I am going through some files on my computer for our upcoming EP and found this photo. I had so much fun posing for Ms. Catherine Plato when we were in the Caribbean earlier this year! ♥ ♥ ♥
I miss the ocean!
Margaret Thatcher is dead so I’m reading Top Girls
Margaret Thatcher is dead! I despise everything she stood for, from her support of the apartheid regime, to everything she ever did in relation to Ireland, to her dismantling of the society she claimed didn’t exist, the miners, Pinochet, etc.
Tonight I am digging out my copy of “Top Girls” by Caryl Churchill from 1982 I think. I first read this play when I was 18 and it was the first time I was ever brought to question the allegedly feminist and definitely neo-liberal ideal of the career woman, who climbs high on the backs of other people and then shits all over those below you. I loved it at first read and have always half dreamed of directing / acting in it. It’s still very potent and relevant, especially as British people continue to suffer so much under Tory governance.
Whilst also featuring Isabella Bird, Lady Nijo, Dull Gret, Pope Joan (my fave pope! check out the film!) Top Girls focuses on two sisters, the daughter of one of them, and what it means to be a “successful woman”. The play is partially set in an employment agency argues that just achieving the same thing that men are taught to want to achieve in a capitalist society is not enough!
There are so many good parts in this play I can’t even start to quote them – you’ll just have to go see the whole bloody thing next time it’s on! Or ask me to act it out over the internet for you!
xo m
Info- und Film Abend zum Abtreibungs Verbot in Irland
Es findet am Dienstag, 23. April, von 19.30 bis 22.00 ein Info- und Film Abend zum Abtreibungs Verbot in Irland, in k- fetisch, wildenbruchstraße 86, 12045 Berlin. Der Abend wird organisiert von Berlin Irish Pro-Choice Solidarity. Hier das facebook event.
Info zur Sprache: Der Abend findet auf deutsch und englisch statt. Die Filme sind auf Englisch.
Info on language: The evening will be in german and english. The films show will be in English.
Programme:
1. Info zur Geschichte der Menschenrechte von Frauen und Trans*Männer in Irland, im Bezug auf ihre sexuellen und reproduktiven Rechte.
2. Film: Like A Ship In the Night. Ein Film von Melissa Thompson.
3. Info zur Youth Defence und die pro-choice Bewegung in Irland in 2012.
Youth Defence:
Pro-Choice Aktivismus:
Credit: Informatique, on Flickr under Creative Commons 2.0
4. Film: X is for Anonymous (X steht für Anonym)
Ein Film von Heather Browning, Rosi Leonard and Kerry Guinan, gedreht im Sommer 2012 über den aktuellen Stand beim Abtreibungsrecht in Irland, 20 Jahren nach dem X Fall.
5. Info: Der Tod von Savita Halappanavar
Die daraus resultierende Proteste und die Verzögerung der irische Regierung, die Gesetze zu klären b.z.w. erlassen.
6. Fragen. Aktion. Was jetzt? Unterstützung? Solidarität?
Fragen? maebh (at) youreonlymassive (dot) com
What is the point of St. Patrick’s Day?
Quick question – what is the point of St. Patrick’s Day?
Is it to sell Irishness? To sell beer? Because I’m kinda sick of this appropriation of Irishness for reasons that seem entirely commercial/designed to attract tourists. It’s a lot of bullshit (and internalised post-colonialism) to wade through before you can even start thinking about Irish culture/cultures in/from Ireland and communicating with other Irish people/artists.
Not to mention the fact that St. Patrick’s Day Festival Berlin is sponsored by sweatshop-lovers Primark. Wat?
P.S. This is not a dig at artists / bands etc. that play around the world on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s hard enough to get gigs when you’re from a small island with less cultural infrastructure than other (European) countries.
If you are an Irish artist / artist based in Ireland who is participating or not participating, what are your thoughts? If you are an Irish person in Ireland or abroad, how will you spend the day, will you ignore it completely? If you are German / non-Irish, what does it mean to you, if anything at all?
P.S. If Karan Casey was playing in Berlin, I would be there like a shot! This is her singing the song “Ballad of Accounting” at the Festival interceltique de Lorient 1999. I’ve been a fan since I first saw her as a teenager in Waterford, playing with some great musicians.
Blog Post: International Women’s Day – Ireland under Abortion Prohibition
Blog post to accompany the new single, Breeder.
I find it hard to articulate what it’s like to grow up as a woman in Ireland under abortion prohibition. A (post-colonial) country that is ready to export it’s women (the ones that can afford it / have the legal status that allows them to do so) to the UK to have abortions there. That likes to pretend Irish abortion doesn’t exist. I watch the news, read the newspaper since I was a child and it doesn’t make any sense – members of Catholic institutes posing as “teachers”. Wat?
I stopped reading the newspaper. You have to get on with life. The case of Savita Halappanavar, entirely outrageous on it’s own terms, opens up wounds of anger and rage. I can’t call them pro-life anymore, not after this.
