During the long, wet summer of 2012 I moved to Brussels from my home in Dublin. It was a get-out-of-town move precipitated by a tragedy. Tadhg, our baby son, had taken ill in the hours after his birth and died the following day. I just wanted to be anywhere but there.
It turned out to be a fortuitous move. Kind Irish friends already in Brussels gave us their house to live in while we got ourselves set up. By Halloween I was pregnant again – and upon revealing this news to my boss he extended my contract and gave me a pay rise.
I gave birth to Sadhbh, a lovely strong healthy little girl, just three days before the first anniversary of the birth and death of our son. Now she’s a lively nine-year-old with long red hair streaming down her back.
It’s a very Irish sentiment to say “There’ll always be a little angel watching over you” as a condolence for perinatal death, and for sure there were fortunate coincidences in the aftermath. It brought me a fresh start, friends, community and prosperity.
Some of these thoughts were in my mind recently during an evening here in the European Parliament organised by the Elephant Collective. The collective is a craftivist –think knitting and activism – group who successfully campaigned to change Irish law to ensure there are inquests into the deaths of women who die in, or around the time of, childbirth in an Irish hospital.
The Coroners (Amendment) Act 2019 was ratified after a six-year campaign. Now, if a woman dies in our maternity services, there will be an automatic inquest.
Between 2008 and 2014 there were hard-won inquests for eight women who died in Irish maternity services, all of which ended in verdicts of death by medical misadventure. A further five maternal deaths have since been identified by the Elephant Collective.
Women of colour are disproportionately represented in this tragic group. One of these women was Savita Halappanavar, whose death, in 2012, led to widespread protest and, ultimately, the 2018 referendum that repealed the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which had banned abortion in almost all circumstances.
The liminal zone of a maternity hospital is a particularly difficult place to meet with loss. The sharpest reminder of this was when Seán Rowlette, a Sligo farmer, and Ayaz Hassan, an Irishman of Pakistani origin, told those of us gathered in Brussels on January 23rd this year their stories: of the joy on the birth of a child, followed by the untimely death of a mother.
These men relived their harrowing tragedies in front of strangers – Ayaz even read out a deeply personal poem he had written on the first anniversary of his wife’s death, on September 22nd, 2020, in order to try to prevent it happening to others.
I teared up on hearing these stories, as did the Irish MEPs Clare Daly, who was chairing the evening, and Frances Fitzgerald, who has consistently advocated for child- and family-friendly policies throughout her political career, as well as many of the others present.
More than half of the Irish members of the European Parliament, from across the political spectrum, were represented, alongside Elephant Collective stalwarts who quietly continued with their knitting during the speeches – appropriately, given that the group’s appeal to supporters is to “pick up the thread and help us remake the fabric of care”.
Walking home that evening, I felt really proud to be Irish, and hopeful of what modern Ireland has to offer the world.
Our history, especially the darker chapters of it, holds vitally important lessons and insights that are more relevant today than ever. Irish cultural memory knows what it means for ordinary people to be colonised, to live in a theocracy and to have your life torn apart by social oppression and misguided mores. People in Ireland know about the necessity, opportunity and heartbreak of economic emigration and of the hostile reception of immigrants abroad.
Like any emigrants, the news from “home” always matters more to me (although my elder daughter, Francesca, who’s 17, reminds me that Brussels is “home” for her and her sister). The progress of the social movements, bringing much-needed and progressive change in Ireland over recent years, has left me delighted and also sometimes wishing I was there and a part of it, even though I’m really fortunate to have found a good life here.
Maybe it is also because of this that I felt so profoundly honoured and moved that evening last month to be in the company of the passionate and creative grassroots activists gathered together in the Elephant Collective. These are the people who make all the difference, bringing about positive social change through regenerative actions that are deeply rooted in the human experience of loss and grief.
The collective’s perspective is one we need to support. They have a life-giving message. Ultimately it is to ensure that all the people who reach our shores seeking shelter and the opportunity to build a new life are cared for and protected. This is especially true for those women bringing new life into the world: this is the new life we need to sustain us all, in Ireland and in Europe.
Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.
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