A girl called freedom. chapter one

Lorna Marjorie O'Neill's memoirs .. In her own voice, The truth 

This is dedicated to my 3 children who i love deeply

a message to my youngest son josh.. mummy loves you. we are going through a valley of tears but it has ended now . Thank God 

to my wonderful nieces and nephews. As your aunt ,i love you all forever and want to know you all and a special shout out to Ben who has stayed close  ...im so thankful for your life..

 

Patterns....

i'm rebuking this in the almighty name of the most high God .. I see it. . they were never right, they were never accurate, i have the sure absolute mindstate awareness that none of of it was ever the truth . they had me locked me into a inner hell state . ive now completely cut through the lies that intentionally had me trapped for most of my life

In their haste, they accidently left a map that spanned generations, that ,thanks to mum and granny's painful stories and sharp memories being passed down to me and what I witnessed and sensed throughout my whole life,,  I have now tracked it to uncover the dark truth and the source of this, in each generation, and the reason i can fully comprehend this is, because of all the dark places i've had to visit, because of this in my life. my life has made sense finally

I am a cycle-breaker . I am a born again Christian

what broke it,, about two years ago, they went too far and stole my own heart

This summer God gifted me with discernment, Glory to God Almighty.. Amen

God wants me to share my story to free others from this life of pain

I detail this...This is my life's work

I am God's greatest weapon

 

From my earliest years, i felt caught up in painful family dynamics that I couldn't fully understand, as I grew older, I began to recognise patterns and criticism, misunderstanding and rejection that seemed to stretch back through generations

I saw similarities between my own experience and those of my mother and grandmother. At times, I felt that other peoples versions of who I was had overshadowed my own voice. These experiences affected my relationships, my confidence and my sense of belonging. For many years, i struggled to understand why certain patterns seemed to repeat themselves.

now through writing, reflection and faith, I am beginning to make sense of my experiences. This is my opportunity to tell my own story in my own words.

 

 

From childhood, I kept one colourful notebook after another, filling them with drawings , photographs, memories and my deepest thoughts.. id write when i felt excited and  thrilled or pained. i always felt to much, so hard .. i am such a bright spark of life. from an early age, i felt this deep yearning to capture some of this life , the intensity and excitement of my colourful bright thoughts . i born adventurer . my bright infectous smile that brightened everybodys day. i was always astonished at myself and still am , what a perfect work of art, God had created. i always loved being me. i suppose thats why ive always done well as a lone wolf. i always thought i was very cool and enjoyed my own company 

Year later when I returned to my family home in my late 20's , I was heartbroken to discover that most of these diaries had been thrown away, with only a few remaining. Although these were lost, I still have some left and vivid memories. through writing, reflection and faith,  I m now piecing together my story.

When my heart was broken about two years ago, I began searching for answers. I started looking more deeply into my past, questioning things, I had previously accepted and trying to understand painful patterns that had shaped my life. There were times when I felt a profound lack of compassion and understanding from those around me. Through my faith in God, prayer and reflection, I gradually found the strength to trust myself again

For much of my childhood, I had struggled to trust my own feelings and instincts. Now through writing, I am learning to listen to my own voice and stand by my experiences. .This memoir is part of that journey.. it is my opportunity to reflect, to heal and to tell my story in my own words. To own my story..

I am not writing this memoir to attack or condemn anyone. my faith reminds me that we are all children of God, deserving of compassion and understanding

Although I have experienced deep hurt through certain family relationships. i choose to forgive and pray and ask God to bless for those involved .Forgiveness, however does not mean that I must return to relationships that have caused me pain. I have learned that sometimes maintaining distance and healthy boundaries is necessary for my own peace and healing.

 

My heart breaks when i think about the pain and difficulties that have shaped my family's history. For many years I struggled to understand certain patterns and experiences that seemed to be on repeat. Through reflection, writing and faith, I began to see my past from a different perspective. memories that once seemed disconnected gradually began to take on new meaning.. This past summer during a great visitation of energy, i felt as though i had discovered the pot of gold at the end of Gods rainbow after a lifelong search. it was a moment of personal understanding, a feeling that I was finally beginning to make sense of my own story. The book 'voiceless no more' the legal war on narcissistic abuse' by Daniel Ryan Cotler opened my eyes . God bless him

When I was a young girl, I would spend hours cycling through the rolling hills of county Westmeath , Ireland searching for the end of the rainbow on my bike. I honestly thought I would find it n now i have 

these were moments of pure freedom, I had nowhere in particular to be, no destination to reach ( except the end of the rainbow) and no sense of time passing. I was simply happy to be alive alone in nature , surrounded by the beauty of the countryside. This is how i have spent a lot of my life . something i learned from my mother.. To be joyful in nature regardless of life circumstances . Right at the end of mums life , before a big operation that she wouldnt come out of ,she was delighting in a spell of good weather 

 

I remember creating an art performance piece on Dolly mount beach in Dublin. i arranged for a photographer to capture me naked  in the sea and afterwards on the shore, where the sand left beautiful , unexpected patterns across my bare skin. in one photograph, i was curled into a childlike position, with the dark patterns of sand forming what looked almost like a map across my back

Looking back, I find myself reflecting on the meaning of that image. throughout my life, i have been drawn to art, writing and the natural world as ways of expressing things I could not always explain in words.

I used to wonder what on earth I was doing with my art and writing. now I know 

A journey I never forget

 

After my father died, when I was about 23, I travelled to Athens , Greece , where my sister and her boyfriend were staying beneath the orange trees. Afterwards, I set off on a rainbow train to Prague

The sister who didnt stop me or show any concern afterwards

There are moments in life that we revisit decades later, only to discover something we couldnt see at the time

i was 23 when my father died, it was the first time i had experienced the death of a parent, and i was grieving , unsettled and perhaps more vunerable that i understood. around that time i travelled to athens to visit my younger sister and her boyfriend . she was 19 , four years younger than me.what strikes me now, looking back is not simply the extraordinary journey i was about to undertake , but the absense of something i might reaonably have expected , concern. my sister has always occupied the position of the responsible one. The sensible one. the one who followed the conventional path, built a career, married , raised a family and established a respectable life. she has maintained close friendships, supporting people through their difficulties , offering advise , reassurance and practical help .

i have often watched that capacity for care extend so naturally towards others, while wondering why i experienced so little of it myself. and now, revisiting athens , another memory has begun to take on a different meaning, i was a young woman whose father had just died, visiting her sister in a foreign country and somehow i ended up setting off alone on a train journey across europe, heading towards prague, uncertain of the route and eventually finding myself travelling in the wrong direction. i dont remember my sister expressing particular concern about my departure. i dont remember her asking me whaether i was alright , whether i knew where i was going , or whether travelling alone in my state of mind was a good idea.

i imagine, she eventually heard about the difficulties i encountered during that journey . yet i have no memory of her ever coming to me afterwards and saying, lorna, im so sorry that happened to you . i wish id warned you, or i wish id encouraged you to think twice before setting off alone . there was no conversation that i can recall in which she acknowledged what i had been through. no expresssion of sisterly concern that stayed with me

for years i saw that journey primarily as an adventure- another extraordinary episode in my unconventional life. but perhaps there was another story running quietly beneath it. a story about family, emotional distance and the difference between appearing caring and making  someone feel cared for .

and so began my journey north, i sat on the bus scribbling in my notebook frantically . the landscape of greece and all its absense of green on my way north from athens to Thessalonika, towards a destination i thought i understood. i had asked at the station which way to go . but maby the person had lead me the wrong way. we didnt have internet or phones in those days to help with navigation

 

What began as an adventure became one of the most frightening experiences of my young life. As I travelled through Romania and Hungary, I was struck by the unfamiliar surroundings and the poverty I witnessed. I took pictures out the window of the train in excitement . My camera was stolen and I found myself feeling increasingly vulnerable, with very little money or food. I remember two elderly German men who kindly shared their bread with me. it felt biblical .Their generously brought me comfort during a difficult journey. I had to keep giving away my passport for inspection ..

The train would get stopped and soldiers would look under the train with torches. it was like a nazi movie

Later when I got off the train in Bucharest two skin head  men offered me help and brought me to see Ceausescu's palace ,. They brought me in a small car. i thought i would be killed or trafficked . I saw goats on the road. They brought me to a small apartment where I felt unable to leave. I remember praying desperately for protection. The pictures of Jesus on the walls brought me some peace.. i was able to wash and have some food. . I really felt God protected me 

Thankfully I eventually contacted my mother . With the help of a kind neighbour, she arranged for money to be sent so that I could return home. I will never forget the relief I felt as the plane lifted into the winter sky reaching blue. above. when I finally arrived home, I spent the following weeks recovering from the experience., grateful to be safe with mum. looking back I realise how profoundly that journey affected me. it also reminds me of the importance of kindness, faith and the love of a mother.

I had been a victim of organised crime . I realise now, that experience was the universe trying to tell me something important.. All my painful experiences have meaning 

The Sister who never warned me 

from a girl called freedom

California- the world is my oyster

A Night in Tijuana 

When i arrived in california, i was in my prime

i had travelled down from portland on the greyhound bus with a collection of extraordinary clothes, pieces i had discoveredin unusual little dancewear shops. clothes i wouldnt believe i looked good in or could actually fit into.i loved fashio, dressing up and expressing myself through my appearance

i felt beautiful, vibrant and free

yes i had just come out of an unhealthy relationship. yes i was emotionally bruised and uncertain about my future but i was also young , adventurous and full of possibility

i remember arriving in san diego and feeling an unexpected surge of excitement. im in california. the sunshine, the atmosphere, the glamour, the possibilities

i was in the golden state and suddenly the world felt open. i remember getting off the bus and a police man asking me out. i said no. i stayed with my sister and her friends . i remember thinking wow i don't have to go home with them, im not on a time schedule . i alwasy loved not being on a time schedule.. i could re-invent myself . the world was my oyster. i imagined my sister would share some of my excitment, and say somehting like. you look fantastic lorna, imagine what you could do here . i always felt alone with that excitement but that was always there because it was the rea me.

in regards to my sister when i found myself swept up with a gang of her friends heading out to Tijuana , where a night of tiquela ,dancing and adventure that ended with me being refused ere-entry to the united states because my visa had expired i dont remember her warning me about the border crossing, no concern for my state of mind after a bad break-up, no concern afterwards  and no effort to return the beautiful clothes i had collected . instead my clothes were given away to her friends.

and later when i discovered that one of those woman had worn my black nightdress on her wedding night, i felt that old sense of loss all over again.

i felt that sense of loss again. those clothes had belonged to the young woman i had been in california.

time and time again i needed a sister to say ' be careful , i want you to be safe' . in my whole life i have never felt she cared about my well-being 

i never felt my brother cared about my well-being in my life either..

i had God with me throughout my life protecting me . he is the only reason i am alive today 

Th sister at the helm

It is only now looking back on these two experiences that i recognise something they have in common. in both of those painful experiences in bucharest and tijuana , my sister was there

two different countries . two different moments in my life. both times i was emotionally vunerable and both times i was about to walk into situations whose consequences i could never have imagined 

my sister had already established herself as the responsible one. the sensible daughter, the wonderful niece and cousin. the young woman who had her life together who caused little worry and appeared to know actually where she was going .. she had not experienced trauma at the hands of family members like i had. she had not experienced coercive control

but where was that responsibility when i needed her?

why didnt she say ' lorna , you we have just lost daddy, your grieving . dont go travelling alone in a country where you dont speak the language

or in california ,' you have just come out of a terrible relationship. you're exhausted. your visa has expired . mum would have told her this.. mum spoke to each of us about eachother . mum was very open and close to us girls. she could have said' think about what you are doing ?

she was not the sister i needed . she has never been a real sister to me yet she protrayed me as 'the bad sister'. she projected on me 

 i could have ended up dead in either of those situations 

in bucherist i could have been killed by those kidnappers 

in mexico i was thrown out on the dangerous streets of mexico with skimpy clothes on . i could have been killed too ..

she never thought to protect me and after both of those incidents she never expressed concern for me and said how she was glad i was ok

on both occasions my mother and kind neighbours came to my rescue 

by the grace of god im still alive ..for years i questioned my own decisionsin those two situations . why had i gone? why hadnt i been more careful? why hadnt i protected myself?

but now i also question the absense to the care i needed . my sister was there but i never felt like she was watching over me

and when i think about what it means to be watched over, i remember another moment thousands of miles away in new zealand at the age of 24 with my mum at the helm of the ship watching over me as i swam in the deep ocean with the dolphins. i can still see her 

she was worried about me being out in that cast new zealand ocean, but she was also soaking up every moment of my happiness . she wanted to witness it all . she wanted to see her daughter experience something extraordinary something she herself had made possible

 she was not trying to hold me back. she was allowing me to be free . just like god does . to experience the wonders of the world while keeping her loving eyes on me. i remember looking back at her standing there and thinking . what a mother

i have a dolphin tattoo when i look at it i remember what it felt like to be loved  , to be protected and to be free all at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout my life, there have been times when I felt misunderstood, judged and unable to express myself freely. even during my years studying art, I sometimes struggled to feel that my work and abilities were being taken seriously. i remember an art teacher asking me why i signed my work. did i think i was actually a real artist? i was just to excited to be at art college and studying what i thought would be a lifelong career.

I remember occasions where i felt criticised rather then encouraged, and when the support I hoped for was not forthcoming . i didnt feel like the tutors really supported me properly in art. they should have helped launch my career in the arts , they would have had contacts ..i dont think they understood my work or didnt try to understand it . they dismissed it as young and rebellious .but looking back now it was deeply profound . it was like i was invisible to them but how could i be with such a striking appearance and doing such edgy, profound performances .i didnt meet the right art mentor at the right time even though i went to two highly respected art colleges in ireland..The art tutors seemed to be pretentious and elitist. i remember asking one of them for a reference before i left and she gave me a firm no.

i believe i was so good it was ununderstandable to them or they were just to closed minded to see such good art . it was only ireland after all not a new york or london art college where my high level of art would have been nurtured im sure 

These experiences left me feeling isolated and questioning my own confidence and abilities. Looking back I realise how deeply these moments affected me, yet despite the difficulties , I continued creating, writing and searching for my own voice. Art has always been an important part of who I am , and no matter what challenges I have experienced , my creativity has remained with me.

 

A Guardian in the Night

When I was 21 I thought I should have a boyfriend and unfortunately ran into an unhealthy character in liquid nightclub Galway city. during my final years of studying fine art. I experienced a frightening incident involving him .He attacked me

I remember feeling terrified and vulnerable, Thankfully another person intervened and I was eventually able to leave. i was unrecognisable .. As I stepped into the darkness something extraordinary happened. There waiting outside, was a beautiful old white sheepdog, wagging his tail

The dog seemed to guide me through the night , leading me all the way to a friends house, where I felt safe.

I have never forgotten that experience.

This was the the first attempt on my life 

When i got back to mum again to heal in Sheepstown in my dressing -gown , she was heartbroken and couldn't understand what had happened.. ' My beautiful daughter' she would say over and over 

 

Through my faith , i have often reflected on that moment as an expression of Gods protection and guidance.. At a time when I felt frightened and alone, the unexpected kindness and companionship of an animal brought me comfort and my dear mum.. I didnt question it then but the rest of my family didnt seem to care...

Rising Again- The bath of Roses

When i returned to art college in Galway after experiencing violence in my first relationship, I created what i now recognise as one of my most powerful pieces of performance art. Our college, GMIT, had an art department housed in Cluine Mhuire, a magnificant old monastery./convent  It is a vast, mysterious building, with long corridors, high ceilings and an eerie atmosphere especially at night . It was the perfect place for an art college . We had tremendous freedom to explore, experiment and express ourselves creatively . it was the perfect setting for the work we were making .High up in the building, perhaps on the third floor, i did my naked performance in a tiny room. I used an old bath that i got into . baths seemed to be a big part of my performances at that time. I got into the bath and covered my body in rose petals . i played gabrielles song 'rise again'. The rose petals looked like bruises and blended into the real bruises on my body . The bruises i had received from the domestic violence attack from my boyfriend .. I presented the work to my tutors and fellow students . my friend helen who was the friend who had helped me in my hour of need told me how incredibly powerful it was .i felt so raw, still in shock . Trying to make art out of pain. Transmuting pain 

Through growing my faith, i have come to see that God can bring meaning and purpose even out of the most painful experiences . I don't believe i knew it then but perhaps that young woman, lying in a bathtub covered in petals, was already beginning a journey of transformation . I was taking something devastating and turning it into art .and now through writing my memoir , i am doing something similiar, i am gathering the scattered scenes of my life, building bridges between them and discovering a greater understanding of my journey, my faith and my purpose.I  was creating art from pain long before i understood what that art was trying to tell me 

i remember at the time the movie came out ..American beauty which has a similar scene in it 

The Roses are Blooming again

I remember a passage in my mothers daily devotional book about flowers and roses, and the sadness of watching something beautiful fade or be destroyed

I think it read.. ' Why did you let my roses die, oh Lord"

The image has stayed with me over the years. I often think of my mothers life, the difficulties she experienced and the beauty she continued to find in the world around her. My mother and granny and I are all obsessed with flowers . Their gardens were places of beauty, peace and quiet reflection. An oasis in the dark world

As a young girl, i would spend hours in their garden, drawing and painting the flowers. Even today when people ask me what I paint. I always say flowers. flowers have always represented something, deeply personal to me- beauty vulnerability , strength and the extraordinary ability of life to begin again.. I think of mum now and the roses growing once more in her many gardens, A neighbour captured a lovely video of her there, surrounded by the flowers she loved  , all around her head. Although mum is not here, I feel her presence in those gardens, in the flowers and the beauty of the natural world.. Especially the robin Its their legacy

The roses are blooming again , mum

and in many ways, so am I 

i have recently discovered St. Teresa of Avila . Teresa of Jesus , the little flower . She wrote ' The book of life' which is a spiritual autobiography and recounts her mystical experiences and her convent life. She talks about how important prayer is and contemplation of the word

When she died , she said she would do good on earth from heaven and 'let fall a 'shower of roses'. This is graces, answered prayers and spiritual help. . Catholics pray the rose Novena and when a prayer is answered , believers say they receive lots of rose petals . I have always lived a life where showers of rose petals are present and spend a lot of time gazing at and painting roses.

 

Breaking the Patterns

For as long as I can remember , i have been searching for understanding. I always believed that one day I would begin to make sense of the experiences that have shaped my life

Through writing , reflection and faith. I have gradually found something precious- a deeper understanding of myself, my family history and the importance of healing. This journey was born not only from my own pain , but also from the suffering I witnessed in my mother and grandmother

In romans 12;2, St Paul speaks about the transformation that comes through the renewing of our minds

These words have taken on a special meaning for me. Looking back over my life I can recognise patterns of suffering, misunderstanding and abandonment that I struggled to comprehend as a child

I have come to understand how painful experiences can influence families across the generations but I also believe that these painful experiences do not have to define our future. Through faith, awareness , compassion and spiritual renewal, we can begin to live differently

My hope is that by sharing my experiences, I might offer understanding and encouragement to others who are searching for healing.

I want to add from the start that this is spiritual/ psychological warfare 

 

 

 

This is for my children. I have 4 , one in heaven . i feel her with me now bringing lightness.. butterflies 

To my beloved children, and to the little one I hold forever in my heart

you are, and always will be, the greatest gifts of my life

There have been times when life has taken us through difficult and unexpected valleys. Yet through every challenge, my love for you has remained constant

I hope that one day, when you read these words, you will understand something of my journey, the experiences that shaped me and the love that has guided me throughout my life.

My deepest wish is that you will always know your own worth, trust your own hearts and never loose sight of the beautiful possibilities that life holds

you do not have to carry the burdens of generations before you. You are free to write your own stories , to find your own happiness and to create lives filled with love and hope

with all my love mum

Three Generations, Finding our Voices

 

Looking back over my family's history, I  can see how certain patterns of suffering, silence and misunderstanding seemed to pass from one generation to the next

I believe that granny, mum and i were erased 

I think of my granny, my mother and now me. Three generations of women each with our own stories, our own struggles and our own search for happiness and freedom. For many years , I felt that parts of our experiences remained unspoken. Through my writing,  i hope to bring greater understanding to our family history and honour the lives of the women who came before me

My mother always encouraged me to write, so here I am mum, i'm finally doing it . i remember poor mum when she found herself at home in an empty nest and shrine to us, with a typewriter attempting to write. Perhaps she wanted to write her real story but she couldnt.im writing it for her now.. 

i started thinking abut the parable of the blind man.

