By lamplight, an aged map of Dublin reveals the city
as preached by Swift,

scant lanes and alleys that run like ghost-veins pulsing the blood of women

who once begged for bread and alms,
who cupped their palms to strangers

in Cutthroat Place. In Murdering Lane,
I look down along the black steps

of three centuries or more. I can hear the throb
of water rising out of ling and heather bogs.

Source is another word for church.
In Rome the poorest mothers left

infants by the Tiber and later, among the nets,
the fishermen found the tangled bones.

Did they lay these bones out as treasure?
Did they toss them back into water?

Every river knows the weight of hunger.
Anna Liffey gives us back our bodies.

The stories of all our mothers are written
on the inner walls of this city I call home.

Ellen Clusker: Your latest work, The Poison Glen deals a lot with the cultures of silence in Ireland. Has that been a focus of yours for a long time? What power do you believe poetry has as a tool to explore issues like this?

Ní Churreáin: I’ve always been curious about the national identity forged for Irish people by the Catholic Church working in conjunction with the Irish State. DeValera, who was, of course, in conversation with his friends in the Vatican, evolved a very flawed identity for Irish women, children and families. I think the cost of that forged identity has been enormous because people who didn’t fit the mould suffered immensely. There’s an urge in my poetry to push against that identity, reclaiming a deeper sense of self, I suppose, and resisting received narratives around womanhood, girlhood, family.

The other historical violence imposed onto Irish women was, of course, the culture of silence, shame and stigma – especially around the body, relationships and sexuality. Also, the silencing of dreams. I felt that keenly growing up in the 80s. I would have felt very strongly the messaging that there is a certain way to be a girl or a woman; certain things you should not say. I came to poetry feeling that finally! Here is a space in which I can break silences, create silences, reclaim silences. The dynamics of silence are endlessly interesting to me. Our worlds are so busy and distracted right now, it sometimes seems like there’s very little silence.

The Poison Glen really gave me a chance to reflect on my own family history and a space to reimagine and transform it; to think about my own family entanglement with the Catholic Church and to process grief, trauma and loss.