And when I watch thousands of people marching for women’s human rights in Ireland – it takes my breath away. Setting our sights higher than just life and death situations but towards actual choice. Fighting for self-determination and to burn down the hell they have created. Yeah! We’re gonna take overrrrrrrr!
Women and trans*people are humans too. The Irish constitution (Article 40.3.3) denies that when it refers to pregnant women as “mothers”. Women are people, first and foremost! I’m a person, I’m not a breeder!!!
<3, Midi Grrrl
Choice Ireland
Berlin Vigil and Protest Outside the Irish Embassy
Girls* Rock! Ireland Fundraiser at the Stags Head this Sunday!
Hurrah! This Sunday sees the first fundraiser of Girls* Rock! Ireland!
It takes place in the upstairs room of the Stags Head in Dublin, which is located at 1 Dame Court, Dublin 2 and is part of the Popical Island March residency. Entrance is 8 euros and 6 euros for students, unwaged and old aged pensioners and it kicks off at 8.30pm.
On the bill are the wonderful September Girls:
aswell as the supremely melodic Cave Ghosts:
I can’t find the photographer credit for this, please let me know if you have it!
and HUNK!
Thanks to Popical Island and our very own Ewa Gigon for making this happen!
Also, here is the link to the fb event page.
About Girls* Rock! Ireland
Girls Rock Camp Ireland wants to empower women* and girls* to discover their musical and artistic possibilities. ✓ Form Bands ✓ Write Songs ✓ Rock Out ✓
Not just in the music industry in Ireland, but in many different musical contexts women* and girls* are often assigned stereotypical roles of singer, fan or groupie and their presence is questioned.
We want to change that! We want to empower women* and girls* to discover their musical and artistic possibilities through learning instruments, writing songs, forming bands and performing. We want to demonstrate that every genre of music and every technical job and creative endeavor can be available to any girl* or women* that wants to explore it. We want to destroy the traditions and eradicate the myths that prevent women* and girls* from participating in the (until now) male dominated Irish and international music scene.
History: The first Girls Rock Camp was set up in Portland, Oregon, U.S. in 2001. Now there are over 40 rock camps in the U.S., aswell as Popkollo in Sweden, Ruby Tuesday in Berlin, Austria, Paris. Every summer, girls* participate in camps where they learn instruments, write songs, form bands, perform and rock out!
Want to know more?
If you are interested in hearing more about Girls* Rock! as it develops, please subscribe to our general mailing list (we only send out when something is really happening and never spam)
Interested in volunteering?
Thinking about being a band coach, instrument coach, doing some organisation work, devising our programme, being part of a street team, writing funding applications, can you set us up with a dot ie web address, help design and build a website, do you love cooking for feminists, do you have ideas for a location, experienced in anti-discrimination and inclusion work, all the things we surely haven’t thought of yet? Please send a mail to girlsrockcampireland (at) gmail.com and be explicit about what you would like to do! Please note women* and trans* will be prioritised for leadership positions.
Girls* Rock! Ireland is also on
facebook
twitter
tumblr
Coming soon to pinterest.
Sunshine Stroll / Nazi graveyard
I don’t want to jinx it and say winter is over but Spring is definitely on it’s way to Berlin. On Sunday I left a sink full of dirty dishes and walked from my place in Kreuzberg, across Tempelhofer Feld to Neukölln. It felt so luxurious, to take all that time just for breathing fresh air!
Just a few weeks ago the old airport was desolate of people and birds and the field and sky was blending into one big grey. I love walking and talking out ideas, the two fit really well together for me, and DM does too, so this was the first time this year where we’ve had a big ramble and left everyday troubles behind.
Upon reaching Hermannstraße in Neukölln, there was still light in the sky, so we stretched out the walk a little more by stepping into one of the graveyards that are found along Hermannstraße.
Close to the entrance there is a little hut with panels that have some info about forced labour; in this graveyard, there was a camp with approximately 100 workers that were forcibly transported from Eastern Europe to work in the graveyards during World War II. This was “discovered” in the last years of the 20th century. At which point the evangelical church started to try and find the former workers, ask for forgiveness, etc. Only one of them was both alive and well enough to make the trip to Berlin.
This is all on little panels you can read inside the graveyard, which is right by Leinestraße U-Bahnhof and called St. Thomas II (there are several graveyards together).
WTF? Why did it take 60 years (during which time most of the forced labourers died) for anything to happen, any sort of reparations, apology, etc. It feels like much of local history in Berlin is permeated with stories of Nazis / Nazi Germany and especially forced labour, but the big narrative is about the most horrible and tragic camps, often elsewhere, always so insane and horrible that you can only be transfixed and think “how awful, how did this one terrible thing happen”. Big overarching narratives like this create a false impression of the range of crimes committed (it includes not just Auschwitz but also this graveyard / forced labour camp) and stop us from thinking about the myriad ways that society creates injustice. And how systematic it is. And how it is not over. It made me shiver.
<3, Midi Grrrl
P.S. Shout out to all my German / living in Germany friends that are anti-fascist, when I arrived here I didn’t get all the stickers in venues we have played and the longer I live here I see more clearly the reasons why.