In John 9, Jesus heals a man who was born blind. but the story is also about spiritual sight- moving from blindness into understanding

The mans says;

"Whereas I was blind, now i see"- John 9;25

What seemed like separate experiences is forming a larger picture. im painting a picture with my writing 

And there's another important part of that biblical story: not everyone understands or accepts what the healed man sees

Perhaps the most meaningful part of my awakening is that i don't  have to remain burdened by everything i'm discovering . i can seek understanding, tell my story and surrender the pain to Jesus 

 

My memoir is a journey from blindness to sight, from inherited pain toward freedom. Jesus opens my eyes but he also offers to carry what my eyes have begun to see. I believe God preformed a miracle this summer when he opened my eyes .. life has taken on a new meaning and im exited to share and advance in this glory. God revealed himself to me..in my garden in sutton in the morning sunlight in mum and grannys blooming garden. Their legacy..

 

 

 

Through these pages , I hope that our voices can be heard, our stories remembered and something beautiful can grow from the difficulties we experienced

This is my Art . Life is Art. . Art is in the details, the process, not the perfectly polished  finished product. There was never going to be a perfect finished memoir. how could there ever be when there is life . Abundant life and constant evolution

Ill start with a verse

1 Peter 4:12-14, 5: 6-11

Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you . But rejoice in so far as you are sharing christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the spirit of God , is resting on you.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast your anxiety on him, because he cares for you . Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. resist him, steadfast in your fait, for you know that your brothers and sisters, throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all graces who has called you to his eternal glory of Christ, will himself restore, support, strenghten and establish you. To him , be the power for ever and ever. Amen 

 

And not only that , but we glory in tribulation also knowing that tribulation is worth patience, character and hope. hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the holy spirit, whom he has given us

 

 

Finding my voice and my truth

Art and writing have always been part of who i am. I do not share my experiences to seek admiration or recognition, but because i have spent much of my life trying to understand my own story

For many years I struggled to recognise the gifts i had been given. Yet deep within me, there was always a quiet awareness that creativity was an important part of my purpose. Throughout my life , i searched for understanding through my art, revisiting the places where I grew up, listening to family stories and exploring the memories that shaped me. Looking back, I realise art was my way of discovering myself long  before I understood what that meant.

Mummy and granny played an important part in this journey. Mum and granny entrusted me with their stories

I listened, witnessed their suffering and carried their memories with me. Their experience helped shape my understanding of our family history.

over time through reading, reflection and prayer , I began to recognise patterns of hardship that seemed to repeat across generations. I wanted to understand these patterns, not to remain imprisoned by the past , but to find a way of moving forward

Art became a means of healing and self - discovery. Through paining , writing, drawing and performance and song, I explored the experiences and emotions that words alone could not always express.

as my faith has deepened i have also begun to see my life differently

I once believed that certain dreams and opportunities represented the future I was meant to have. Now I wonder whether some of the paths that never opened were, in their own way, a form of protection

Perhaps God's purpose for my life was different from the one i had imagined. Although I have experienced difficult and painful circumstances, I am learning that those experiences do not have to define who I am. My faith reminds me that there is hope beyond suffering and that forgiveness, humility and truth can lead towards a better future. I no longer feel that I must prove my worth to the world. I simply want to honour the lives of the women who went before me, use the gifts God has given me and tell my story with honesty humility and love

And perhaps, after all these years, that is where my true calling lies

I hope that by understanding and sharing the experiences of the women who came before me, i can help break the painful patterns that have passed through our family for generations

I don't have to diminish my gifts to be humble. I can acknowledge them with gratitude

 

Finding courage through Faith

 

History gives us knowledge and  patterns can repeat, sometimes across generations. Over this past summer, through prayer , reflection and the experiences of my life, I began to see things differently. For many years I struggled to understand why certain difficulties kept appearing in my life. I experienced disappointment, betrayal and circumstances that left me questioning myself and the direction my life had taken.

There were times i felt i lost touch with the person i truly was. Yet through these experiences, my faith continued to guide me

I began to understand that i could not change the past, but i could choose how i moved forward. My mother always called me her ' Brave Lorna'.

These words have taken on a deeper meaning now. Perhaps courage is not about proving ourselves right or overcoming others. perhaps it is about remaining faithful, seeking truth with humility and finding the strength to begin again.

To God be the glory

Breaking the patterns of the past

For much of my life I struggled to understand why certain painful experiences seemed to repeat themselves. There were times when i felt surrounded by hostility, betrayal and circumstances that i could neither understand nor explain. Some of these experiences involved people I had known and trusted for years

At times i wondered whether there was a spiritual dimension to what i was experiencing. My christian faith led me to reflect on the nature of good and evil, the influence of fear and jealousy, and the importance of protecting my peace

I cannot know everything that motivated the actions of others , but know how deeply certain experiences affected me. Over the years , I began to recognise the importance of establishing firm boundaries. Although these boundaries have not always been respected, i have learnt that protecting myself and my family does not prevent me from praying for others .My mother often questioned why misfortune seemed to return again and again. she would say, ' i don't understand what's happening'.. Looking back, i recognise how much these experiences affected my confidence and self worth. For many years i struggled to see the good in myself

I also began to wonder whether some of my painful experiences had effected my mother and granny before me. I believe my mother made certain decisions towards the end of her life because she wanted to protect me. At the time, I did not fully understand everything she was trying to do. Today through prayer, reflection and my growing understanding of faith, i am learning to look at these experiences differently

I no longer want my life to be defined by fear, intimidation or the actions of others

Instead i want to honour my mothers love, recognise the strength of the woman who have gone before me and move forward with humility, forgiveness and faith

To God be the Glory

 

 

The Roots of Faith

There was a time in my thirities when what i can only describe as the darkest chapter of my life. But to truly understand that period.i must explain what came before it. 

I had been living in Sydney , austrailia, on one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. To anyone looking in from the outside, my life might have appeared idyllic. yet behind that breathtaking scenary, i was experiencing the most physically abusive relationship i had ever known. On one hand you are having agreat experience but behind closed doors its horrendous. This is mind manipulation as its hard to process. It stems back to my narcissistic family of origon . if i ever left i would run into one narcisssist after another . I now know ,something dark was going on behind the scenes 

It lasted a year and a half. i remember being outside his door and a man on a motor bike on the road just staring at me as if to say.. i see your pain..

I had left my first born son at home with family to travel a bit . i had a restless soul. it broke my heart every day  to leave him behind. i remember a painful public phonecall on the street in bondi with him and my mum that made me question my decision to travel at that time. he was only 4 . niall ended up going to live with his dad and his family up north and i realise now that was the correct decision. Thankfully Niall and i have a wonderful relationship to this day. I dont feel like he felt abandoned by me because i always made sure to stay present in his life . We have a strong mother and son lovebond. His dads family have done an amazing job in bringing him up .im so proud of him

I met Karl in the old surfers end of bondi. . i was just chilling. i had just scored a bit of smoke from the hostel i was staying at. something i rarely did but i always found it anchored me in a different country..helped me to chill out.. i suppose i was vunerable as i was a solo traveller. i remember my initial impression of him wasnt good. i should have trusted my gut but the smoke definitely played a part. he showed me around sydney . his place had a tree with lorrokeets all over it . even though it was an abusive relationship the backdrop of summer in bondi was magnificent . i did leave him at times and went off to enjoy my own time in this amazing place .we went to cairns and i went on a solo trip to green island, part of the great barrier reef. he used to kick my legs with steel capped boots.. as i mentioned before because of my background and being the scapegoat, i was conditioned to accepting abuse.  .

anyways after i finally left him and went home . i discovered i was pregnant.. i remember feeling a ' quickening' during that pregnancy in sheepstown as if the spirit of the baby was very bright . 

It was against this backdrop of psysical abuse , emotional exhaustion and vulnerability that i experienced my abortion

i took an early morning flight to Manchester along with other women . it felt so sneaky like i had to go undercover 

For me, it was devastating , i felt that something deeply precious had been lost, a child of God, and i struggled with the feeling that the decision had not been my own . i felt like i only did it to please others.. i was already emerging from a relationship that had left me emotionally shaken , and now i found myself confornting a grief and spiritual emptiness unlike anything i had previously experienced 

For a time, i questioned the very world around me. I struggled to understand how something that felt profoundly wrong to me could have happened. i felt coerced .I felt disconnected from God and wondered whether i would ever find peace again

After the abortion the doctor said. it went great and all i could think of was.. how could killing my baby have gone great !. it felt so wrong.. i now know it was part of the spiritual warfare. There was now a death

i found myself walking along a public pathway through a farm in the english countryside near manchester. surrounded by lush trees and breathtaking scenary. i was taken aback by the beauty of the english scenary..i expereinced a sudden and unexpected sense of God's presence. 

And there among the trees, the words of jeremiah came into my heart.  The image of the tree planted beside water, its roots reaching towards the stream, remaining green even though in heat.

i began to feel that perhaps , despite everything , my own roots were still alive

that perhaps  ,i  to could flourish again.

 

One of the most painful experiences of my life was my abortion. it left me with a deep sorrow which i still carry. I felt that my own feelings had not truly been heard or understood, and it was particularly painful that my mother became caught up in it. Through my christian faith i have found comfort in remembering the child called jasmine. I hold her in my heart, pray for her and entrust her to gods love and mercy. i found a rural place after the abortion where God caught me and spoke to me of a blessed future with more children

There were other deeply upsetting experiences within my family , including a painful confrontation during my mothers final Christmas, when she was already seriously ill .I remember feeling heartbroken that she had to witness such distress at a time when she deserved peace and kindness

I called a lady in despair and she said she had an abortion too and i found so much healing in those words. i didnt feel isolated 

i

i went to a convent in Cobh to heal from that abortion in Rachels retreat, run by the catholic church . There was a rose in the garden. we had a funeral for my daughter jasmine . i was really struggling with her not having any dignity. this gave her some dignity

 looking back now on that whole experience i see it as one of the many deeply painful attacks on my life and mums life from the other side  . This was by far the worst because it served us ' death'...it extinguished life from our lives...

i felt the catholic church was the only place where i could get comfort . They completely understood my pain when nobody else did . a priest came in and i was forgiven by God 

i believe my daughter jasmine is in heaven now. i pray for her soul everyday and will be reunited with her in heaven . I want to apologise to her for what i did.

again this was the universe showing me again, in real life /time what had happened

my spirit/ soul , true self had been murdered but was sill alive in christ 

I was later blessed with the birth of my son, calum who everyday brings me joy and peace into my life. Then i had my third son josh who when i had him ... i gave birth to ' love' . i remember the song .. 'when love takes over' was on the radio and i related to it so much singling away to it as we walked along my local seafront.

 

 

For much of my life , i struggled with confidence , speaking publicly was difficult and i often experienced intense embarrassment and self-doubt. I found myself questioning why i felt so inadequate when in reality, i had much to be thankful for

i began to recognise how painful family experiences can shape the way we see ourselves.. I thought about my granny and my mother and the suffering they endured and wondered how much of that pain had been passed down the generations. I also remember how deeply my mother cared about my happiness and how much it hurt her to see me struggle. As i reflect on my own life, i began to realise that the negative picture i had carried of myself did not tell the whole story.

 The facts are, I had received a full education, travelled, lived and worked abroad, raised my children, maintained a 20 year successful career in childcare and continued to express myself through art and writing .They were not things i needed to boast about . They were simply parts of the life God had given me and i could acknowledge them with gratitude

 

Slowly, i began to understand that i did not have to carry the shame and inadequacy that weighed on me for so long. my faith has taught me that our worth is not determined by the opinions of others nor by the painful experiences of the past .I want to honour the woman who came before me, remember their strength and learn from their suffering and above all i want to move forward with humility, forgiveness and trust in God.

 

The veil is lifted..

when I began to uncover the patterns that followed me throughout my life. I started to realise how much of what I had believed about myself was never really mine . I had been made to feel inadequate, somehow less than, yet the evidence of my own life told a different story..  I could function and care .I am a highly capable person. yet I always carried a heavy sense of being wrong or flawed as if something unseen was shaping how others saw me. now I see the diminished version of me was never the full truth. i cant be that person anymore. .There was more life, strength, and possibility for me something i had always known deep in my heart . My truth 

The dream my mother carried

I began to realise how deeply the experiences of my life had effected the way i saw myself. It was not only the painful words and actions of others that had shaped me, but the way i had gradually internalised them. i had learnt to question my own worth, my judgement and even my abilities 

Difficult relationships, both within my family and elsewhere in my life, had contributed to a loss of confidence that I struggled to understand

i remember a neighbour in Sheepstown saying once to me, ' you have had a really tough life. Bad things seem to keep happening to you over and over.' For a long time that's how my life felt. whenever i had finally emerged from one difficult chapter, another one began.

but gradually , through reflection and faith, i began to recognise that the diminished version of myself I had come to believe in was never the whole truth.. My mother had always believed in me. She had dreams for my future, particularly the possibility that I might one day find success in Hollywood

she wanted me to break through the limitations she herself had experienced. Perhaps she hoped that through my achievements , some of the pain and disappointments carried through our family might finally be overcome.

I think of the song, ' I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables and how easily the hopes and dreams we carry can become overshadowed by the realities of life and get turned into shame.. for many years , I felt that both my mothers dreams and my own had somehow slipped away. yet deep down we both knew there was more to my life than the struggles I had experienced.as my faith grew, I have begun to question whether the destiny I once imagined was necessarily the one God intended for me. Perhaps the path I did not take was not a failure after all,. Perhaps the experiences I have lived through , painful as some of them were have given me a deeper understanding of suffering, compassion and the human condition.. I remember my mother speaking about taking a chance at stardom. At the time, I sometimes wondered how I could portray the depth of human experience when I had so much real life to discover

I have lived and perhaps the greatest gift of those years is not the recognition I once dreamed of, but the understanding and compassion I have gained

i am learning to make peace with the dreams that did not unfold as we imagined . Perhaps breaking the glass ceiling was never simply about hollywood or becoming famous. Perhaps it is about breaking the painful patterns of the past, finding my own voice and living the life God has given me with courage, compassion and love 

And perhaps in Gods time, I am discovering a different type of freedom

 

 

I've now lived ..poor mum was sad she didn't get to see our glass ceiling broken. She wanted to be alive to witness it.. she desperately did, but mum is with me now in spirit.. I believe that .. I've had to make peace with that pain . it is gods divine timing ..

 

 

 

 

                               The story about a magical land in the heart of Ireland where I grew up in and still live in and will haunt forever. ' Sheepstown'.

 

The Cailleach got down on her hands and knees and chanted. Sam froze in fright. he believed he was being cursed by the witch who lived down the road .It was a dark night, a banshee shreaked like a vixon fox. They were down at the small field on the corner in front of the dark forest. At the foot of the sinister tree. It was Sam's field but the witch wanted it to grow vegetables in . her voice was crackley. She lived in a small white thatched old Irish cottage called ' frog cottage'  down the road. She took the field from him forever . There was a stream at the other side of the road. a healing stream. a long time ago, three children had died there. Cattle got stuck in the mud there and had to be hauled out. Sam backed up into it in panic mode, almost drowning . He managed to free himself from the mud. He wandered up the first long , windy hill with grass in the middle, through 'the lawn' field feeling dazed and confused. The witch entered the forest , taking the mushroom -filled trails back to her tin roofed frog cottage made and lit the stove.

Sam's health began to deteriorate after that over time. He was never the same again. Everyday the witch wandered the country roads towards the local village Delvin to do her shopping. Sometimes she would get a lift

One night Sam heard the sound of the banshee again . Its piercing sound shot through the night. the old man who lived in the cottage overlooking the lawn, Sam's friend had died. Lorna remembers being in the cottage. It had an upstairs 

 

The day dazzled, Sheepstown in all its lush green glory. Oxygenating wind circling breathing life. The mother of light pushed the big black pram into the field across the road from her 70's bungalow . She loved being outside with her children in nature. It brought such joy to her heart. It was mid August and the blackberries were all out . They picked and picked, their faces bruised with juice, ink black. The berries were stewed and often served tart. She used them to make eves pudding . Her favourite . She was a real earth mother, fully embracing motherhood.. Pamela walking down the road picking rubbish and sticks and putting them at the bottom of her pram. Picking wild flowers, light pink dog roses were her favourite. she adorned the pram with them, singing away to her new baby. Her new baby giggled .She walking down the road . The cattle were drinking thirstily in the rambling field. Everything was still, unchangeable, peaceful , expansive. The big old farmhouse house was half a mile away from the family's pink house. Pamela opened the large iron gate and pushed the big old black pram inside the big old yard with the red water pump. . She was proud to be showing her mother in law Bassie her beautiful new baby ' Lorna Marjorie' . they entered the old Irish kitchen with the black wooden ceiling . The mother went to the toilet , down the hall with the black and white art deco tiled floor and to her shock when she came back she heard the grandma saying over and over . Poor Lorna , to the baby. Pamela felt uneasy. What had she done to her baby?? From the way she spoke the mother believed the baby may have been cursed too..

The evil uncle lurked in the shadowed  background rubbing his thin hands together. he looked like a ogre. 

At night a thick fog descended on the fields . It looked quite eerie ..There was a dead fox at the entrance to the black gate field and a poor dishevelled sheep wandering the road looking for a place to die. A bad omen. The early spring frost took it. It lay frozen in the hedge.

The old television was on, a chilling episode from ' the twilight zone ' was playing, about an old demon cutting out the hearts of people in an old horror house. it was in black and white . 

 

A bright wolf moon shone. They were having an evening bonfire behind the pink house. The moons beams were like the suns beams. they shined through the trees onto the billows of smoke. It was so atmospheric . The family took a walk out to marvel at all the magical star formations . They were comfortable in the dark. Their very own universe. 

The crow on the wire .So serene.

 

Lorna Awoke with a start. She was holding her care bear tight. The battle of dark and light was chanting in her head. The residue of a deep, intense dream. She tried to peer out the floral net curtain's ..It felt chilly. She jumped out of bed. It was excruciating dressing because their bungalow was so cold . They had to make a game out of it. It wasn't insulated with no heating . The open fires and range that mum painstakingly worked on  using fuel from the farm fired up heated the house. The winter months were filled with dirty fires, chilblains, woolly jumpers , itchy lambs wool blankets. Luke warm baths . The morning felt different for some reason. She felt even more excited than usual. She was getting a pony soon. She had wanted a pony for ages. .A white pony. After porridge and a big play with her siblings. Lorna's mummy, (who was the best mummy anyone could ever have ) suggested Lorna go for a walk up the land." Sounds like fun" Lorna said and headed off in her big black boots. It was late May so the land was finally dry and easy to walk on. It was quite bumpy though . Lorna chattered on to herself with her dog Lassie in tow. Her favourite time of year to walk the land was spring because you could see the gangs of sprightly new lambs frolicking down the hills. Such a joy to behold. Early spring , Lorna would race out to the fields after school to bring in any new lambs to the shed where it was cosier . She loved hunting for new lambs and feeding the orphaned ones .She loved the outdoors and animals. 

She started down the grassy road. The hedges were filled with wildflowers, primroses, buttercups and cowslips. They were fragrant and heady in summer when the scented white weeds grow. Lorna jogged a bit taking in the air deeply. She entered the left side of the farm . She knew every inch of that farm. All the winding cattle trails. Sometimes she would stop and enjoy a delightful little spot like under a small chestnut tree. There were oak trees, ash trees, lime trees and crab apple trees. The freedom to linger without the prying eyes of the world on you . Blissful, relaxation. Sometimes there were sheep caught in the briars Lorna felt like her shepherd Sam father.as she freed them. She was a sheep whisperer. She jumped a gate to enter a field . It was a glorious day . The sun shone brightly through the trees. She was wearing her old hand - me - downs , brothers clothes, a real tomboy. She walked towards the fairy fort which was at the back of the land beside the stream and willow way. Willow way is a pathway through lush willow trees. The birds sang their cheery song. She noticed the new leaf shoots on the tall majestic trees. 

she talked about where she was in life , processing everything .Most of the time she basked in the moment where her true power lay .She reached the fairy fort . There were big stone boulders in it, rocks that she would stand on and declare herself sovereign. High Queen Lorna Marjorie O'Neill, ruler over all of Ireland .

Suddenly she heard whispering. The faint whisper of fairies rustled through the trees and bushes that surrounded the fort. A light drizzle began. The sound of the soft rain and the whispering fairies was quite magical. The rain refreshed her, it always made her hair curly and her cheeks rosy. She edged towards the fort.. It hadn't rained for ages. It really is a fairy fort. She marvelled . In her dreams, she had always believed this . The bushes which bordered the fort were covered in white bushes. She felt lost in the moment, a moment of sheer delight. It seemed like the  fairies were trying to communicate with her. What were they trying to say? Oh she caught sight of them . They were wispy with cheeky faces and rosy cheeks. Lorna thought they looked a bit like a miniature version of her . Two delicate feathers flapping away in excitement. Like moths , bright electric blue large moths .Sparkles , and dandelion wisps filled the air . Some of the fairies were blowing them. Some looked like butterflies with human heads. I'm calling those ones ' flutterlies'" thought Lorna. They were eating ' strottleberries' which was a purple berry that tasted like ice- cream .

