impossible to visit Sligo and not run into Yeats. We're big poetry fans but in the age of #MeToo We Need to Talk About William

http://thewildgees.com/william/

ps: we're much more active on twitter, at @thewildgees Follow us there to join the conversation
The Wild Gees
Day Three: We need to talk about William | The Wild Gees
A trip to Sligo inevitably involves Yeats but lets talk about how problematic he is.
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Who we are

Three women on a mission – to seek out and explore women’s histories, prehistories and mythologies and share our adventures

Where we’ve been

  • Day One: 77 Women and a fake Sheela Na Gig
  • Day One: Rathcroghan and Queen Meadhbh
  • Day Two: The Secret Glen
  • Day Two: Carrowmore Megalithic Site
  • Day Two: Constellations Coalesce at Sligo Arts Festival
  • Day Three: We need to talk about William
  • Day Three: Creevykeel, Dolphins, and Ben
  • Day Four: In search of Sheela
  • Random musings

Who we love

Ireland’s Síle na Gig (interactive map)

Richmond Barracks Visitor Centre

Rathcroghan Visitor Centre

Carrowmore Visitor Centre

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