Poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin will launch Ghostgirl in Stranorlar
The project is dedicated to the women and children of Stranorlar Workhouse and Stranorlar County Home, also known as Stranorlar Mother and Baby Home
The award-winning poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin will launch a new special, limited edition poetry pamphlet titled Ghostgirl as part of the Frances Browne Festival in Stranorlar on Friday, October 13.
The project is the result of a commission of the Donegal Archives Service as part of their Decade of Centenaries Programme.
Ghostgirl features poems that explore state histories, folklore and the female body. The project is dedicated to the women and children of Stranorlar Workhouse and Stranorlar County Home, also known as Stranorlar Mother and Baby Home. The home, which originally opened in the nineteenth century as a workhouse for the local poor, had by 1924 transformed into a state-run institution for unmarried pregnant women and their children. It was operated by the Sisters of Mercy.
“I was particularly moved by the personal stories in the Donegal County archives and by the glimpses that these records gave me into individual lives. The youngest pregnant girl admitted to the home was only thirteen years old. It’s an astonishingly sad history and, at the same time, I wanted to honour the strength and resilience of the ghostgirl and her child. I hope these poems will also be read as praise poems”.
Annemarie Ní Churreáin is originally from Cloich Cheann Fhaola. Her books include Bloodroot, Doire Press, 2017, Town, The Salvage Press, 2018, and The Poison Glen, The Gallery Press, 2021. She is a recipient of the Irish Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award and a co-recipient of The Markievicz Award. She has recently been announced as the new Poetry Editor of The Stinging Fly Magazine. Ní Churreáin will officially open the Frances Browne Festival and will also deliver a workshop as part of the programme.
Ní Churreáin has previously responded to the histories of Irish orphanages, industrial schools, homes and the Dublin Foundling Hospital. For this project she drew from the Donegal Archives records, from the Mother and Baby Home Report of 2021 and from her own family experience of Mother and Baby Homes. She also worked with designer Paul Guinan to integrate quotes from survivors into the pamphlet alongside poems.
Ghostgirl will be launched at 3pm in Kee’s Hotel in Stranorlar with discussion from Niamh Brennan of the Donegal County Archives chaired by Shirley-Anne Bonner.
More information and tickets are available from www. francesbrowneliteraryfestival. com