Lorna nearly fainted. What a sight!. Wait till she tells her mum about this. Lorna ran home and told her mum. At dusk Lorna brought her dog 'lassie' down to see the electric blue moths. She had a torch which they flapped around . They were drawn to the light. There were moths with the fairies too. Fairies and moths. A magical experience . Ill never forget this ' thought Lorna A beautiful memory from my childhood in Sheepstown..

The Summer stretched out endlessly. It was getting dark very late .The O'Neill's and local kids liked to ramble around the countryside thinking they were the famous five finding old ruins in fields or doing archaeological digging in the banks of rivers finding large cattle bones . 'Smiling Bess' lay close to Sheepstown. It was an old ruin of a mansion with a beautiful ornate gateway, which they entered and snuck down the long avenue. The avenue was like a long path with no hedges or trees. The animals could cross it . They entered the ruin. It had wings either side. There were dead sheep in the hedges that stank .Putrid smell. The farmer must not be shepherding his sheep properly , Lorna thought. Lorna was a sheep whisperer. There was an incident where they were separating a lamb from her mother unintentionally. The sheep was visibly upset and Lorna coped it and called a halt to the whole operation. Lorna would routinely help sheep to get free from being stuck in barbed wire especially in the snow. 

In the old ruin there were dark passageways . The farmer would drive down the avenue and they would run for the hills. it was so much fun. They felt like the famous five .They found another ruin of an old cottage in the fields

The oneill children got pet calves. They called one 'Jubilate'. They were fed buckets of milk and calve nuts everyday . It was powder milk . What a smell . warm milk 

One hot July day . Lorna was i the garden which was blooming magnificently . She started to walk out to the road over the cattle grid .She had a sense somebody was about . Lorna had psychic senses . She looked down the long winding hill. The first of the two hills .. She looked down the long picturesque hill and saw a mysterious black cloaked figure at the bottom of the hill. That's strange she thought to see someone dressed in all black on such a hot day. Plus it looked like it was gliding . She went back to the house to watch the person walk by and literally within a few seconds , an old woman dressed in old period dress glided by. High necked with long sleeves. A very long dress. Lorna had never seen anyone like that before . In the country you get to know that people that walk the roads, especially the old people. It left her with a chilling feeling .

A few days later on another beautiful day , Lorna went out for a jog to the local shop . She met the same old lady on the road. Lorna had to pass her. The woman looked straight ahead. she didn't seem real at all. There was a tall woman , Lorna heard who had lived a long time ago at those crossroads. it was her . She had loved the place so much she had returned . Lorna will haunt the place too. 

It was one of those beautiful spring mornings that already felt like summer. The children were inside , and i was sitting out with a cup of coffee, looking across the paddock towards the old red hay shed. Everything was peaceful. Then i noticed a man at the far entrance of the field, almost a field away from me. He was an elderly man, an old county farmer with a large walking stick and a collie dog beside him. He was sitting on an old rock with a perfect view of the land. He had such ease and authority that he looked as though he owned the land. I had never seen him before. In the countryside you tend to know the people who live nearby and i had lived there my whole life. Although i was sitting almost directly within his line of sight, he appeared not to notice me at all. I went inside for a cup of coffee but when i came back outside , he was gone . Then somehow he seemed to appear again. Later when i realized he had disappeared once more. i quickly looked down the road, expecting to catch sight of him with the dog but no sight of them..it was as though the whole scene had simply vanished .I have never been able to explain that morning. i felt like i was looking at an old farmer of sheepstown.

There is a swallows next at the gable end of the pink house. Mr.Swallow lives in the nest with his family. They fly in and out tweeting away. Mr. Swallow is friends with ragged Robin. They poo down on the houses bins

The mother Pamela feeds 5 hungry swallows bread on the frosty mornings

Lorna walks around the farm at night with her black hoodie on.. The nights are proper dark., no street lights here ..The wind howls through the big old trees.. she knows every corner of the land . She adopts night vision. The algae in the stream at the end of the farm. .Her white dress billows in the cold night wind. She dances in her garden feeling truly alive. She feels the cold night wind on her skin . She sings and sings , 'oh what a beautiful sense of freedom.' 

She spun around the garden , her feet soaked with fresh rain.. It felt so good. 

In the Winter, the trees glistened with frosty delight. The iced ponds were a skaters paradise . Mark ( Lorna's sibling)  cracked through in the middle of the pond wearing a big pair of big black boots .Lorna laughed. They made sleighs out of animal feed bags .The bungalow got snowed in and they dug holes through it.. Lorna wrote 'hello world' on her bedroom window condensation  . Freezing fingers . mum always there taking care of us with such love and kindness when we returned to the house

The pony ' Snowy' arrived in a red horse box. Alongside the stone walls Lorna's grandad Norman had built. What a patient man .The rocks were large and heavy . Lorna rode Snowy to lough Lene along the sweet roads, walking her into the water ..Snowy loved hanging out with the cattle. She thought she was one .Lorna rode the white horse snowy down the paddock at night. The horse reared up. It was like there was an invisible force in front of her. Lorna tried to break in the horse that lived in the field on the corner . They climbed the small hill .The slight young horse reared up and landed on Lorna . She bruised her ribs

The cattle grid of leaping frogs 

The mother of nature would put on her gloves and reach into the cattle grid and pull the hedgehogs that got stuck in there. The fields housed pools of freshly spawned frogspawn that the children would gather and subsequently grow baby frogs .. What a delight and an education for the children .. Lorna loved to host a slug farm while her dad dug potatoes in the patch 

Clusters of edible mushrooms . The children chanted ' mushroom city' and they gathered them all up , enjoying a yummy fry up later that evening .what an appetite 

At Halloween they built a big bonfire at the edge of the forest. The sparks rose up high into the sky almost catching light to the tall trees above. The neighbours would congregate around . There were characters that resembled fields . One woman in particular had a black cloak on and looked very witchlike  cackling away . The ferny field with the sinister tree and the deep black forest behind. It looked like a horror scene young Lorna thought .

The gang of local children would walk through the old pond, circle tree area in dal'ys land. they would hold hands and close their eyes and walk through the swamp. they sat around the swamp. Susan the youngest starting getting sucked down in the mud. everyone just sat and took no notice of what was happening. Lorna had been watching all the time and acted just in time, pulling her by the head out of the mud saving her life. she was 4 , Lorna was 8 

Pamela would pick sticks if she was out for a walk for the fires she lit daily protective fires all through the cold winter months . The fires made the house very cosy .She had truly mastered the art of homemaking.

In a little town outside Mullingar there is a little town called Tyrellspass . It was there that a little children beauty contest was held. mum brought Lorna  as a little girl and put her in a puffy yellow dress . She won the competition . She got a trophy . i think it was kept secret  . She was such a pretty girl with a regal high forehead just like her mums . Pamela the mother of light was a beauty and so was Lorna . She had blonde curls like her grandfather and piercing green eyes . Pamela had a big dream in her heart for Lorna that she prayed everyday would come true .Lorna had real wealth 

The family minus dad ventured down the narrow Mulliginstown roads which seemed to get narrower and narrower. They found the secret hazelnut forest, up and down the hills. They gathered hazelnuts to eat by the fire later. such excitement , running through the forest . 

Daddy would bring them on Sunday drives around the country roads, Oldcastle direction. I would go with him to the mart in Delvin on Thursdays. he would buy us something in the shop and get very impatient if we didn't pick straightaway. he was very impatient. mum was patient. He wasnt like a father should be. Lorna didnt feel any love from him as a daughter should and he didn't treat her mum well at all and that pained Lorna . She made a promise to herself that she would never let anyone treat her like that but unfortunately history would repeat itself over and over in her life

There was once when he came back from the meat factory .. Lorna listened behind the door of the kitchen as he told the gruesome tale of cattle being slaughtered to mum with big knives . daddy sounded really upset by it and mum too  . lorna  cried and wowed to not eat meat in her life. she saw people wearing white coats with blood splattered on them . she didn't think she could ever be a farmer either, definitely not in the traditional sense

Lorna jogged up the road on the bright mornings marvelling at the light. She had the universe to herself going down the quiet road. The wind ruffles the barley in the fields. The pony snowy dies . Grandma was supposed to look after her and give her water . Lorna blames herself . They go on a holiday to her aunts house in Galway . Lorna hugs her care bear tight .Battle of dark and light , The cattle circled her dead body . Lorna experiences heat break and grief and self blame for the first time

                                                             Lorna's spirit animal ..The Unicorn's appearance and her mother Pamela's spirit bird, The Divine Robin

The red breast robin perches beside the pony and revives here with tiny droplets of water. reviving her .. The fog consumed the white horse. She awoke gently, her eyes shining through. Bright diamond eyes. There was a red robin tucked in beside her, her red breast a deep contrast to her snow white body. it started to flutter. A flock of robins gathered around. It was the crack of dawn. The morning chorus birdsong was in full volume joined by bleating sheep and lambs. Quite the symphony. The land was lush and green. A damp space, her space, her land.. She was the gatekeeper of Sheepstown. Pure oxygen awoke her exhausted body like a fresh April breeze. Glistening , sparkling wings, long majestic white feathers. A soft pink hue. It was cold , her body shivered. There were a million Magnificent stars. Gnarled branches tickled her trembling skin. There was a smell of wood. She noticed the fields, they shone with a million dewdrops. She lay in the middle of a small fairy fort surrounded by small trees and bushes . A circle tucked away at the end of the land. This was to become lorna's lifelong land , where the long grass grew . In the Summer it was an oasis of delight. Fiery eyes , white , deep , flashy black eyes. Oh look a solstice moon lit the nearby fields, like a flashlight. A car drove by with no lights , which way to turn, waiting for the night to end. She enjoyed the peace, a time to rest, a time to heal

Dawn snuck up on her . She moved around slowly at first , stretching. her hair was ruffled with a big frize in the back .She saw giant crab apple trees spread along the field. Perfect for crab apple jelly, she thought .. The robin with its exquisite rose red breast followed the horse darting in and out or her . the grass tasted good, she was hungry and thirsty. The dark brown water soothing her throat. She trotted, cantered and galloped down the hills, then taking flight. This was the perfect place to fly above the old leafy oaks, under the moody sky.. The robin joined her . Her red breast beaming against the sun . A big bright rainbow appeared after the misty rain , red, green , indigo . She trotted slowly it, what a magical feeling ! . it was like the colours were becoming part of her .The robin landed on her back . they were 'one'. They entered the 'black gate ' field . it was freshly sowed and looked like a black desert. The chocolate field. Long rolling hills

The horse called the Robin ragged after the beautiful spring flower that lasts and lasts. One of Pamela's favourites. Roblin called the horse ' snowy' because ' your body gleams like snow'. we both have wings , wings to soar , lets soar. Snowy started to feel powerfully stronger. They moved into the other fields where the cattle were.. The cattle congregated around them, sniffing the air delighted

They found the road with the grass in the middle. The magic road. Its windy bends. there were rusty ferns and copper tones in the freshly cut neat hedges. As they turned the corner, the big sad farmhouse appeared majestically. It was trapped in a time warp. What stories it could tell. The unrequited dreams. it was a bright breezy day. Snowy and Ragged entered the haggard through the high hay shed and trotted through the enchanted pink, white and purple bluebell paddock. The land seemed to stretch out forever, revealing delight after delight. It was still a bit muddy out. the end of march. The countryside in Ireland gets very muddy especially in the winter months. You live in boots. The mud splattered snowy but she didn't mind. It felt lovely

She felt alive, more real than she ever had, then all of a sudden while standing in the middle of a field beside two old gate pillars, she felt her magic. Ragged watched from a nearby branch chirping away. " Oh snowy "she said, " your magic has appeared", " Don't be fearful , just let it happen. Her wings folded out. Her horn grew. She felt a little scared but it felt great. The apple blossom blizzards conjured up a magical scene

 

Lorna visits the fairies in the fairy fort and makes friends with a fairy Fionnula. She tells them her snowy just died . She gets integrated into the fairies, putting a stake down on the land as her forefathers did before her. 

Lorna and Snowy enter Sheepstown. They take the windy roads. the trees were glistening, a million ice diamonds. There had been a storm. The roads were dappled with puddles that shone and dimmed as the sun appeared and disappeared behind the heavy black clouds. They jumped over a fallen tree and started climbing up a magic road. Walking, trotting and galloping. Suddenly Lorna turns into twinkle the fairy, snowy turns into Luna the unicorn and the robin gets a gold tummy and wings. They fly off the top of the road, up t the vast magic sky towards the winged moon

They soar back around to the bottom of the ferny field

 

The unicorn and the witch have a showdown at the corner field. The unicorn reared up pawing at the witch. The witch dies and the field returns to the O'Neill's . Snowy basks in it with twinkle and ragged by her side . They look up and there's cattle storming down the hills . They have broken free and are excited to munch on the fresh grass 

Sheepstown, magical sheepstown, cant wait to go back, dont think just drive

The bus is driving me home to sheepstown, a rocking bus. im running, im running take me home

Grandma your eyes. your tear soaked eyes

Grandma wakes up in her bedroom in the middle of the night in the old farmhouse and hearing a noise, rushes to her window which overlooks the big farmyard with the old red pump and she sees grandad and daddy both long gone from this world and they are calling .saying come , come excitedly gesturing for her to come down. Everyone was so happy. they were all waving to each other

 

Grandad and Daddy, like shepherds in a dream, herd a beautiful glowing flock of pure white sheep around the bend and down the winding  Sheepstown Road, grass growing along its middle and tall hedges rising on each side, past the old stone Irish walls Grandad patiently built by hand 

So pure and peaceful

"Peace reigns in Sheepstown"

 

A narcissistically abused life to a life of freedom

Psychological warfare

High priestess

Warrior of Ireland

Daughter of God

Narcissism is the global pandemic , nobody is talking about because its insidious. Its the devils work through peoples brains , these are people out to destroy peoples souls...Its very important to protect yourself and stay close to Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene ., joseph, the dark side has taken over and we have an example in history of that happening in the past in nazi germany. we must learn from this.. history gives us knowledge and patterns repeat.that is an example ft a society with no god.

I always thought i was the reincarnation of Jim Morrison from the American band 'the doors', a modern-day Jim so to speak, here to wake up the world.." you have a distinct voice of freedom' my friend Helen said to me one day in our wild art school youth . I've always felt I have a big purpose. I felt it growing up in Sheepstown. I felt the power. I've always felt so powerful. it was what my mother instilled in me.' What a mother' our neighbour Jodie said after she died .' What a mother'.

Ill start with a hard  memory of when i was in Sydney Austrailia . It was a hot day, almost 50 degrees, My guy at the time Karl and i were visiting a bank. This was a horrible abusive relationship. I was covered in bruises , bad dark bruises. I was wearing short summer clothes and i was very thin with stress. A young girl came into the bank with her mother and cried loudly. the mother held her back. . She looked at me with such pity . i felt so much shame 

At the time , I was caught in a bad relationship that had turned violent. But I was so inside it, I couldn't name it . Looking back it feels a bit like 'the Emperor's New Clothes' Something was plainly wrong , maby even visible , people averted their eyes out of politeness or not knowing what to do. And then that little girl noticed and cried. Her honesty cut through everything. She wasn't pretending. She wasn't averting her eyes . She saw something that frightened or saddened her. And that moment, it all went real for me too. someone had noticed .That child's didn't just break the silence. It called out to the girl child i used to be. It was like my own 'inner child was shedding tears for what had become of me. What had become of me ??

The whole bank stared at me..

There is a lot of domestic violence in Austrailia and New Zealand. I witnessed a woman running out of her house screaming once . its right under everyone's nose. 

I'm listening to the song by the eagles ' try to love again'

 .. I've always felt an infinity with music .. it draws close and communicates to me but music is what drew mum and i to our narcissistic husbands

This whole memoir has been turned upside on its head recently as i' ve experienced a deep awakening, veil lifted , lifelong pattern recognition which is such a blessing .

The reason the above happened was, it went too far , so far it actually broke and stole my heart which is why i must give birth to this memoir /book

 

Its never been so important to get this memoir out so i pray the right people read it and some good comes out of it for me.. Even the short piece i've written already has given me some relief.. I was erased, mum was erased, granny was erased ..its run down the bloodline...Scapegoats...I've started going to my local church daily and i pray for everyone around me everyday..My whole life has made sense. Why all the painful things kept happening to me.. Looking back, I began to feel there's a pattern . It started acutely with bullying by boys in school from the age of 11. I honestly thought my life was over. I just couldn't understand why i was being treated so badly..as a young girl of 11/12 . My first bully ben carried on for years and years.. There was such venom but why ?..i had never done anything bad to him. Why would he act like this.. , even after secondary school ended., when i met him at a friends wedding..i managed to stand up to him then . he stood alone without the gang. He looked defeated . I felt powerful . One of the other bullys stephen  told me how sorry he was and how beautiful i looked. That meant a lot. 

Mum experienced bullying from the age of two in ' Laragh' west cork . She was living with her family in a wing of her mother Marjorie's old homeplace .. A beautiful old protestant estate . She got teased horribly by two young girls who lived in the other wing.. Why did she experience so much venom from such a young age ..? 

She then experienced bullying in secretarial college in Alex school, Dublin. The girls were so mean to her  . They would disrupt her bed so she couldn't sleep in it. Interesting thing was i experienced this same bullying with girls in a christian Avoka camp . They spit on my bed 

I now realise that there was something incredibly dark behind the scenes ,, something that had run the show for generations.. I now have to bring this darkness to the light , without naming names specifically because i don't believe these people even realise what they have done or what they are doing ..Its deeply ingrained in them ..i believe mum , granny and i are Gods chosen people and thats why we experienced so much pain

I believe if you experience this level of psychological warfare and if its been passed down the generations then you become an easy target for bullying . It makes you extremely vulnerable . you have a target on your back

Mum , granny and I were and are absolute beauty's inside and out, artists too . Exquisitely beautiful on all levels.. Highly creative people. The cinderella story is real 

I must have been about 19 at the time , still very young , doing my portfolio preparation course in killester Dublin, staying with Granny. There was this dull old picture in the kitchen. One day, out of nowhere , she took out gold paints and transformed it into a golden city, domes glowing. She told me it was ' heaven'..I was stunned . Granny the humble, God fearing woman revealing this hidden part of herself. . I think that was why i realized this was where my artistic talent came from . The promised land still shines in my memory

More recently i found myself drawn towards the catholic church during a very difficult time in my life . I had forgotten about purgatory and about praying for the souls of those that dies

For so long i had simply imagined granny and Mum were already in heaven. But something in me felt called to pray for them and the rest of my family. This has made the memory of Granny's golden city feel even more powerful to me now. They have finally reached ' The promised Land'.

 

 

A light that remains

 

I have always believed there was something special about the spirit of the women, mum granny and i  in our family. A love of nature, a deep faith, a deep warmth a sense of freedom and a determination to live authentically seemed to run through the generations.

At times i felt that these qualities were misunderstood or overshadowed by difficult relationships and circumstances. I could see their heart and its lived with me since so deeply ..

Yet despite everything, life has also been an extraordinary adventure. I have been blessed with the most wonderful experiences , fascinating people, beautiful places and memories i will always treasure. ive had an incredibly adventerous life 

 

Mum and Dad.- Pamela and Sam & my grandparents

my mums mother

My grandmother , Marjorie Kingston

My mothers family, the Kingstons came from West Cork. They were Methodists, part of a long standing tradition of irish protestant farning families . My grandmother, marjorie grew up in a large family . Most of the children were tall . Granny was tall for a girl. A strikingly beautiful woman.There were two girls and about 5 boys . It was an interesting family with war connections . Granny had a strong spirit such a pure spirit .The home is an extraordinary old house , almost like a castle, with turrets and wings extending from either side.

In those days they travelled by horse and carraige before they eventually got a car. Despite their circumstances life was far from easy . The house had no electricity during most of granny's childhood and the children were expected to work hard. granny had to get up at 6 in the morning to make butter with her siblings.

Her father was a strict man, and i have often wondered whether she received the tenderness and affection she needed as a young girl growing up. Granny looked like a tomboy in the pictures.. She had an adventurous spirit. Granny had a story of flying in a small airoplane her pigtails flying in the air.grannys mum ironed her hair. I believe there were difficult relationships within her family, particularly with her sister and i often wondered whether granny felt overshadowed or misunderstood. Both sides of my family came from irish farming protestant backgrounds , yet their experiences of family life were not always peaceful.

Marjorie and Joseph Mayne

Granny married my grandfather who i look strangely like now .Joseph Mayne. My son said he looks like superman in his early pictures.. They met at a tennis party at Laragh. Joseph came from Springvale in co. Mayo.

