Today is the first occasion of a new bank holiday in Ireland. It’s to honour St. Brigid, or the goddess Brigid, whose feast day is February 1st. The Celtic pagan holiday Imbolc, or Imbolg - from the Irish ‘I mbolg’, or “in the belly”, referring to spring and lambing season - also falls in the first week of February. Many events were organised to celebrate the new bank holiday and I spent the afternoon at an outdoor talk by artist Rachel Fallon. Fallon’s work across various media pivots on “themes of protection and defense in domestic realms and addresses the topic of motherhood and womens’ relationships to society” (you may know her Aprons of Power, made as part of the Artist’s Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment). The location was the War Memorial Gardens in Dublin 8, built to honour the 49, 400 Irish men who died in the First World War, fighting on the side of the British. Fallon has ancestral and geographi…
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