Granny would ride at the back of his bike 

There is a photograph at their wedding that has always fascinated me. I look at young marjorie in her wedding dress and wonder what hopes and dreams she carried into that marraige. grannys sister is close by and looks very different that granny and her mother steps on her veil as does her new husband..i feel like grannys sister and her mother are the same person . granny didnt have great words to say about them but granny knew not to speak badly about people . it was against her faith, she feared God.

 

Marjorie Mayne was a beautiful, stunning woman. Mum said when she entered a room , heads would turn. Joseph was jealous and didn't like other men looking at her . Granny suffered with terrible migraines and i wonder how much emotional strain she carried throughout those years. 

My grandmother, marjorie mayne was a strikingly beautiful woman, both inside and out . She had a natural elegance, an almost regal presence yet she was deeply humble, gentle and God-fearing.She had little interest in appearance or material things and her greatest beauty lay in her kindness and purity of heart . she made a beautiful home but was not obsessed with housework . She would bake scones at 6 in the morning so we could eat them in the carpeted kitchen when we got up .She was a wonderful example to me. What deeply saddened my mother was seeing such a remarkable woman become downtrodden, within a controlling marraige, her confidence gradually diminished . After grandpa died ( his last wish in the nursing home was to see a 3 year old curly topped me) . Mum tried to restore some of granny's joy and dignity . i remember her entering Granny into a glamerous granny competition at church  , dressing her in a pink straw hat and she won. The happiness it brought us all.. looking back i see that this story continued through three generations- my granny, my mother and myself. each of us experienced relationships that, in different ways, restricted our freedom and prevented us from fully flourishing . My mother recognised this and desperately wanted a different life for me . She encouraged me to recognise my own worth, and her words became a source of tremendous strength during some of my darkest years. Yet alongside that strength came a painful sense of regret for the opportunities and experiences that might have been. I have come to understand that this inheritance was both a burden and a blessing. It was never about outward beauty , but about dignity, faith and the quiet strength of women who, despite everything they endured possessed something precious within themselves that could never truly be taken away. Its something that has been passed down to my children.. Its strength in God ..

From the stories passed down from my mother, i came to understand that joseph could be extremely controlling and jealous 

i remember hearing that she was rarely allowed to turn on the heating . After grandpa died , a close neighbour visited the house and remarked on how wonderfully warm it was , almost like a furnace

Such a small detail, yet it speaks volumes about the freedom granny may finally have felt. My mother was relieved granny could at last live without these strict restriction almost like the same restrictions she had endured as a child with her father.. i remember granny being so peaceful and humble and kind. 

My fathers family

My father was called William Samual James O'Neill. I always thought it was a wonderful name.They called him 'Sam'. he was the first born son in his family. His mother Francis Holmes was my grandma on my daddys side. I  was very close to her growing up.. i have fond memories of visiting grandma , often finding her with a cigerette hanging out of her mouth although she never smoked in front of us.. At christmas she would give us a little baileys and she called me ' movie star'.. yet there was another side to grandma that troubled me, even as a young child. she could be very unkind to mum and i remember witnessing her shouting at mum on the road. I didn't like seeing her anger directed at my mum . I would look at her in shock. Grandma came from a difficult background. Her brother Robert was described as a tyrant and she had endured an unhappy experience working for him. There was even a family story that, after inheriting the family homeplace at Newcastle, near Castlepollard, he had turned his own parents out on the road. Grandma and a sister called Florie whom she spoke about often and with great affection . she had died young. i named one of my dolls after her. She had another sister dolly who had a great faith and lived a life of a nun .

in grandmas younger days she too had been strikingly beautiful with white-blonde hair . She once told me she had the opportunity to become a hair model in Dublin. but , like so many women of her generation, she never had a chance to pursue a career of her own.

The O'Neill family and life at Sheepstown

Grandma married Norman O'Neill, although im not entirely sure how they met. Perhaps it was at one of the lavish, almost decadent parties held by the O'Neills at their homeplace at Cummerstown , beside lough lene. Grandad came from a farming background. There were horses too. Mum attended some parties there before marrying daddy and was impressed .

sadly Norman lost his inheritance through drinking and his two sisters lolly and Edna remained living at his family homeplace neither sister married. Edna would spend all her time in her room smoking . we would visit them as children, there was dogs. When the house finally came up for sale again i remember going to the auction and mum got some family futniture which she treasured. mum always thought that we should by right be living there not sheepstown. it was nicer than sheepstown in a lot of ways. 

Norman and bassie had to build their life at sheepstown from scratch. it was a working farm with cattle and sheep, including herefords and friesians. grandma kept pigs in the yard and had a chicken shed. i have lovely memories of her holding them and getting us to hold them and looking for eggs in the hen house. She had a natural affection for animals that i have inherited 

Daddy was the eldest son and had twin brothers. grandma found raising the twins quite demanding and eventually employed a helper, Mary Cooke. i remember them together. The three boys boxed in the hayshed. One of the twins would help grandma cook in the kitchen.

Grandma was an excellent cook and spent much of her time preparing meals for Norman and daddy who worked hard on the land. i remember her lemon meringue pie, her brown bread and her sponge cake .she had a belfast sink . it was a traditional family household. there was also a love of classical music which they listened to regularly. grandma smoked the pipe in front of the fire. daddy took up cigerettes at a young age. it became a lifelong habit. he would smoke walking the land sucking in the smoke for ages . although he promised mum that he would give up smoking after they married but they never did.its a curse

Before she met dad mum poured herself into tennis. it was her social world and that's where she met her first boyfriend .mum didnt go to pubs . The protestants didnt really engage in the pub culture . her first love and probably her only true love . Around then her faith was burning bright. She wrote to him about giving his life to Jesus and he left. He moved on quickly and when she later met dad , he looked like him. Mum never really got over that first love and would speak to me about him often . even after dad died , we went looking for him when we were on a holiday in the  area that he lived . .mum then stopped being on fire for Christ and warned me about getting too much into that . I believe that this man blocked mums light 

 

mum  decided when she got near 30 that she should get married . she didn't want to be an old maid. she had to look for a protestant . In those days it was usual for the religions to breed together.   her sister had started a family and mum longed for her own children. she went to a protestant dance near trim on her own and was a wallflower . daddy and his brother Edgar and Edgars girlfriend were there . Daddy said she looked like the picture of beauty. mum was a very beautiful young woman. i inherited her good looks . she had dark short hair and striking intense eyes , slim , a high forehead and the most wonderful wide smile. mum was so cheerful and a delight to be around. i'm not sure exactly bit daddy must have asked mum to dance and i think she went back to Sheepstown. mum was impressed with sheepstown and loved the beautiful countryside. She spoke about the dog roses in the hedges . granny was a bit wary of daddy . she did'nt get a good feeling . she thought he might have health problems . he didn't seem to be a very strong man . she had good insight .. grandpa advised mum to go for daddy because he had land and she would always have the security of that .at their wedding there was no alcohol mums family had decided but dads dad grandad stopped off at the pub on the way to the wedding.. There was no respect right from the start

 

i was called after Laura . Granny thought Lorna sounded better as less common . I love Lorna . it evokes the Yorkshire moors from the Bronte sisters stories. Lorna Doone .

I the child who looked just like mum. I think mum wanted me to live the life she never lived but i ended up living her life ..you end up just like your parent's.I had the family name, Marjorie. Marjorie Mayne, Pamela Marjorie, and Lorna Marjorie. Mum would call us the three Marjorie's. Three generations of Marjorie's . There's only one left and thats me!.I have vivid memories of the three of us standing in the hallway in Sutton laughing together about being 3 Marjories. She would ask me over and over , would i call my daughter Marjorie if i had one, i said a firm ' no', over and over. in secondary school in kings hospital, the teacher read out our full names and the room cracked up when they heard my name. I got teased for years and that was my nickname but i hated it. marge simpson had just become famous and i didnt want to be called after her. i was so much more than that . the bully boys would scream marge in big gangs while i burned up in shame wanted the ground to swallow me up . noone stood up for me and i didnt tell mum. i i did tell her they called me marge and she told granny and they taught that was funny . i never really opened up about the extent of the bullying . i think again i was ashamed ..i love the name now because its unusual .. i love my name 

Norman , Daddy's dad, bought Sheepstown with some inheritance money and started Sheepstown from scratch . There would have been terrible scenes growing up in Sheepstown with an alcholic father ..Another narcissistic family . There was a story where my dad had to knock out his drunk father when he was beating up on my grandma..my grandad would store bottles of whiskey in the big hay shed , out in the haggart.

 

Mums family..

After leaving Laragh, when mum was very young, the family moved around Ireland quite a bit, as grandpa worked as a bank manager. Mum attended a catholic school in Athlone run by nuns. she remembers it as harsh and unhappy environment. The girls letters home were read and even their visits to the toilet were monitored 

Mum attended a catholic school in Athlone., Roslevin. It was boarding . I don't know why she was boarding because they lived locally and also why was she sent to a catholic school when her family were not catholic ..I believe it was her strict father. Mum had protruding teeth, but rather than pay for braces, her father had them removed and mum had to wear false teeth from a young age, which was so hard on mum. 

My grandpa was financially controlling towards his wife, Marjorie. Granny had to make clothes for her children, mum and her older sister. Grandpa didnt give her money to buy them. Even her driving was restricted. She could not go above a certain speed. It was humiliating for granny to have to suffer this way. Mum was close to granny and i believe that bond gave them both comfort.i believe this pattern repeated with me when i was left as a sinle mum to two boys and struggled without any help from the father 

 

For a time, the family lived in a small cottage in Roscommon. There is a photograph of Mum as a young girl playing with a cat outside., the cat up on its hind legs. She always had a special affection for cats and found great peace in their company, just like I do. Mum loved animals 

Mum had a sister whose influence seemed to dominate much of her life, along with that of her husband. There was an atmosphere of jealousy, control and emotional tension surrounding their relationship. I felt it from mum when they were together and i also felt it myself when i was with my own younger sister. The patterns repeat. i believe granny felt this way with her sister also

Even as a child, i sensed that something wasn't right. Mum would become noticeably tense around her sister. my aunt behaved as though mum she was so calm was the problem but i could see another side to the story

I remember mum speaking about the hurt she experienced when she was excluded from family gatherings. i could sense how diminished and disrespected she felt in their presence

At times , she seemed almost like a defeated child. Yet this was not the woman i truly knew

My mother was a sovereign soul

When she was away from those influences, particularly in our countryside life, she was brave enough to show us her true self, her heart. She was strong, independent and completely herself. She did not need to hide behind a man, a profession or a social position to establish her worth. I believe we gave her confidence . There was something deeply powerful about her very existence. She possessed a certain brightness of spirit that could not easily be extinguished. Mum did not get caught up in the ' ways of the world' . She knew to put God first . mum glowed without any make-up or fancy clothes .Mum would get her 'glow up ' communing with nature , not in organised groups of woman but by herself or with her loved ones. That's why she loved the sea in Sutton and the countyside in Sheepstown which are perfect places to ' glow for God .

I have also showed my three children Joshua, calum and Niall my true self and they know who I really am. They know my worth/ truth and heart,  regardless of any pain that might be thrown our way and they will always know.  They give me my confidence and I them 

That is the inheritance i treasure most

mum taught me, through her example, that i did not have to compete in the worlds endless race of recognition and achievement. I did not have to prove my worth through statue, possessions or the approval of others

I was worthy simply because i existed . I was loved, and i am a child of God..

I do not have to spend my life desperately trying to find someone to love me, God loves me

I recognise echoes of mums experience in my own relationships with my 2 siblings. At times, I have felt similarly excluded and misunderstood and betrayed . It has made me reflect on how painful family patterns can pass from one generation to the next

Yet i also believe something else can be passed down, the courage to remain true to oneself

Mums older sister died about a year after mums passing in their 70's. Their complicated relationship is something i have often reflected on. Ive also reflected on grannys relationship with her sister vera, and in turn my very complicated relationship with my younger sister. I noticed a very deep connection between us something like what twins would experience, as if we were somehow connected on a deeper level. It felt a bit uncomfortable and i struggled to understand it ..I would speak to her about it but i would be met with silence which left me somewhat confused.. i always felt dominated by her even though i was the older sister , i was never allowed to have that status. it was like she had stolen the older sister role . The older sister should be respected by the younger sister . i never felt respected 

 

My grandparents, Marjorie and Joe, eventually settled in north Dublin. The family home, which i believe my aunt first bought in the 60's.Its remained in the family for generations which is such a blessing.. Mum lived here during her 20's. i have many albums and albums of pics. I have brought up my own children here. Situated close to the sea, the city and surrounded by beautiful floral gardens. it has become a place of healing and sanctuary for me

mums legacy is that our true worth comes not from what we achieve but from who we are.

Grandpa got a job in the bank of Ireland in college green as a manager . mum and my aunt worked in the bank too before they married. mum was always good with money but daddy wasn't  .. she said in the bank office where she worked before she left. they said , Pamela Mayne would brighten up any office. she would open up the windows and let the light in ..she didn't like office work and wanted to be a mother .In those days it was normal for women to leave their jobs when they got married. the rat race life didnt suit her, motherhood was a ticket to freedom for her..

Daddy wrote letters to mum . they would meet at the weekends unfortunately this was an unhealthy relationship. mum an empath and dad a narcissist  which is like blood to a shark. the scapegoat  leaves the narcissist family and get married off to a narcissist . its happened time and time again . The sacrificial marraige of Pamela Mayne 

But sheepstown was poisoned before mum even entered it .. She was the target, the scapegoat of sheepstown. my dads family were so mean to her accusing her of just marrying daddy for the land . Just like in my life where im now entering rooms that have already been poisoned against me with false reports biased against me and twisted truths. also since ive come into my inheritance in sutton i experienced this too on my street.. It runs deep in the irish pathrocial society. i dont think that a woman owning land on her own is accepted 

mum was very taken by sheepstown . she passed down the deep love of sheepstown to me 

daddy was into music and that drew poor mum in . the same happened with me and my 2 husbands ( they both played guitar) music seemed to be what was used to capture us because we have such a deep connection to it . The arts ..mum played the piano and the church organ . i play the piano  . History repeats over and over 

daddy would play soul and classical  music really loudly in our bungalow on a tape recorder  all through our childhood. he loved black singers and shirley bassie, tom jones . daddy has visited me over the years since hes passed  through music on the radio and mum has visited me through the robin in nature

when you try to leave the family cult they trap you again ..

mum was then trapped in an isolated country place with a narcissistic family cult. It was like a horror film. There was no water for a long time. mum had to pump water from a nearby pump. granny brought her down the piano so she could play it to pass the time . I cant imagine what she went through . mum didn't speak about it to me but i witnessed it .mum had to walk on egg shells around daddy. she would say, you have to make sure you keep him in an even keel. daddy would act strange as all narcissists do . he would act like a child with mum sometimes and mum was forced to go along with it..he had weird names for us.I was lahornsheenog, mum was fursing ( i think because she had hair on her face/fur, and my brother was the boozerman . weird unsettling narc behaviour 

I remember plates of food being thrown across the kitchen. daddy would throw the food that mum made for him across the kitchen saying it wasn't good enough . Once a plate skimmed over my head ..I would frantically try to clean his place at the table so he would'nt give out to her..i tried to help her with the housework so she wouldn't be subject to his daily abuse .mum just endured this abuse for us . he would jeer her . she would just ignore it . He was so cruel to her . He was cruel to me too. he projected darkness on me right from the start and would whisper to mum statements like ' theres something wrong with her'. He would get angry at me and i would run away down the farm .. once before i left for boarding school he took a knife to me.. mum had to get in the middle of us.. I sensed his darkness from the start and steered clear of him most of the time. He would smoke and smoke. id see him sitting on the chair in the living room smoking a cigarette in the dark. it was errie. he would go to bed in the day and id walk in sometimes seeing him just laid there with his eyes open which the busy house moved without him. mum and dad had seperate beds . he would be in a long dressing gown a lot ..being in the house but not really being part of it. he had pure white skin and was very thin. his legs were purple from hot water bottles ..

 

mum wasnt domesticated. she was wild and free. She was a fantastic homemaker and loving mother but it wasn't a tight organised ship and she didnt' discipline us . she allowed us to be children and didnt get us to do daily chores . she didnt want to break our spirit. mum wasn't house proud and so earth friendly but it was a different time then and this was quite the norm. what im so glad of and i wanted to do for my children too . Mum was there for us everyday always.. she wasnt preoccupied with a career . She was an artist and her home was her art . She modeled artful living . i ended up in bad controlling relationships i believe because id been given such great  freedom..i thnk she was too tired as a single mum 

mum didnt enforce unwritten societal rules on us and i'm forever grateful for that. she knew the way society was going. i always admired her bravery and courage to be truly herself and allow us to be ourselves. 

what mum experienced was exactly the same as what i experience in my 2nd marraige. An abusive husband and his family ganging up against me . isolating me and i didn't have my own family to support me because they were not healthy towards me either. They actually took his side. Mum had her mother to support her which i'm so glad she did. she would gather us up and drive up to Dublin to spend time with granny . she had a safe place to go to at least. But mums dominating unhealthy sister and husband lurked in the background. daddy would say she was galivanting ..and make her feel bad for leaving sheepstown

My mother carried deep grief, and i didnt understand it as a child. she saw my strength , my free spirit even when i couldnt . over the years , i watched patterns in our family that felt heavy, complicated ties between sisters across generations,. as i approach 50, im learning to look back with compassion. Through prayer,   i feel Gods love helping me release regret. I don't need to prove anyone was against me to honour how i felt. The past is part of my story, but it is no longer my prison

 

 

 

 

daddy helped build the house .. mums number one villain was my dads brother , one of the twins. the other twin Edgar was good to mum so was dads father Norman. mum experienced him as a very gentle man who loved her .

one of the twins we were sure was gay . In those days you did'nt come out of the closet and i'm sure he never wanted to as it would take the focus off mum being the problem . he taught the piano and got a job in a music college and I heard he did'nt get on with someone there and ended up having to leave . I got an awful letter after i came into my inheritance and married my 2nd husband and I was sure it was from him . I always felt attacked by him too growing up and throughout my life .I felt attacked by both uncles on each side of my family because I was mums scapegoat daughter 

he would bring us out to buy books from boarding school and it was then in Waterstones that my brother got his copy of lord of the rings which had a big influence on him . In that book there is Sauren , the dark lord, the symbol as this great fiery eye. Its controlling presence like being watched or hunted , every shadow is hiding something .

i have a vivid summer memory of eating the most delicious food i have ever had in his garden in south Dublin. sweet passion fruit growing on the garden walls. most of my family had green fingers . there was also a water bed in his house i slept in once . he would sit and listen to classical music and ignore us. i don't think he knew how to deal with children 

during a period when we were all in boarding school mum must have gone through a very tough period with daddy that she didn't speak about . he ended up in a mental hospital and when he came out this uncle had him stay with him in Dublin and daddy didn't come home for a year. mum was abandoned ..he introduced daddy to other women . then daddy came home and was so thankful to be back with mum, he would say that over and over . this uncle was trying to break their marraige and have them get a divorce to get mum off the scene in regards to the property, pure evil .mum had to farm on her own for a year and she did very well . the local community surrounded her . i helped her buy sheep off a dealer .i remember meeting daddy in Dublin with this uncle. it was very strange . mum just ploughed on , she was so strong .. nobody seemed to care that mum was all alone having to deal with everything herself .

mum got blamed for everything . do you remember i wrote that granny noticed that daddy didn't have the best health when they got together first  well then his family decided to blame mum for his ill health . im finding i get blamed for everything too

In my recent marraige, i was blamed for the demise of the relationship but when i met him , he was still living at home ( almost 40) with an unhealthy addiction to smoking and a string of bad relationships behind him . his home environment was not healthy . he was not a healthy character to begin with but the system, my family , his family all backed him to put all the blame on me when the truth was,  he severely abused us in my house  and  abandoned us and he was the problem not me...so this has passed down the generations .. unfair blame being put on mum and I . both mum and I had to shoulder single parenting on our own with very little support and we were unfairly cast as the villian . The men were the villians ...or in my case, is the villian 

i also experienced this with one of my familys inlaws.. i felt ignored repeatedly, dimished around them. This went on for years and years until i finally said something and it wasn't taken seriously.. i noticed the pattern all along and it never sat right because it wasnt right .

When my mother married for the second time, later in life, i choose not to attend the wedding. ( we actually picked out a georgous  dress for me ) i I was also caught up in a horrible  narcissist relationship myself. Now i understand why i ddnt go to the wedding.. you see everything happened for a reason.. i was making the correct decisions all the time...I learnt to trust myself because i know what im doing . ive always known what im doing.  i should never doubt myself. ive been taught to doubt myself

 

After years of feeling, judged , undermined and isolated within my fathers family, she was sadly stepping into what i believe was another painful pattern. It was her domineering sister who had exercised such an influence over her , her entire life, who introduced her to the man she would marry.mum told me she was not attracted to him but she hoped for a companion and a new beginning and he was the right religion. . part of her decision to meet him and start a relationship came from her extraordinary generosity. i was living in the family house in Sutton at the time with my baby son  calum and she wanted to give us the freedom and space to build our own lives, she would half stay with him after they married and half the time with me. she was always so glad to get back to the sea .. she moved to cloughjordan in county Tipperary hoping to make a new life for herself. sadly she later confided in me about critism, difficult family relationships and frightening experiences that reminded me of the struggles she had endured in her first marraige. one of her new husbands sons said something really mean to her that has never left me. its unspeakable  . once again she seemed to find herself almost surrrounded by people who did not always treat her with the kindness she deserved . Again my mum cleaved to nature and spent hours wandering around her new space. she explored the eco village,picked berries and immersed herself in the area.She found peace among the tree, flowers and changing seasons. she got to work on his garden.what breaks my heart is recognising how the painful patterns of her first marraige appeared to repeat themselves in her second. mum found happiness in the simplest gifts of creation.

my dear mum died of cancer a short time into this marraige .both of this mans wife's died of cancer 

when mum started experiencing her bad symptoms . i googled them .. osophegus cancer... i told mum and family it might be cancer long before she got her terrible stage 4 diagnosis.but nobody listened to me not even poor mum..This type of cancer as louise hay said happens if you never got a chance to have a voice. Her voice was never heard.. released ... but i heard your voice mum and im writing it here 

as i mentioned mum was erased.. when my first child was born , my mums sister rushed all the way over from galway to meet my niall before mum could get in.( from dublin) they want to erase you as a parent,, as a grandparent . mum got very upset because she was so used to this type of behaviour . niall was mums first grandchild in ireland..it should have been her moment not her sisters..

 

. we were not surprised that daddy had health issues , it was the norm . he was not a vibrant , happy parent like mum was .

I have memories of being woken up at night and rushing out to the bathroom and seeing daddy on the ground. he would sleep walk and bang his head off the toilet bowl . mum would be desperately trying to help him . it was an awful scene. he seemed so fragile just like he did the last time i saw him in the hospital before he died. a think fragile man dependant on nurses , almost like a child

mum was like both mum and dad in one. our rock. im the rock now to my children something that mum modeled . Unfortunately i havn't met a good man to parther with either , its like an isolating spell, , just a bad bunch of narcissists in my past., one very evil one still clinging to me at present like a parasite that im finding it hard to get rid of . thats why im going to church daily ..its important i stay very close to God . This malignant narcissist is playing dirty and has succeed in manipulating an unjust system to begin with  ..so my story goes on and on ,drama after drama.. i need some peace, we need some peace , us chosen ones . i'm on the front lines..

My uncle Edgar was an interesting character . He was tall and had a big mop of curls just like mine and a devil may care attitude that mum thought was very like mine.

Edgar was never going to follow the path that had been laid out for him. There had been a lovely protestant girlfriend when daddy first met mum, someone he might easily have married and settled down with in Ireland. But that life did not seem to be what Edgar wanted. He was an adventurer. Also daddy being the eldest was the one who was going to inherit the farm . I think the twins were bitter about that but one more than the other . 

 

Edgar had made a valiant exit out of what he called 'boring and isolated'  Sheepstown during his time at Wilsons hospital boarding school my mums uncle canon Mayne was the very strict headmaster at the time . In those day in the 60's there was corporal punishment and my uncle wasn't having it .He escaped on the local train in Multyfarnman twice i think, the second time with canon Mayne in tow ! . He managed to make it to London and got a job sweeping the streets in London . Edgar liked women rough mum would say and her story was that he ended up getting a Philipino woman Carmen pregnant from a brothel. That's what daddy told her. They had a son Hugh. In those days that would have been quite scandalous for the family but the horrible thing was daddy's family managed to twist this to make mum the scandalous one . Edgar , Carmen and Hugh came to Ireland to visit us . We have lovely memories of playing with Hugh who i thought was the coolest kid ever . I had never seen a foreign kid before . He was like the kid from the indiana Jones movies . During a lovely lunch that my mum graciously prepared and i'm sure washed up after too ! ,She entertained them . there was a conversation when mum innocently asked Carmen what religion she was .. This was used against poor mum for years and years. My dad and his family would not let this go and it caused mum so much pain . This is typical narcissistic behaviour when they make a big deal out of something trival or even make something up and hang it over your head like a threat for ever! . They never let it go no matter how much you apologise . I think poor mum was relieved she maby wasnt the target anymore too but this was daddy's family saying , no , you are still the target and always will be 

I experienced this with my recent ex repeatedly . he made a story up about how my children and i made him loose his job and hung it over our head for years refusing to even look for work . he would lie in the house watching you tube all day and blame me for the fact that we had no money ( but he would get money from his dad that he wouldn,t give to me ) .. i was a sitting duck because the children were very young 

 

Daddy went over to visit Edgar in London and Edgar took him into the underground soul scene. I remember daddy coming home starry eyed with a car full of toys. our red fiat Ritmo. . There's pictures of daddy, Edgar and carmen smoking in a flat in London early 80's  . Edgar went further still and got a teaching job in Papua New Guinea where he taught english. I still have the postcards of the tribes . We thought they were so cool . How exotic compared to Sheepstown. Edgar had escaped the road set up for him and seen the world. I asked him on messager would he ever write a book and he said he would have to name to many names and he would then get in too much trouble lol. well im writng it for him now 

Edgar went to Austrailia with his family and his son Hugh went to school there and got expelled for having sex with a girl ,. I think it might have been boarding school .edgar spent his retirement in the Philipines because it was a cheap place to retire . he could'nt bear to return to cold Ireland or secluded sheepstown. Grandma had a soft spot for Edgar and it pained her to be apart from him for most of his life . she ended up on her own too when grandad died. we would meet Edgar when he came home to visit in Dublin , Stephens green. mum loved to see him . he had a great sense of humour . mum loved the way he wasnt involved in the smear campaign against her. he was not the type to join in that ongoing abuse thankfully 

unfortunately their story didnt end well . All the family died a few years ago. Hugh was only in his early 40's . carmen and Edgar died of cancer and Hugh died drunk , hit by a motorcycle as far as i know . Hugh has a beautiful child Erin who is still there with her mothers family . I would love to go visit and meet her someday .

 

.daddy farmed half the land and farmed the land for his parents too. so daddy had his big dinnear's in his parents home everyday. grandma should have told him to go to his wife . Both daddy and grandad were excellent farmers . There was a trophy for judging cattle that grandad got . Hereford cattle. I would walk in sometimes and see him , the golden child sitting with his parents while mum struggled to mind us alone in the bungalow. he abandoned her. he would say she was bad at housework and was not a good cook . he wouldnt eat her food. daddy would call mummy , a dirty pig .essentially daddy, grandma and my uncle all ganged up against her accusing her endlessly  of just marrying daddy for the land and being a terrible housekeeper.. mum would say the only good thing grandma would say about her was that she was a good mother .. i'm glad that mum wasnt attacked for her mothering because it was used as a cruel weapon against me over and over 

daddy farmed all the land which was over 250 acres and he auctioneered for a while. he found this too stressful 

but mum cleaved to nature . She was like snow white . the fairy tale of snow white is so true for our lives . i've now woken up!

Mark William O'Neill was born first in 1975

                                                                                   Sheepstown .. My Universe                   

                                                                                                

Lorna Marjorie O'Neill was born in 1977 into a world of light and beauty.

she was born in the rotunda hospital and went to stay in her grannys house first for a few weeks so it was granny and mum who looked after me. my dad stayed in sheepstown with mark. mum would sing, ' jesus tender shepherd ' over us from babys and all through our childhood. This is a protective night time prayer that i sang over my children and still do.

I had a bald head for ages as a baby , apparently if you are going to have curly hair , it starts with a bald head. Then i had a big head of blonde curls. My granny would wash my hair in the sink in sheepstown and delight in how my hair curled when it got wet. It would also get all curly if it got rain on it. I never used any hair products in my life , just water. mum Mum loved my curls and would hate it if i straightened my hair on a night out. when i got older. My crowning glory . I had dimples , a great jawline and high cheek bones, great eyebrows and strinking green, intense eyes , a high regal forehead and broad regal shoulders .. I grew tall and had a great body including great breasts and legs  .. As i grew up , mum got more and more excited , sure id light up the world with that beauty . she had a big dream for me and she was sure it was my destiny but my destiny was stolen 

she would say when things went wrong over and over for me in later life that she was sure life would be easy for me 

The life i never lived

For a lot of my life i have carried the sadness of an unlived life. My mother saw something special in me and grandma but mum was a scapegoat too and i struggled to believe her even though i knew deep down it was true. also with all the narcissists i met this dream was hidden to survive life. My other family members , besides grandma were not saying this or wider society in ireland.i now know why . it was the same thing mum and granny had experienced, their light was dimmed.God had made granny, mum and i so beautiful that we al could have shone so bright across the world, we had strong value as people just by existing . mum would say, ' you have what they want lorna'. i believe thats what made us all a target . its hard to believe that your own family would target you , its a hard pill to swallow but its very common and they get away with it because they are ' family'..and noone believes family could possibly  be like that ..

This became very clear to me in my adult life where family didn't act like family should even though they could have . i was left on my own to struggle in single parenting . also it was a red flag that never once did i get any sympathy from family during my abusive relationships .. i got the sick feeling that they thought i deserved the abuse ..i was right

mum and i went back-packing to Austrailia and New Zealand. i think this was her attempt to try to help me to remember who i am, our dream..I was trying to escape my first narc relationship with paul who nearly killed me . mum was so cool and the young people out there absolutely loved her and were drawn to her . She had a magnetisism. I saw mum as a cool friend. mum and i walked through the rainforests together . when we got to Austrailia , mum hit the ground running and i had to nap. she was almost 60!. we toured the great ocean road and Melbourne and saw the Philip island penguins . Sydney in early summer blew my mind.. all the different types of trees, and birds and flowers.. we stayed in backpackers hostels and one night when mum and i were in a bunkbed after a night of drinking sangria i vomited on her.. she was so cool about it. 

we travelled to Auckland NZ and visited Lorne. .We went swimming with dolphins and i remember mum at the helm of the boat watching me with such care  as i navigated the deep waters  . She made my dream come through. it was my dream to swim with dolphins . she used to say..' i cant make it happen for you , about stardom but she could do this and she did . what a mother !.. 

I imagine her at the helm of a big ship now watching over me as i navigate deep waters.

we took the ferry from the north island to the south island and arrived at sunrise .. the sun lit up the mountains and i cruised all around in sheer delight to be alive . ill never forget that time.. we were on a trip of a lifetime.. i was 24 . then we stayed with people mum knew. we did it all very cheaply , on a farm . the surrounding countryside reminded me of the movie, babe ., rolling hills. i went on a big bungy jump with the old couple we stayed with.. very cool

granny , mum and i could shine so bright without any makeup/ plastic surgery/fancy clothes/ fancy surroundings , car, house ..without money or men ..and that is something that people( even your own blood) will try to take down / suck out our life-force over and over/ steal , gas-light into not believing we have this gift from God 

but we still were able to thrive and shine in our own way ,, shine in nature, shine in motherhood and that infuriated them so they punish us over and over . how dare we shine, when they cant ever shine

mum encouraged me to pursue a future in Hollywood .but these dreams were covered up when i spent my life in survival mode trying to navigate one narcissist after another and then single parenting .

i have always had a haunting feeling i should have been ' rose ' in the titanic movie. That was my role. The titanic haunts me.. my son was mad into it.

i was model scouted in Portland Oregon once but lost the piece of paper telling me what to do next. i think we were smoking weed at the time , ex narc and i so my head was fried. of course i might have dodged a bullet it could have been a scam

i had a chance to hit Hollywood hostel from Vegas on a road trip when i was 25 but a narcissist Raphael held me back . . again i might have dodged a bullet 

The night i shone in Las Vegas

I remember one extraordinary New years Eve in Las Vegas in the early 2000's . I was there with my narc partner Raphael staying in a hotel with a pool and jazuzzi .Raphael wasn't out with me that night. i was free..The streets were filled with a sea of people celebrating the arrival of a new year. I was wearing a straight pink wig and looked very like a young madonna ( an even better looking ) young irish madonna. I ended up sitting on someone's shoulders raised high above the crowd. 

I remember looking out over that enormous sea of faces and i noticed thousands of people were looking at me. For one brief magical moment, i felt like a star. , like i felt validated finally. i had spent so long feeling invalidated .it felt amazing . I hadnt been looking for this but somehow the spotlight had found me.. it felt as though my true self had emerged from somewhere deep within me, reminding me of the girl i had once been and the woman i might still become. The truth will always find a way of coming out !

 

 

For a long time i grieved what might have been especially recently when the menopausal rage started setting in... Yet i am beginning to believe whether the road i never took was, in some mysterious way , God's protection. perhaps my life was meant to unfold differently and i have to say being a mother 3 times has been such a blessing and i spent my life minding children in my childcare jobs, a wonderful vocation . The artist inside me has never disappeared and never will . she was just waiting for her moment and her moment has arrived . my greatest achievement is not the extraordinary life i once imagined but the courage to tell the story of the life i actually lived . The little girl who never had her chance to shine is finally finding her light 

The magical rain-drenched , green fields of Sheepstown were to be her home. Tucked away in the Irish countryside . A perfect place for her to twinkle and shine . lucky Lorna

There is a deep connection with the land in Ireland . All my family were farmers . I always felt a deep connection with sheepstown . i still walk it and have done so for 50 years . it makes me feel powerful

Susan Francis Oneill was born in 1980

she would get to stay up later than us as a baby because she would have a nap in the day. i remember pulling all her blankets out of her cot at night . mum didnt really give out to me for it. i suppose i felt jealous of the new baby getting attention

we would sit up watching tv and playing bricks. it was a golden time . mum and dad watched Dallas. the song would come on and we would go off to bed.

A garden filled with colourful fresh scented blooms that granny and mummy planted ..A heavenly paradise , a safe haven . We danced around the colourful, sweet peas , brushing against our soft skin. dressed in handmade, rainbow pinafores. The sun is beaming down . Their sweet mother space. she took a million pictures of us and placed them lovingly in albums 

She planted a forest around the house for shelter and privacy. it grew and grew and grew. They were the ones with the big roots, evergreen trees , leylandii Ireland is a windy place . This was more than a house, this was a home, a haven .All our families houses were like that , places to explore, inside and out 

In the spring there were all different types of daffodils everywhere , butter and egg. The porch would be full of them and primrose posies. I would paint and draw them to pass the time. i always felt a deep urge to create art. I think it was a copeing mechanism, i was trying to make sense of what was happening to me, ground myself , even then i sensed being erased and the narcissistic cult operating all around me . In the left corner of the front garden under the big tree, we had a treehouse. That's where a cluster of  daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops were. Little pockets of beauty everywhere .The hedges would come alive with wild flowers, butter cups, violets and ferns.

A refuge against the madness of the world. A place to be.. A space of freedom. Grandma  and grandad lived up the road . I would ride my pink piggy , the other tow on bike and buggy . It always felt like our own road because it was bordered on each side by our land. Once we arrived Grandad would get us to warm our hands against the hot cackling fire . Mum would get a bit nervous at this 

Even though there was a dark undertone to this whole experience for mum and i , both of us thrived in the freedom and joy of nature and the beautiful Irish countryside .

The house I grew up in was a typical 197'0's bungalow which were all the rage at the time . It had 3 bedrooms and gardens wrapping all the way around . A large field area in the back which ended up being an orchard. we kept sheep there for a while too. mum painted the walls cheery yellow. she did all the work herself .granny would come down to visit and help her , us children too. The furniture was hand me downs from family or bits she got cheaply . She was not house proud

There was a big tree in the front that we built a treehouse in.. , years later in my 40's i climbed this tree again  

The Little Flock

A girl called Freedom - my memoir

 

Faith , family and the quiet dignity of my mother

Some of my earliest memories of church are filled with laughter

Growing up in the countryside of Westmeath, we first attended Drumcree church , a small country church with a tiny congregation , many of them elderly. There was no Sunday school.. I remember my siblings and i beneath the wooden pews, laughing uncontrollable .nobody told us to be quiet. .Afterwards poor mum would stand outside the church apologising to the congregation for our behaviour. They understoond we were just children full of myschef. There was an old friend of the family there billy Smyth . we would go to his house and play cricket in the summer . I remember roaming around his estate and exploring his derelict homeplace complete with old decaying furniture . It was like that book scene with miss Havishmans house from charles dickens , great expectations.

Something deeper was developing within me . My mother had sent me to christian camps and i gave my life to jesus at a young age. i remember being so eager to have my sins forgiven . i remember the extraordinary feeling of opening my bible and discovering that the words seemed to leap from the pages . They were not just stories or ancient teachings . They were alive .. The ' living word'.of God. And remarkably , after i met my first husband shayne i rededicated my life to christ being baptised in the columbia river after his mother felicia witnessed to me and nearly a lifetime later, i experience the same feeling today.. something that was planted in my heart as a little girl never left me. as we grew older we began attending the church of ireland in castlepolllard. Where my parents are buried today in a lovely garden grave in the back of the church so i still visit and attend shurch occasionally . Its a lovely church . Mum was deeply involved in the church community and we attended fetes and the rectory meeings where the rector glen had a pet pig.  . The people who attended the church were from all sorts of backgrounds. A lot of higher class english protestants . 

The clergy man was an english man called glen, a highly educated intellectual man whose sermons fascinated me. While other children might have been bored, i soaked up all his sermons and felt moved by them .. Even as a young child , i was searching for meaning, for truth beyond the ordinary world. mum recognised that in me. she knew i was soaking up the sermons .. I heard the troubling news that the rector had been imprisoned because of allegations of abuse of young people in the town. What stayed with me is that mum visited him in prison. . it revealed something about my mothers faith. i don think she had ever been in a proson before. she believed in showing humanity to people , even in the most difficult circumstances . perhaps that is on of the greatest lessons she gave me. 

My mothers quiet sense of belonging

There was another aspect of growing up within the protestant community in rural ireland. Ill add we did have many catholic friends from our school and neighbours growing up . but many of the people we mixed with came from wealthy, established famlllies . some were english with refined accents, large houses and a certain air of privilege. My own family came from an old protestant landowning background . Our family history is connected with substantial houses and estates . Yet our everyday lives were not particularly wealthy . we had a very down to earth lifestyle .my father had been ill. My mother never behaved as though were beneath anybody . mum would being me to horse trials in ballinlough castle which was very high society. we even went to see the current king there king charles and i almost shook his hand .mum and dad  moved comfortable among people from all walks of life. i think daddy was more comfortable with the more ordinary people . mum didnt need expensive clothes, elaborate jewellery or outward displays of wealth to feel like she belonged. She knew who she was. and she wanted us to know who we were too. Mum got a grant for us to attend boarding school because daddy was sick. There once again we found ourselves surrounded by children from affluent famlies .They arrived in expensive cars but mums message was always the same . you are beneath nobody . you can achieve anything you set your mind too.. mum taught me dignity, confidence and belonging . yet i always struggled with not feeling worthy .. I had deep feelings of inadequacy that developed within my family experiences and later relationships .

The red dress at Tullynally castle

Near castlepollard stands Tullynally castle, an extraordinary old estate where classical music recitals were held.

years later i went to a summer show there with my young children. i think it was alice and wonderland with puppets

 

 

My fathers family had a deep appreciation of classical music and my mother played the piano and organ . i remember mum brought me to  an evening event in one lovely summers night  , a classical music recital at tullynally. I wore a beautiful red dress with embrodary on it .. It had belonged to my sister . i didnt really have any nice clothes . she had a big high class social scene and seemed more interested in having beautiful clothes etc and grooming than me. 

i just flung it on with some nice shoes with no make up or any grooming and looked a million dolllars. mum was beaming with pride . i think she taught my cruel uncle might be there who mixed in those scenes and she could show me off too lol. in some ways it was like cinderella. mum was my fairy godmother finally bringing me to the ball as i didnt really get any invites .. i do however remember getting all dressed up to go to a hunt ball once with my kings hospital school friends but of course never met any decent men. 

mum brought me into a world she believed we had every right to enter. mum herself was never particularly interested in dressing to impress. she had something clean on , maby a skirt but very little makeup or jewelry .she might wear simple perals. she was so authentic . during the evening mum noticed the lady of the castle . she understood that the lady had an interest in art , and because i was an artist myself, mum decided to introduce us . i can still picture her approaching the woman with full confidence with me in tow . mum greeted her warmly and introduced me as her daughter , explaining that i, too was interested in art. it was such a natural thing for mum to do . one woman speaking to another . one person with an interest in art introducing her daughter to someone who might share that interest. the lady looked mum up and down , as though assessing her appearance before  turning away saying nothing. . it felt like a deliberate snub . and i was furious . How dare she treat my mother like that? who did she thinks he was?i remember feeling deeply offended , not so much for myself , but for mum .Here was a woman who came from a cultured, educated , God -fearing famly , whose roots in irish countryside stretched back generations . A woman who had single-handedly raised her three children through difficulties , who possessed intelligence , kindness and a quiet dignity . and yet at the moment it felt like none of that mattered. Perhaps all that woman saw was someone who wasn't dressed in the expected way.

that evening taught me something about the difference between social status and true dignity. my mother may not have looked particularly wealthy that night but she knew her true worth . and no castle, title or grand estate could make her less tan anyone else 

The faith that came before me

I find myself returning to my mothers faith and grannys faith .i recently got a message from a friend who had deep struggles but came out of it with a deep faith . he wrote how deeply he related to my expereince and how he recognised my surrender to God . he spoke about what it means to be born again . i am a born again christian. Then he used the phrase " we are not of this world, we are a little flock" mum  and granny were part of that little flock too. woman of faith who carried their beliefs quietly through life, through suffering, disappointment , hardship and circumstances that other people may never understand . they were not perfect woman . they were human beings with sorrows and struggles  but they always believed . and their faith could not be measured by money , possessions, social standing or outward appearance

The young girl in the grand castle wondering how anyone could fail to recognise her mother deep worth ?

Thats why im writing this because i want people to know her deep worth and grannys deep worth . They were not loud or famous or high powered articulate  buisness woman in suits but Their lifes had deep meaning that deserves to be shared with the world finally ..For much of my life i searched for my own worth in a world that so often measues people by the wrong things . and perhaps the truth had been there all along . in mothers quiet confidence, in granny's deep faith and in the words that lept off the bible in sheepstown. And now through my own surrender to God, i am beginning to understand that lesson in a deeper way

our worth does not come from the houses we live in, the families we come from , the clothes we wear, the professions we work in , our worth comes from God That is the inheritance my mother and grandmother were truly leaving me ,. A faith in God that survived and endured . a faith that even after all the hardships i have experienced over and over in my life , still lives within me..God never turned his back on me or i to him 

And somehow, through all the laughter, the suffering , the beauty and the disappointments of life , that little flock has continued

and i am proud to be part of it 

" For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them"- matthew 18:20

The Amstrad computer

I remember when we got our first amstrad computer. my brother had always possessed a curious, analytical mind, the kind of mind drawn to physics and psychology . he studies them in trinity college in dublin . he also has a ghostly story about hearing a lots of footsteps in the corridors and people when there was nobody there at night. he had rooms there ,. my uncle went there too.. when the computer arrived he dissappeared for hours and totally forgot about playing with us.or his parents. he was always emotionally distant. There was never a closeness between us, and i struggled to see much warmth or empathy in his relationships with others either. intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence arnt necessarily the same thing 

Tea parties

My parents would have people at the house. Tea parties with nice china that was passed down the generations. Mum baked cakes and buns most days. Her baking was not rich or perfect like other peoples. Whe mum got apples id eat them all. i was always on a diet. mostly veg and fruit. when guests came they would tell her to sit down . afterwards when they left we would eat the food. mum always let us eat what we wanted . we could play in the good room too pulling the couches apart. she didnt have strict rules in the house . it was very relaxed . i could make a mess with my art and it was ok ..

 

we learnt our bikes by hauling ourselves down the hill. we had to learn or crash!

The Enchanted  Pond Across the Road

a childhood memory-1980's

growing up in the countryside in the 1980's, we children had an enormous amount of freedom. we wandered , explored and created our own adventures without adult supervision. Across the road from our family home was a small pond surrounded by trees. it was an enchanted world of our own . we went there with a gang of children. my brother and i. one day we were crossing the pond holding hands covering our eyes. . i was around 7 and my brother was 9. we gathered arond a swampy area in a circle. i looked over at my sister who was only about 3 and saw her sinking already down to her head. . i grabbed her head and pulled her out as fast as i could. the others seemed oblivious . in that instant i felt loudly and clearly 'i have to do this, this is my responsibility. i felt that same responsibility a few years ago when my house was on fire. i thought again' i have to do this, your on our own lorna' , there's noone to help you and i ran into the house and put out the fire just before it took off. The fire brigade was taking too long. 

we got back to our mother, all mucky but the memory stuck forever. As a person i've always been very responsible . In recent years this is very evident in how ive taken care of my property / been the gatekeeper of sheepstown and my children, mainly on my own.

 

 

My dads old homeplace, the old farmhouse

I stayed with grandad and grandma when susan was born. There was something about the old farmhouse, daddy's old homeplace  i sensed from an early age.. i wasnt a good feeling, it felt off. .When i was in my art college years, i took magic  mushrooms once in sheepstown and and sensed grandma on a throne there .. it didnt feel like good , it felt more evil than good. I also had a weird  dream there of grandma before i met my irish narc husband. im praying for her soul now

grandma used to scare us saying there was ' a boogie man'.

i have a memory outside grandmas house , in the farmyard outside the kitchen there is a well beside the old water pump. we opened the well once and were wondering who would go down it. thankfully none of us did and grandma came out screaming ..

 

 

my  Mum thought it was strange that grandma put me sleeping with daddy in a big poster bed when the house was so big with so many bedrooms. daddy went out drinking every night it seemed so i was mostly in the bed on my own. i felt very scared and had a vivid dream where i believed samson from the bible was under my bed . grandma would sit downstairs watching television. i was put to bed early. it felt like such a cold place. Daddy would get me dressed on a wooden dressing piece of furniture . It was very old fashioned .In the hospital she rocked her sisters cot at the end of the bed back and forth with mark , faster and faster..i remember loving having a younger sister and carrying her around the house . ..but throughout our lives we always had our own friends even from a young age. i remember trying to kiss her on the lips when i realised that people kissed on the lips. she was my doll to attempt a snog on. we would play dolls. i remember one of the neighbours would play dolls with us and when our brother walked in, he would pull the head off the dolls 

my brother was emotionally absent. he would make up adventure games for us on the farm. he had a rare temper with me but i never saw him unleash it on anyone else .. he didnt have any relationship with our dad . daddy just ignored him , his own son.

                                                                                         

I always loved that we got a chance to grow up in the country and i wanted my children to experience that too. The freedom to be yourself without worrying about what you are wearing everyday. how to present yourself. you don't have to impress anyone. you don't have to feel like you have to keep doing things. you can just ' be'. i would frequently head up to the city in what i call country mode and it felt so liberating.. just not having to figure in other people at all. The quiet . Sheepstown still has that wonderful peace. its a great training ground for not caring what people think 

The old farmhouse in sheepstown was my fathers homeplace, the house he had been born into.

It is a substantial four bedroom  farm house , grand in its proportions and yet cottage-like from the outside ( at one end ). There was a large farmyard surrounded by old stone walls, with pieces of old farm machinery still lying around, reminder of the generations who had worked the land before.

Inside the ceiling is very high and the rooms had a scale that surprised me. My grandfathers bedroom was almost tucked away from the rest of the house, reached by its own passageway, which gave that part of the house a particular atmosphere. grandma used to lock herself in her bedroom away from grandad. Outside there was beautiful gardens with a lovely pink clematis that my mother loved ( in later years my sister cut this down much to my mothers dismay). Grandma was a good gardener ..I would cut her lawns growing up . . She would give me 20 pounds .It is an idyllic setting . The old stone , the farmyard , the lawns and the beautiful lush green irish fields surrounding it. I would always have to just stand and soak it up but of course there is an extreme loneliness because the place is so isolated. Grandma would say in later years .. The place was deafingly quiet..I experienced this too ..I think in the city you have stimulation that keeps you going but its harder in the countryside especially in the winter

Here is a piece of writing i did while soaking up the place a few years ago. when my brother was doing up the place , i got a sense that i wouldn't have much longer there so i camped out with the kids . 

Sitting here in the forest undergrowth listening to the rain. The night rain escaping through the trees in the forest of delights!. Its raining but its not raining . Its a dry atmosphere, autumnal , Oh Sunday morning . The melodic loud pitter , patter .. drowns out the quiet

burning the old houses debri finally in an outdoor bonefire  .An ode to the past. A necessary ritual . we spent the night in the old forge shed with a cool old fireplace and peeping top chimney , a little robin friend flying in and out, tucked under a pop up snazzy tent from Aldi . the shed has electricity so we can make tea and hotwater bottles . our last holiday before winter sets in ...

but for now, i will sit and soak up this life..

 

As i wrote about earlier , there was many painful incidents in this house. It was a house of horrors with my grandfathers drinking  and severe daily abuse to grandma. mum grew up in houses of horror too and so did I , in the bungalow.. domestic violence repeating , generation after generation.. when i inherited the family home, i experienced severe domestic violence in the same homeplaces with 2 different narcissistic men .

My father witnessed this as a young boy. this would have affected him even though he never spoke about it to me. he was closed off emotionally . i think daddy cleaved to music as a copeing mechanism ..hurt people , hurt people so i do believe this was a big factor to why he was abusive to mum and not a proper father to me. but this does not excuse his bad  behaviour towards my mum or me , it was truly cruel and narcissistic . When he married my mother, he was given half the land and built the 70's bungalow where we were brought up. But in many ways , he never really left the old house . This was the same pattern with my ex husband ian too . he never left his homeplace or family despite marrying and starting a family with me ( and being in his 40's !!)  so again history repeating ..it made mum and i feel worthless. This was the desired affect as if we were not good enough to deserve such love and loyality .that the old family and old home were somehow better ..and always would be ...we couldnt compete.. it was a loosing game from the start.. This was the trauma of loosing our sense of self to narcissist abuse so essentially we had abandoned oursleves so these wounds were playing out before us in people abandoning us over and over. 

Years later , after my brother had finally renovated it , I spent one night in the house. Walking through these restored rooms, i remember being struck by how grand it felt.' My father grew up here ' I thought I had known the house my whole life but suddenly I was seeing its scale and grandeur differently . As i said before daddy never really left that house , going back to his mother for meals and critizing mum for being a bad house keeper. Just to mention mum basically brought three children up as a single parent with no hands on support from daddy . daddy spent a lot of his time taking naps in the daytime while we played , occasionally shouting angryly for us to keep quiet from the back bedroom  .. mum would defend us, saying we were just children..i have a memory of daddy kicking my brother down the hall like a football. our bungalow was a house of horrors too. i cant imagine the terror mum felt having to watch her child being treated in such a cruel way by his dad .i heard that my uncle was treating his first born son in a very cruel way too. 

mum was so tired after such a long day of parenting , she would flop into bed relieved .. i would hear her from my room saying she was so glad to be finally be able to relax. ..poor mum. I felt the same way in my single parenting years .mum was forever doing housework . it was never ending for her. 

I have a memory as a young child asking mum the big profound question, do we die? she said yes ..i felt this initial horror 

daddy would also go out for a drink with neighbours or visit neighbours houses . he was quite popular locally  .. he couldn't drink much . it didn't agree with him.. daddy was never happy .. i think he was depressed. there was a cloud hanging over him probably from all the trauma from his upbringing ..Generational trauma which im now writing about to bring about some much needed healing for our family and also to recover a sense of self. 

 

 

I can see how painful this must have been for mum and i soaked up all her pain as the eldest daughter and scapegoat of the family ...She married into a family but was never fully accepted by them . There was always a sense that she was an outsider. The neighbours would say and still say , she was from the city, from Dublin.. a blow in from Dublin but in reality mum had lived in the country too and her family were farmers too.

And it went further than that. When my grandfather was still alive , members of my fathers family began trying to stop my mother from going up around the homeplace. As i remember it , there was even a solicitors letter from my uncle telling her to stay away

so the house was being used as a boundary against my mother long before anything similiar happened to me. Perhaps that was one of the reasons i became so protective of her . I could sense this but mum took such delight and joy in us and nature ... it over rode everything for her . we gave her strength. 

mum had her church in Drumcree and Castlepollard and friends who gave her a sense of belonging. she was also well liked in the community ..A very friendly , happy person .

years later , when my father died , my mother inherited the old farmhouse but passed it down directly to my brother .She was afraid of my dads in-laws..

 

I spent a period of time during my art college years recording the place with video and photography . getting up early and setting up the video camera to record the spectactular  morning sunrise chorus  from the Tv room which caught the morning sun in one window and the evening sun in the other . A long room . It overlooked the garden on one side and the yard on the other side.. i loved that room . there were old red curtain there that when it caught the light it gave a cool red atmospheric 

I did my degree photography in the old house for dun laoighaire art colleg. IADT. i got a christian photographer gary hill to shoot it. The sunlight was streming in the windows. Gods light was coming into the dark derelict spaces ..i now see what i was doing there .. The photos hung in the house for a while but then they were taken out . my siblings didnt want them there,

The morning chorus is out of this world in the spring in Sheepstown with all different types of birds singing loudly and farm animals bleeting . it was like i was trying to bring some light into such a dark space.. trying to defuse all the shadows. I did my end of year photography there getting big photographs of each of the rooms with sunlight streaming in through the windows onto the old musty derelict spaces.. mum was so supportive of all this art around the house.. i also used some of the cool old furniture . grandads old leather chair and grandmas butterfly chair 

years later when i spent a night there on my own .. i had some red wine and painted a red cross on the walls. i don' t think my siblings liked that but now i see the significance .

 

 

For a long time afterwards it was largely derelict. mark my brother had put windows and heating in , I would still go there to visit sometimes with my children to keep an eye on the place .Then my family spend vast amounts of money on doing the place up and locked me out ..history was repeating itself again . This house was used as a fortress against mum and now me even to the point of solicitors letters and law enforcement l. I was horrified as was mum  but now I realise what is happening . Its a dark space that houses  darkness  and I had known that all along 

it was interesting and really exposed the campaign.. dads old homeplace in sheepstown. it was used against both mum and I .. almost the same story.. they repeated the same pattern again.. i thought , that's interesting .. it was a very noticable pattern 

i realised they tried to erase my whole background as if i had never grown up in sheepstown and didnt have any any stake in the property there .I was told once i didnt have any stake there when i do , they even tried to erase my schooling by saying that i didnt go to the school but  i did. Recently i've been blessed to be able to send my son to the same school so this fact is now exposing the darkness to people who would have been caught up in this lie for decades . The tables are definitely starting to turn in my favor. so they used the same painful story around dads old homeplace for both mum and i 

but the horrible cruel sick painful new story they are using against me now attacking my motherhood ( which is my very essence ).. granny experienced this  painful story campaign is  getting worse as it moves through the generations.. that why the fire i'm facing is soo big.. !!!

in my country house in sheepstown , our bungalow . i have it rented now but before i rented it , i burnt some of the wet old house bits outside, the pipes had unfortunately burst that pervious winter . The fire got really big.it almost set fire to the trees surrounding the house. Thankfully it was still winter and the place was very wet . I was shown the size of the fire i'm up against now . it was raging ...

  Snowy- the white pony

looking back on my childhood in Sheepstown i realize that my beautiful white pony Snowy represented far more than just a childhood dream of owning a horse. Growing up on a 250 -acre farm, i was obsessed with horses from the time i was tiny . yet despite all that land, my father always refused. to let me have one. My mother would ask again and again but his answer was always no. It was something that hung over my head for years., a painful longing that seemed so unnecessary when we had endless green fields around us I was about 12 years old when finallly, through friends from the church, a beautiful round pony came into our lives . my childhood dream had come through. she was my pony. she was half arab. She had long fluttery lashes and musky white hair.

Snowy's white coat would be covered with much from the land and she loved to hang with the cattle. i could never get her clean so i gave up.  she represented freedom, innocence and the magical world I inhabited as a child. i can still smell her. i would try to comb her mane . we would ride her sometimes wearing hurley helmets and sometimes bareback across the fields. She felt safe to ride. There was a wonderful sense of freedom riding her. i still hold precious memories of grandad gently leading snowy around the beautiful big blackgate field opposite the old farmhouse.

There is one particular experience i have never forgotten. i was riding snowy down the paddock one evening at dusk, when completely out of nowhere  she rose up and reared, whinnying loudly as if there was something in front of her. I think it was a spirit. Growing up in the magical landscape of sheepstown, complete with fairy forts, my imagination was filled with fairies, spirits and the mysteries of nature. it was one of those experiences that seems to suggest there might be more to the world than meets the eye

The farrier

as i became more involved in pony camps and the horse-riding world. i wanted snowy to be part of it too. She was shod in my grandmas house in a shed. i wasn't there but i think my sister was. poor snowy suffered terribly . Th lady farrier was so rough with her, hurting her. over and over. 

Yet snowy''s tragic death during an exceptionally hot summer became one of my earliest experiences of grief and over whelming guilt. we had been spending our long summer days at the local lake and i had just discovered boys so i was a bit distracted . Grandma had been minding snowy in the old farmhouse and hadn't given her any water. i had brought her out for a ride not realising this and she had died that night . i found her the next day , her white body surrounded by a ring of bullocks .. it broke my heart. Looking back now at the complicated and often painful family relationships surrounding that old farmhouse, i sometimes feel as though her innocence was sacrificed to circumstances i was far to young to understand

perhaps that is why the image of the white winged unicorn has always held such profound spiritual meaning for me. i have always felt a deep connection to that beautiful mystical creature, which represents purity, freedom and the ability to rise above earthly suffering. In many ways, snowy was my first real- life unicorn, a beautiful white creature who carried me through the green fields of my childhood. Although her life ended tragically , i like to imagine her now galloping across the endless green fields of eternity. Ans perhaps in remembering snowy this way, i am also learning to forgive the little girl i once was 

I painted a unicorn in my bedroom with two fairies on top . mum would always let me just paint my walls . sometimes when we were driving around the countryside i would imagine a unicorn galloping beside the car . i read a book called ' the little white horse' by Elizabeth Goudge in my room . it came to life for me. i must read it again

i wanted another horse but daddy said no again. i built a paddock for it, putting down the stakes myself..I painted the gates too stripy like jumps in showjumping arenas 

 

There were glowing cowslips in the fields which was like finding treasure . In the back paddock in grandmas house there was a paddock with white , pink and purple bluebells. As a young girl id rush back there and pick bunches, looking forward to it every year . The bluebell paddock. Curly ferns peeked in April. I find their different structures very interesting .We had a local gang of neighbours and we would ride bikes aimlessly around the country roads , excited to see where the roads lead to . Once we road our bikes all the way to Oldcastle to a fair with the dog Duke ( who won a trophy ) ,  it must have been a great distance but all quiet country roads. An archological dig uncovering giant bullock bones which i would later present to my boarding school art room.  Damming rivers. Sitting on golden oats in a big trailer on our neighbours farm at 9pm in the summer sun .letting the oats fall on top of us. Long stretched out glorious evenings fringed with soft twilight . Magnificent

it really was a fab place to grow up in  and a fab time, the 80's . so much nature everywhere. foxes, hares, baby rabbits, flys in the summer. we could roam the fileds without worrying about any killler wild animals or people . it was very safe. . the grass was lush, thick hedges. birds and butterflies.i have a memory of the last evening we played with local friends before i headed off to boarding school at 12. it felt like the end of an era. we gathered in the big driveway around the corner from our house with the amazing view of sheep fields. mum did an amazing job of giving me a wonderful childhood . an enid blyton childhood . no cell phones or computers. we did get an amstrad computer when i was about 10 and played pacman on it occasionally. then my brother dissappeared off to his room with it and decided not to play with us anymore .. i remember one of his friends cycling 5 miles to visit him and him ignoring him.. i tired to play with him, i felt bad.Mark didnt seem to have any empathy for the poor lad.i never noticed empathy from him either ever 

we would play monopoly a lot.. game after game.

I had a disco ball in the garage and i made a paper mache  micheal jackson in school 

im looking back into irish history and when the celts came and took over the land of ireland. There was a race of people living here . These were the native people of  ireland . they were called the Tuatha De Danann and they were magicians. . The Tuatha were not happy to see the celts and told them to go back to sea and then they sent gales and a thick fog to try to stop them from coming to land. they were very angry when the celts did arrive on shore and hid themselves in mountains and hills in ireland. These are the Sidhe fairies .There is always a fog over the countryside in the summer at night 

Ive mentined ' the banshee' in this memoir . she is the fairy woman or white lady of sorrows, the woman of peace. she is seen as a beautiful woman in a flowing white dress or an old woman with flowing white hair and torn clothes . traditionally he is believed to follow the ancient Gaelic families of ireland, those being names with ' o' or 'mac'. we are  o'Neills .. They are said to cry into the night like a death message like a she fox vixon .

Co.Westmeath

Sheepstown is situated in co.Westmeath which is right in the centre of Ireland.'The midlands'.It is very historical and has lots of forts and castle . The high king Tuathal Techtmar was the high king in westmeath and his grandson Conn of the hundred Battles. The hill of Uisneach is in Westmeath . The town land near Mullingar called Nure is what inspired johnathon swift to write gullivers travels

 

 

mum would make chutney out of crabapples we would pick in the fields. we would spend a day picking. days out on the land. she made jam and would have muslin bags hanging around the house . My granny would made homemade marmalade . mum would make jam out of our own berries .She made plain buns and put orange rind into them  and tea brack soaking it in tea. Every afternoon mum made a big pot of tea . I would have it with her when i got older. It was her way of breaking up and getting through the day. . Our cats and dogs would be fed with the bottom of the teapot and the crusts of the bread. mum put out the word that we wanted a dog and lassie walked into our floral garden one day. I remember her as a fluffy , collie pup . Then she had a set of pups . We kept two of them, sandy and duke . They would dance amongst the red poppies, entralled with bring colour . We gave sandy away but kept duke . Duke and Lassie were our childhood dogs. I did a large acrilyic painting of them for in my art course . I still have it . The dogs ate food scraps and were free . we had to watch them at lambing season 

daddy would sit on his chair in the tv room beside the fire crying while listening to classical music.. pavorotti. i cried listening to him recently.. the apple doesnt fall far from the tree lol

In January i would race home from school and race down the land looking for new born lambs. Then id bring them up to the red hayshed . I have memories of being in that cold hayshed at night sometimes it was windy. i loved feeding the new born lambs. The drama unfolding in the gusty sheepshed.Some of our pet lambs would did.

At Christmas mum would make Christmas cakes and puddings and mince pies. I would help her make them . mum really threw her everything into motherhood and country living . mum would bake all the time but it was very plain, just something to have with tea. her buns were not perfect , sometimes crusted . She grew rubarb .and we would have it stewed . sour stewed gooseberries,  black current's,  raspberries and logan berries. i remember going to visit my aunt and she proudly served us up sour stewed fruit. 

I was very creative from the start. Id draw the animals and furniture around the house. Id draw the flowers in the garden. Everything was so inspiring to me. mums artful home! how she would arrange wild flowers in the house .art was my way of trying to figure out what was going on? These beautiful homes and gardens were my familys lecacy. I minded all their homes and gardens and am still minding them. I would make handmade Christmas cards for my family at Christmas . cards were big in those days, not so much now. I loved painting robins. i would always get art materials for Christmas. I always kept all my  art and journals and am thankful now here, i finally have a chance to share all this with the world.. My art manifesto to the world. I would bring my easel outdoors to paint sections of the garden, like the shoemack tree in the autumn. mum always loved to see me outdoors painting and the neighbours would sometimes drop in to admire my work. i had a lovely neighbour Carmel Reilly who was mums friend who would buy my work and said , i should just be an artist .. that was her message to me.. well carmel i've finally done it. i'm sure she is looking down at me now thrilled ! Carmels house was full of my work. when she passed i left a note in her house asking could the work be returned to me as im sure they just got rid of it but no reply ..I had a good grasp of drawing from a young age..

 

' do few things but do them well, simple joys are holy, ... St. Francis of Assisi.. mums way of living was holy ..just ordinary daily living chores, tending to her garden, her children . picking up sticks for the fire on the road.

but i believe because mum didnt have a career after we left home she struggled alot. you become easy prey for narcissists if you dont have a consuming passion

this memoir writing is my passion and my salvation from narcissists

Mum was always so happy in the mornings, opening up the curtains, i find i do the same thing letting the morning sunlight in. there is a magic to the mornings and evenings that should be savored. mum would have some energy after a good nights sleep. mum was pretty much a single parent. daddy didn't do much of the hands- on - parenting unless it was occasional babysitting when mum went to the mothers union meetings. she might put on a bit of lipstick. mums face went red in hot rooms so she would come home flushed glad to be back to our cold house where she could breathe again. In Ireland the heating in buildings in the winter can be really harsh . daddy might occasionally make an omelette . mum would heap praise on him like a child . he wouldn't wash up.

a lot of times at about 11 mum would make phone calls to her friends and that would wake me up as a teen. i loved the sound of her cheery voice and loud laugh There are a lot of lakes around Westmeath so the air is a bit heavy and you get great nights sleeps.it was great for us kids as kids need good sleeps. mum had a beautiful singing voice which i've inherited , she could have been in Broadway musicals . she would sing her heart out at church even when noone else was which i do too , in the same church and i was in the school choir

there was an evening in the school where the choir sang handles massiah  . 'for the beauty of the earth 'mum and dad came to see it.in my white robe..When i auditioned for the choir, he said i had a lovely voice. mum also got a chance to be on tv in a choir with her new husband . 

 

.. She played the organ at church. when daddy died and we had left home she took up the job in the local protestant churches. At the church in kells there is a big round tower at the entrance . i would go and watch her play and sit and sing in the pew behind her. she would play the song' as the deer pants for the water' for me i had heard it at christian camps which we went to at easter . we started collecting fancy paper in school. it was beautiful paper , lightly printed with flowers and animals and soft colours. i still have some around in the attic.mum had a story about smoothing out shiny paper in class and a teacher coming over and ripping the shiny paper from her and mum being so sad about it.. i've always kept shiny paper.

 

we played croquet on the lawns at our home in sheepstown and Dublin . the sound of my childhood was the sound of croquet balls being hit. we loved it . . the sets lay around the houses for ages . we had table tennis in the garage attached to the house. this was so much fun on rainy days . we played croquet and table tennis on our holidays in kilkee co. claire, at clar ellagh .the house was cluttered but i found that inspired my creative soul and there was a freedom to it. we could all relax . it wasn't dirty .in my adult life i feel i need a certain amount of clutter because that's where real art flourishes . mum got a range and would fire it up with wood we would get from the land. she would bake her eves pudding, using berries she had picked in the hedges and in our garden and apples from the orchard. it felt so warm and homely. i can still taste it . mum wouldn't use harsh cleaning products , she would just rinse the dishes with water. very earth friendly and frugal . very protestant , she would wash clothes by hand a lot and dry the clothes on the line .

we went to primary school in Crowenstown. This was a catholic school . i remember picking up a rosary at a sale there and bringing it home to mum all proud and she got rid of it .. that was my strongest weapon against spiritual warfare and i knew it from the start . we would leave the room when they said their hail Mary's and go out read the bible with another protestant family. recently 'i felt Mary call me with a siren and offer me her protection at a very rough time  . she was there all along .. Mary went through an intense ongoing smear campaign like me.. ,.and she lost her heart . ive  started to go to mass daily locally because its so important right now. I can lean on Jesus and if i get any painful memories i wash them in the blood of Jesus and move forward into my new life. Jesus died for us so we don't have to hold onto a painful past 

i have a memory of standing outside the school just having wet myself. mum was late and all the school had left. this was not a regular accurance. We lived 5 miles from the school and mum would pick up a poor family on the way . they stank . mum also befriended a neighbour in a cottage Monica who had no family . mum was so kind 

in the home, mum didn't like using washing up liquid. she hated the way people were destroying the earth, she thought they lived like pigs. we would visit people and she would say how their food was too rich and their house was too hot. i was mums best friend because she was stuck in the house in the middle of nowhere and its hard to have close girlfriends at that age. i used to hear her talk with daddy a lot and they would talk about how he didnt trust anyone. i remember daddy talking about people being demons alot at my age lol. the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.i had a picture of Madonna that he scoffed at. he said i should take it down but mum told him to leave me alone. she always defended me .mum and i would talk about all different subjects all through our lives .even sex stuff. 

At Christmas mum didn't do the whole santa thing. she would give us our gifts in plastic bags and we would get the same santy book that we would take back a day or two later for the next christmas, we picked what we wanted in the shopping centre. i remember going to Navan and picking a blue care bear out of a big cage. i liked him because he didnt have a picture on his tummy like the real care bears. i loved him forever and i eventually left him outside the american embassy after 911 happened .but now im sorry i didnt keep him for my children. .We got a smurfette too for the other sibling susan.

grandma would make a moist small xmas pudding 

Granny would come down to visit us in her small car from Dublin. she would help mum with the garden and house projects. i have a memory of granny setting us up to paint the side of the house and mum came back angry.,both granny and mum were very outdoorsy . granny had a car accident on a corner on the way down , the car turned upside down. mum would give us lettuce she grew in the garden, sometimes they had small worms on them. she would laugh and tell us to eat them, that they were good for us. mum had her own ideas. she was a hippy without the drugs.. such a cool lady..her hair went grey in her 20's and she never died it or granny. she didnt want to spend the money . neither mum nor granny had expensive facial products or creams. they had no skin routines . they didnt buy anything for themselves unless necessary . no interest in designer labels or any shops except cheap ones . not house proud or body proud or car proud or career proud. Their ministry was their motherhood.and grannyhood  . but they had beautiful homes and bodies and working cars. they had perfected their ministry as mothers and grandparents 

my grandma on my dads side would die her hair. mum and grandma were very different. grandma would wear brown stockings in the summer and sit in the shade. granny would sit in her sun lounger in the sun in sutton

mum was so selfless . she.. what an example to her daughters. she put everyone before herself. if mum could see the way the world is now with climate change she would be horrified .. she sensed it would go that way when we were growing up . it troubled her that nobody seemed to care and just went on living comfortable lives . she would wash plastic bags and hang them on the line

There is a simplicity to life in the country . it wasnt about buying things or wanting things .everyday . if the weather was anyway decent we were out and about. we hated staying in the house. we did get sweets after school though . penny sweets. 

mum would encourage me to walk the fields everyday, id go for long meandering wanders, talking to myself, smelling the fresh grass, soaking up nature, the trees and hedges. you should always walk the land Lorna and i did and i still do , every corner of it.

i remember driving up the hill in Sheepstown all excited because it was xmas night. granny told our cousin there was no santy and she was shamed for that ..by my aunt . she was just speaking the truth and granny didn't lie. in the school they would go around the class and ask us what we got and i lied one year and said the latest barbie doll and then when they came to my house for my birthday party in the snow they looked for my barbie doll and i was scarlette .mum had birthday parties for us with homemade cake, buns, old fashioned party games ,so much fun playing . the pictures look like we are having an absolute ball. Mum hated when they asked us what we were getting from Santa. she hated how it was all about money.. we didn't watch the toy show. one Christmas uncle Robert came to visit and i was so upset that mum just had a branch that year tat i went out and cut a tree down myself in the dark. it was massive and scrapped the ceiling. we had an old record player that played all the tunes, Rudolp the red nosed reindeer. i loved to play it and create an atmosphere by the fire. when i got older id have a sherry by the fire.

one xmas in my 20's i skipped xmas altogether and went to Dollymount beach to witness a georgous snow scene. mum didn't care.

Finding my way back to myself

A memory has stayed with me at the time of my first marraige in Brownville Oregon U.S . my new handsome husband who was native American . she had been observing me with him and she remarked that i just fawn myself over him, i lost who i was .fawning is a trauma response .. i had suffered coersive control through out my life and mum didnt have a good feeling about this marraige.mum came to visit us in portland oregon in our new studio and my new husband make her visit hell. i remember feeling so horrified that he would just be so rude and horrible to my own mother . Theres a picture i have of that time with mum and i in our studio and because the photo is old there is what looks like fire accross us, especailly me. this was a loving mother who had travelled across the world to see her beautiful  daughter and it really exposed what an unhealthy marraige i was in. i knew i had to leave..i almost went back with mum ..

I lost myself in relationships and it made her so sad . i thought, she noticed , i had felt it myself.i know now how its easy to loose yourself in an unhealthy relationship which that was(  to his credit shayne did apologise for his unforgivable behaviour towards me, yes he tried to kill me too). i would diminish my confidence and individuality. i became so absorbed in his needs, moods that my own voice disappeared .. this happened again with narcissistic men but started with my dad. . i can get so invested in other people that i forget to protect my own space and energy.Now i understand how i need to protect who i am, my story, my identity . narcissistic abuse erases you ..i am re-claiming me and what a person to reclaim..it is through my art and writing that i am finding my way back to me.. i also lost myself to single parenting on my own with no support..i am listening to her again. i believe that life isnt about desperately trying to find a partner , but its about finding yourself, and your vocation in the world and being a parent if your blessed which i was and ill say it myself, im a damn good mother 

my recent narcissist unveiled everyone including my family .. The people who turned against me in the smear campaign were never my people. The narcissist reveiled the truth to me . it set me free ultimitely but the level of betrayal has been very hard to bear .. its a hard pill to swallow.... The unbearable grief coming at me from all angles . along with the grief of loosing younger me, in the menopause .its a heavy weeping season with flashes of intense enlightenment .Its those flashes that keep me going. along with my kids and my art and my friends/ neighbours

..jesus wept. 

financial abuse is something that my poor granny suffered and so did i. mum  as well but mum hide it from us.it seems to have been a pattern where a partner / family uses it to exert control. money is the root of all evil

im sorry that this isnt a flowing memoir like in the traditional sense . its more like a diary. i get downloads from ' the holy spirit' everyday that illl share here and try to share too on social media..

 

when i came into my inheritance at the age of 40 ( ill add that my family also received almost the same inheritance and what i got was first offered to my sibling which they refused ) , when my new husband and i ( the sacrificial marraige of lorna ONeill) came home from our honeymoon ( to Amsterdam of all places!!. it wasn't a honeymoon , it was me getting sexually abused/ now fully captured in a place where evil lurks around every corner. so i was essentually coming  back to our family house in Dublin which i now owned..i was greeted with the most awful letter i had ever received .it was so bad i brought to to the authorities .it was like a bad omen about our marraige, which was doomed from the start 

il add that i also had a neighbour on our street which was part of this campaign.. my street in dublin has many agents..one lady in particular tormented me for a whole 10 years after i came into my inheritance . one day when i was walking down the street, i saw her pass in her car and beep her car really loud. I had noticed what car she drove because she would drive slowly past my house in a really unsettling way .. They give themselves away...i finally had a word to her husband and she apologised and it hasnt happened since. she said it was' only women'.. i caught her red- handed....

 

i really got a sense of one of my mothers no.1 villians who still lives  .. or it could have been my no. 1 villian..it was probably a collaberation of both as they both live beside eashother and are all connected in this warfare against me . 

i was thinking , this is an attack on both mum and i .. but mum is dead .. it got me thinking that this is bloodline abuse . that mum can still feel my pain even from the grave , that her spirit lives on and granny can then feel mums pain.. maby in purgatory. its passed down from generation to generaton on a silver platter . but this knowledge alone will end it forever. we can now finally send it to the foot of the cross where it belongs.thats why it needs to be carefully documented ,,each part of it..and passed down  the bloodline and also passed out to the world as this is happening everywhere

That letter was evidence of the spiritual warfare/ narcissist abuse . thay had left a papertrail ..This was a hasty move.., a move that uncovered their tracks 

its very important to keep these,. mum had told me about and shared with me an awful email in the past from her no. 1 villian in regards to keeping her out of the old house in sheepsown  and this was very similiar to this letter, thats why i suspected him.. it seemed quite old-fashioned and was infused with so much bitterness that it screamed ' him' .. i showed it to his brother but he said. it wasnt from him . id say it was from both..they worked together on it ..

at the time , i would have spoken about the letter to the very culprits and they would have soaked this up as part of the sick game. ..their game is now up now..2026 .. what a year.. best year of my life.and also the worst year of my life..

As i said before, ive been attending the local catholic church every day .. anyways I  have this beautiful book, ' the keys of heaven' ...God has given me ' the keys of heaven'.i had to go to the depths of hell in this life and so did mum and so did granny to reach this level to reach heaven .. i know with all my heart and soul that we have reached heaven, heaven on earth. This is my truth, this is our truth.

I have some to believe that even satan can, without intending to, reveal the light- not because he is the source of that light, but because God can use even what was intended to bring evil to bring about good. i grew up in a family of orgin where i experienced narcissistic patterns of behaviour, manipulation and emotional suffering. Throughout my life, i continued to encounter similiar patterns, and for many years i felt as though there was a darkness surrounding me that i could not fully understand. but when my heart was finally stolen and the truth broke free, these patterns were revealed to me through my angel of light. Something extraordinary happened. In recognising what i experienced as darkness, i began to also recognise the light. It was through this awakening that i can have a deeper understanding of God's existence and presence in my life. i began to see that even the most painful experiences could become instruments of spiritual revelation. What was intended to bring me down became the very thing that opened my eyes to God. In this sense , i believe God can use even the works of satan for his greater purpose.Evil does not become good but God can transform its consequences into wisdom, discernment, healing and spiritual freedom.

Christ himself, entered into the depths of death and darkness yet darkness did not overcome him

in the apostles creed, christians profess that jesus christ was crucified, died, was buried, decended into hell, and rose again on the third day.

This idea has a biblical connection to the very story of Job, where God permits satan to test Job, while remaining soverign. paul also teaches that God works through all things for the good of those who love him. I've always had a heart for christ. 

Satan does not create Gods light , but God can bring light out of what Satan intends for darkness

when i was 8 years old mum sent me to Drewstown christian camp in co. Meath. . Drewstown is a big old house with big beautiful grounds plus a iddylic pond we would swim in everyday it was there under a wonderful old american lady who saw a bright light in me.  that i gave my life to christ. i was on fire for christ, walking our farm singing praises to god.. The words in the bible literally jumped out as ' pure truth'  . This happened over and over in my life . i am deeply touched by the holy spirit . I was told i am an evangelist . That's my calling . I believe now in this fallen world , we have to put our full trust in God and he will protect us and guide us. Our main focus everyday should be God 

the neighbours around us though the camp was a cult , mum was so cool to send us there. she had her own mind. 

There was art at the camp. we did pottery in a lovely yard, and i had painted a donkeys head grey and the rest of his body brown..i got the prize  from this wonderful old lady..ms caufield.  i remember others being jealous and wondering why i got the prize  when i didn't paint the donkey all the same colour like everyone else. i was a free spirit.i understood that there were no real rules just man made ideas that had been cemented . art is freedom..i was using art to express my true self which was a free soul . i was also using my art to reveal truths..just like im doing now..mum also didnt try to push the worlds standards on me which i appreciate . 

 i had that donkey for years. i should have kept it still

I tried to share the joy of christ with my family ( mum shared this pure summer joy with me ) but was met with complete silence.. i was shocked at this as we went to the same camps.. The word of God didnt seem to have any effect on them.. i found this confusing as a child..but i understand now..because it ties into the pattern..

im looking at the 14t station of the cross. here we see Mary's sorrow at being seperated from her son and to recognise how little compassion we sometimes show. how can we contemplate the suffering of Mary and Jesus , yet fail to recognise suffering in the lives of people around us today.?

when i lived in multyfarnham for a while in co.westmeath. i was on the d'ol and wandering around during the day. i was just back from the states after my 1st marraige had collapsed . i love the local countryside with the lakes covered in swans. i went into a friary one frosty morning in winter and it was the most glorious scene. i was on my own and taken aback at the lifesized statues of the stations of the cross that spanned across many acres. it blew my mind..a magical yet deeply moving scene unfolded in front of me. i had to stop at each station for contemplation 

anytime i see the stations of the cross now in pictures in churches im tranfixed . Im am meditating on the sufferings of christ and mary..i feel their pain acutely, throughout my whole being.

When life stands still

I recently saw a photograph of my poor yoga teacher lying in ICU in a hospital bed after suffering a heart attack. His daughter was beside him, gently holding his face, looking at him with such tenderness and love.

This photograph moved me deeply

There was something about it that reflected how i feel inside. It was a beautiful yet tragic image.. it reminded me how fragile life is, how everything we take for granted can change in a single moment. There are times in life when the world seems to continue moving while, somewhere deep within us, time stands still.

I have experienced what i can only describe as a psychological death. An invisible suffering, a profound sense of loss that has changed the way i see life. The person i once was seems so far away.

We smile, we carrry on, we go about our ordinary days, but quietly within our souls, we carry things that words can never fully express.

I thought about the blessed mother standing at the foot of the cross, watching her beloved son suffer. her sorrow was immeasurable, yet her love remained steadfast. Perhaps this is something only a mothers heart can truly understand- that love and sorrow can exist together, and that sometimes our greatest strength comes from loving when life is at its most difficult.

Then i think of my sons niall and calum. Their presence, their laughter and the ordinary moments we share remind me that life still holds beauty. They give me strength on days when my own feels very small.

That photograph reminds me of the power of love that reaches beyond suffering and speaks without words. 

My faith has taught me that even in the darkest seasons, God has not abandoned us. He has only drawn us closer.. Life has felt like it has stopped, but its only waiting for the light to find its way through again. Until then, ill hold onto my faith, to hope and above all to love.

My childhood in sheepstown

The springtime. The world would come alive. In April, you could feel it in the air. The cold, sad, isolated desolate place would suddenly start throbbing with life. The depressing irish chill in the bones and house would disappear and the air would feel great.Theres a corner on the way to grandmas house that makes me feel so alive, the air, almost like a quickening . The April showers. How i love to run in the mist feeling the coolness on my face. The misery gone for a while..our parents first dog had died on that corner . a young labrador. Bright yellow glowing daffodils  and clusters of sweet scented primroses. Dressed in our sunday best for church, i never liked wearing skirts of dresses. I hated itchy tights. I was happiest wearing my brothers hand- me -downs. I remember on a trip to the post office in the local town delvin with my grandma being mistook for a boy. My hair was kept very short but that was normal in those days ..We played with a famliy that lived accross the fields. We had a goat at that time. grandma looked after it. i think it was called gerty. anyways it frightened the life out of us in the hayshed chasing us with its big horns. Theres a photo of me wearing marks hand me downs in wellies.We lived in wellys so much down there a lot of the year. it was mucky . I was a tomboy . I realised i could get an orgasm by climbing trees.There is a stream where we would follow a tunnel under the road. 

Id hide in the treehouse when my piano teacher came for lessons monday afternoon.The farm is my refuge

we went to crowenstown catholic school. i cheated in a spelling test in high infants . There was a cool teacher there ms dowd. I have a memory of turning 10  and walking around the school yard contemplating it . The last teacher i had ms drum was terribly strict. I d get pains in my stomach going to school . she would line us up against the wall and fire irish and maths questions at us. There was two groups in the class, the good and the bad..I was always very average. Ms Drum would compare me to my older brother who was very clever. I used to bring his already done books to school and copy them out of my school bag. I would copy the person beside me .I was a sneaky cheat lol. i had lots of friends there and we would go to each others houses , the cullys and the revingtons. 

I remember frosty mornings going to school. The car was kept in the garage. The outside open garage. Mum would feed us porraige in the morning. we hated it and had to be spoon fed. All except the youngest .Mum would wait on my brother like a waitress while he lay on the couch . He never said thank you or brought up his dishes . It used to infuriate me because she was so tired and he was the eldest . he let her do everything for him. men and sons were treated like kings .i had a place at the table i would sit at with daddy smoking in the corner with loud music on. we would say grace before every meal.. Grandma gave me a book about horses, tally Ho.I believe my love of horses came from her. she brought me to an auction in oldcastle one day. she bought me some hunt pictures. once grandma and grandad brought me to virginia hotel. I think my parents were arguing . i remember loving the melon for starters.

Jogging with flowers

The first thing you do when entering a house is arrange flowers

One thing i have always done is run, pick flowers along the way and bring them home, jogging with flowers. Bring them home and arrange them loosely in the house and paint them. when my first son was born , i would fill the bottom of his pram with blooms . mum had took our old pram down from the attic 

I would drive the  tractor cutting the grass for hay and we would ride in the transport box with our work man driving. he would offer us cigerettes .i think i had a puff. Mum jack-knifed the tractor and trailer one while helping daddy before we were born .It was hard to help daddy because her was so impatient. he had no patience with us children or our dogs . he would be angry all the time stressed about trying to get the sheep in . I helped a lot on the farm, helping to dose the animals. I had the most interest out of us kids in the farm and helped the most.

 

On Mondays mum would bring me to piano lessons in a convent in Athboy.I hated them because a nun would teach them. She was really strict. Sister Patrick. She ended up dying of cancer. mark would be at on end of the piano sometimes. we did exams and i foun dit quite stressful

I learnt Beethovens fur Elise on the piano . I would play it often. Mum would play the piano a lot , breaking into music in the sitting room , rousing music. Jesus loves me and jesus bids us shine. I would play the christmas carols . i still have the music . mum herself had a very strict piano teacher old man who would rap her knuckles 

Daddy brought me out to the paddock once and showed me how to shoot a gun. It was a strange memory. he shot a crow . he was a good shot.i felt sorry for the crow. It was a long black rifle . he kept it in the house for protection like many farmers did with families.

Daddy watched the grand prix and boxing. Mum and dad listened to radio Luxembury growing up in the 60's .

Daddy would chop logs at the side of the house in the evenings. we could hear and see him at the windows. in my 20's i had a chopping logs job.. we had our won meat, fuel, veg and fruit from the orchard and garden. Blackcurrents, raspberries and gooseberries. we would pick fruit and get pocket money. Mum would stew fruit and store it in the freezer for the winter months. She gave us blackcurrent drinks if we had a cold. i would throw the blackcurrrents around the room. I did the same with cherries at my grandmas house if she was babysitting us . i would throw them behind her dresser grandma would feed us beans and toast .

Autumn held a serene beauty in sheepstown. glistening red coppercorn leaves, the early evening afterglow. the earth mother would push the big old pram into the field to pick blackberries, black juice stained hands, little pricks. A small lake road meanders, the ditches full of ripe berries

 i had a wild imagination and would write comic books for my sister everyday. drawing the pictures too. i remember a game we had of the hedge people 

The filly on the hill

childhood memories- ireland in the 1980's

When i was growing up in the irish countryside, i was absolutely obsessed with horses. i loved everything about them, although at the time i didnt have a pony of my own yet.Our neighbours had aquired a young filly , and she was kept in a field close to our house . she hadn't been broken in so i decided to do it. I had been to pony camp in kells and got a regular horsey mag.

I got a bridle on her and climbed on her back and we walked slowly up the hill but in the way down , something happened that could have cost me my life. The horse reared up and landed on top of me.. Thankfully i was fine because i landed correctly and the horse was light. I just jumped back up and got on with my day as if nothing had happened. nobody was there just me. My ribs were a bit sore . i ran down the hill at sheepstown , off to play again.

mum would serve us lettuce sometimes with small slugs on it and laugh when we noticed them, saying it didnt matter. mum lit fires, dirty fires, crushing briquettes with a hammer, gathering sticks and twigs along the road ( and picking up rubblish) her hands got in bad condition from endlessly lighting fires to keep us warm in the winter. sometimes the fire would take a long time to come on, it could keep smouldering away . she said it kept her busy and gave her something to work on. i like to light fire for my boys in the same way . I love to sit in front of one at night. mum was really frugal and she used very little bath water. daddy and her would share baths and she would get very stressed in later years if we used the shower for long. we didnt have a shower growing up . mum would wash plastic bags and hang them on the line to reuse. she would wash clothes by hand and she didnt think we needed to keep washing our clothes all the time. if there was dirt , just wipe it off. she hated washing heavy jeans

Mum loved gardening and the feel of the soil on her hands . she didnt always wear gloves . mum would wear old clothes and the same clothes everyday.

she made stewed apple and put blackberrries in it in the autumn. she used the apples to make chutney also. sour stewed fruit was a family thing  and would be proudly served

full days chain-sawing a fallen tree down the land on sunny days . it felt good so healthy. large oak trees. we would  help daddy load up the logs. i have a vivid memory of cocking hay with grandad one bright summers day in the paddock in their house . he would wear an old brown suit. grandad had brown curly hair right up until he dies. he would get up at noon , walk the land and count the cattle . i remember counting the cattle alot . grandad rarely washed . grandma had to force him to wash himself. 

There would sometimes be swans in the deep pond. in the summer there would be a car rally and the road would close .in the winter on new years day the hunt would visit but mum and dad didnt like them on our land. we would cut thistles on the tracter.

 

The Truman show effect- Awakening to the pattern

For most of my life , i felt as though i was living inside my own version of the Truman Show

The same experiences seemed to follow me through different stages of my life. Abandonment , isolation, financial struggles and relationships and jobs that left me feeling dimished . i felt there was an unseen barrier around me that was blocking me from moving into certain jobs/ experiences  etc. id run into the same painful characters again and again that would drain my lifeforce over and over. As i began tracing my family history, i noticed similarities between my experience and those of generatons before me 

But gradually , i began wondering whether these patterns extended beyond my family , ( stemming from family ) into the wider community in which i had grown up.

i remember being 24 , in san francisco feeling completely alive, free and full of of possibility. I felt the world welcomed my happiness. i have a distinct memory of coming out of the bart station and vibing with the people around me in my cool bohemion clothes 

Returning to ireland was different. i have a memory of walking to the local shop and feeling such bad vibes from everyone around me. i know san fran is very different to ireland but I always got a sense of people bringing down my vibration in ireland especially around the palces i grew up in and still live in. 

my awakening is recognising the patterns that had shaped my  life and questioning whether i had to continue living within them and continue owning them as mine..when they were not my patterns to begin with .. They were generatonal pain . This is also why im writing this blog to release big painful parts of that life that i was born into, the life that involved being cast into a low vibrational pattern and being around the pain of dearly loved ones that were caught up in it too, my dear mother and granny ..

The Freedom of being unknown

When i returned to america at around 30 to hang out and live and work with my dear friend laura in San fran in the mission, i experienced an extraordinary sense of liberation, almost as though my mind had finally escaped the confines of my old life . i was leaving the pattern..I remember having a conversation with a guy who had just moved ' out west' from another state . we felt the same way. I felt different in every way in the states ( when i wasnt in a narc relationship ) . i would flourish in mind, body and soul. California gave me something i needed for my healing and liberation , ' the freedom of being unknown' . Nobody knew my history . Patrick Kavanaghs poem ' stony grey soil' about monaghan came to mind. i always felt there was something deeply dark in ireland that i couldnt shake ( it even followed me abroad at times too. The pattern jumps continents ..Of course there were great liberation times in ireland too like my art  colleges days in dublin and galway but i did always sense the pattern throbbing in the background.

And yet something beautiful happened when i became a mother. through my children, i began to  flourish again. Motherhood awakened a part of me that had been waiting to blossom. it gave me a renewed sense of purpose, love and identity. Perhaps the freedom i had discovered in America had never truly disappeared. Perhaps it had simply been waiting for another opportunity to emerge. And now , as i look back across the generatoins and begin writing my own story- the freedom to understand my past without allowing it to define my future.Im ready by the grace of God ,to let the pattern go so it doesnt consume the rest of my life and continue ' on repeat

The road back to myself

My road, my freedom

When i look back to my childhood i don't think of school, i think of mum and sheepstown, the farm, nature, our friends there and all the fun and adventures we had   and my grandparents and their homes. My father was a farmer and mum a homemaker. we had a whole world beyond the classroom. At 12 , i went to boarding school in dublin. i brought some cattle bones from the farm for the art room which are actually still there. I was teased for looking like a country girl with braces and wild curly hair. but i never lost that inner freedom. even as the world seemed intent on placing me in various categories. i never really felt the need to belong to any particular image. sometimes i would spend days in old clothes in the country seeing nobody and i was perfectly happy . And yet beneath that sense of freedom there was a quieter more complicated layer. i began to see patterns within my family, roles people were expected to play, scapegoating, emotional patterns repeating themselves.. i realsed i had absorbed lower versions of myself that were not truly me. That's why the road in sheepstown has remained important to me. its only about half a mile, long winding roads, with our land on each side. grass down the middle. no traffic or noise. just the sound of sheep and cattle in the distance and the quiet and the calm whenever i walk there. its just enough to settle my mind and bring me back to a calm place. That where the real 'me' still lives and when other versions feel loud or heavy, the roles , the expectations. i remember that ive known another way of being.

That road in the spring summer with the sun shining down it is sensational . I have so many pics . its breath-taking 

Lough Lene

A short drive away from our house lay the most beautiful lake , lough lene. sandy shores gentle on our soft toes.. A diving board for deep dives . we would splash around for hours. mum was so glad the lake was close when she moved down the country because when it got muggy in the summer it was a great place to cool off. ireland does have some hot summer spells. the tall trees also give great shade . recently a lot of the lovely country trees have fallen in the storm . im blessed to be able to bring my boys there and they also have lovely memories visiting it in their early youth. we learnt to swim there with a strict teacher . my brother hated it so much . he got water in his ears that he stopped swimming altogether. i was a water baby for life. i still swim in the sea everyday of the year.

Holidays

Kilkee

We drove out west and stop halfway at the side of the road and have our gusty picnic which consisted of soggy tomatoes and egg sandwiches in a small tupperare container and having flask tea. mum was so glad to get away .Then we jumped into a nearby hedge for a wee. we would also stop at the prince of Wales hotel in Athlone for chips and salad.Kilkee is a lovely beach town . it takes ages to drive there first you get to kilrush .it really seems like you have got away. we didnt have foreign holidays like our cousins who went on the continent. When we got to the hotel we would drop our stuff in our room and leg it to the beach which was right across the road. Aunt Brenda sunning herself on the rocks.her long shapely legs.we spent the days wandering the beach with new friends we met on the beach. it instilled a deep love of the beach in me . a beachbum forever. We stayed in a guest house called clar ellagh .There was a party trick at the end of the week at a small show. my dad ate fire. That was his party trick.I found it weird because he didnt seem like the kind of person who would do something like that. my uncle would be the man of the night. He was a good public speaker and had a good sense of humour.A big personality.. i did waitressing there myself later with a girl from school . it was my first job.we played croquet and table tennis. i won lots of medals.There was a boucqet of bread flowers you could win and granny and mum had a milliion of them in their homes.i had my first crush on a balck boy there . i had never seen a black person before.

There was one wild stormy night there that i decided to go for a swim in the wild sea. mum let me and watch nearby. She always encouraged my wild spirit. i must have been in my teens then .

West Cork

we would go down to west cork to stay and visit grannys family.we stayed in ' forest' once . grannys brother ronnie  and his wife vera. They had a dog called biddy . and ponds full of fish. they had a rabbit farm and when i saw them i was shocked..it was so cruel with swollen eyes. Ronnie would give me an occasional slap on the bottom which i found very uncomfortable .. i told mum and she said ' no he wouldnt do that' but he did.he had a great personality.we went to grannys homeplace larage where her brother and his wife lived . his wife still lives there . granny would tell us stories of when she was a child.like about how the bath plughole was so big she thought she might fall down it I painted 'laragh'. mum was so proud of me when i painted in front of the family in the loely garden . granny was able to look at that painting if ever she grew homesick when she got older and it was harder to visit. i remember one night after dark my 2nd cousin boys who were young at the time but older than us brought us out on a landrover for a spin. i loved it 

Wales 

mum brought us to wales to stay for a week. i think mum was going through the menapause at the time. we went to water parks . we went to oxford. i remember kicking up a fuss about wanting some clothes . we went to liverpool and manchester .

 

 

 

Chapter two 

boarding school

we went to kells primary school for a year because mum wanted to send us to a protestant baording school . we go the bus to kells everyday. it was one of those old school buses. i agreed to it . 

i went to the kings hospital school palmerstown.  i loved the open day and all my class were going . the school gives a great impression. i was left boarding for weeks and mum finally brought me out to kilmanahm jail . theres a pic of me looking very depressed .. i would get a lift our to granny in sutton on sundays from a 6th boy sometimes. i cherished every moment. going to kings hospital was so good for me in the long run because recently i have felt such an uplift from the school . its a school for life. i was given a wonderful opportunity . mum would say why did she send me there when my life was in bits but now i know why she sent me there because its a school that will stand to you as a past pupil. im truly blessed. 

but on the dark side , i was bullied by gangs of boys . when my braces came off they were shocked because i didnt fit the role of bully victim . i was very pretty and cool . i remember when my sister started the bullying got worse. they were like your sister is so much better than you.. over and over .my brother never stuck up for me with bullys not like a brother should. i didnt really connect with my sister at school and i felt bad about that but she didnt connect with me.i had friends but wasnt in the cool group . i remember going back to sheepstown one christmas and the cards were on the piano and i felt like my life was over because of the intense shame i felt after being bullyed . i didnt tell mum or anyone. i suppose in those days it went under the radar .we had to sit on desighnated dinner tables and i had bullys on my table . i was forced to sit with for half hour meals. they would hiss at me . i would dread meals. i was glad when it became self service and i felt more relaxed

 

so my first experience of men was bully boys .. mostly small boys , gangs of them. some really venomous. i heard you are doing something rights if gangs go up against you. but i didnt understand that then as a child. Gangs of people against me is something that ive experienced throughout my life and am still experiencing and also mum and granny . I often wonder  what is happening behind the scenes &  that this is the universe trying to tell us what is happening behind the scenes. everything happens for a reason. .i didnt have a good father role model or sibling role model or uncle or cousin role model. The three woman in my family, mum and granny and grandma were my heros but as i said i did have my doubts about grandma.. my grandpa ad grandad i didnt think much of because i knew of their  abuse i didnt get a boyfriend yet the other girls did. you see i wrote about this before that this is all stemming from my family system. you leave the family system and you get pain over and over , same happened mum. 

you might be lured back this happened in my 20's when i had left ireland properly for a life in the states. a fake emotional plea in an irish bar in boston something i mistook for love at the time

.bullys, no boyfriend, intense shame to the point where i would hide my face with my hands and pray for darkness when nobody saw me. i loved movie night . i could hide away . i did ok in my studies. i loved art . my friends were great. i always had good friends. one of the girls shirley befriended me for years and then dumped me when we left school but she was on the road to marrying her highschool sweetheart. i did rowing, canoeing, orienteering hockey and horse riding  . i did the liffey decent. i really engaged in school life. i want to add that not all the boys were bully some were very nice. I recently went to my school reunion and it was so uplifting as i was going through a tough period. im always thankful to mum for sending me there. its a school for life

i remember being in my aunts house one summer and feeling my face burn up at the table . i didnt feel comfortable in public thats what narcissistic abuse had done to me even though i was blossoming into a lovely young woman

i writing this all out looking for the pattern recognition which ive been blessed with 

last night i heard an injured fox yowling through the night . i almost got up to have a look. its the city.. with all this stuff im working through it was like a soundtrack to the pain./ i have my beautiful cat balllerina to comfort me now, what a blessing 

we went on a family holiday to wales when i was 14 we visited manchester and liverpool

Diary extracts

name- lorna oneill

age- 14

eyes-green

hair short, wavy and curly. i always wanted long hair but its hard to grow long if you have curly hair . its finally long at the age of 50

face-lovely biggish teeth . i had bucked teeth , granny paid for braces . when my braces came off in school , my bullys were gobsmacked ..i just didnt fit the role of someone who was bullyed anymore

Extraordinary Beauty , Hidden suffering

Three generations of woman

There is a pattern running through the generations of woman in my family that i am only now beginning to recognise. it is the strange and sometimes heart breaking contrast between extraordinary beauty and hidden suffering

From the outside, our lives might have appeared idyllic. beautiful homes, countryside, land, education,  travel , social standing and all the outward appearance of privilege. Yet beneath those seemingly fortunate circumstances lay another story entirely. A story of woman whose private suffering was largely invisible to the outside world.

my granny grew up in a mansion in cork/ one might imagine a childhood of comfort and privilege, yet the fragments i know of her early life suggest something rather different. A strict father who expected his children to rise at six in the morning to make butter and a mother who seemed emotionally distant and a jealous sister . i do not know all the details but times were hard then for everyone.

later she married a bank manager at a tennis party. how romantic that might have appeared. A handsome professional man, a respectable marraige and a life that took her around ireland

yet the reality was very different. My granny lived under a controlling husband who restricted her access to money. She made her own clothes and endured debilitating migraines. Behond the respectable image was a woman who had limited freedom and independence

mum

she grew up in a well respected protestant banking family yet there was horrendous abuse in the many homes she lived in

she went to a private girls school Alex yet experienced behind the scenes pain from other girls 

She married a farming family and moved to the beautiful irish countryside. There were acres  of rolling farmland, animals , a beautiful home and three healthy children. To anyone observing her life, she might have seemed extraordinary fortunate

she had a controlling jealous sister and she get took on my dads jealous brother 

yet my mother too, experienced suffering behind those beautiful surroundings. There were painful family relationships and difficulties within her marraige that nobody saw.my dad had a great reputation in Westmeath .

and then a generation later there was me. i have found myself living out a strangely familiar contrast.

my enid blyton childhood in sheepstown in a well respected family . my boarding school. experience contained something of this contradiction . beautiful surroundings did not mean emotional safety

my travels in the U.S and my first marraige to a beautiful native American in Portland Oregon , a man of faith that might have looked like a dream come true but behind the scenes he was making my life a misery with his drinking and abuse and ended up trying to take my life. Again God protected me 

siblings who dont act like real family to me 

and now looking at my life today, i can see how easily people might misunderstand it. i live in a beautiful area, have beautiful children but behind the scenes my ex husband is dragging me through the courts with divorce, custody battle that has gone on for years and is financially draining and extremely stressful.Abuse by proxy .but i know because i am abiding in christ that this painful time has now come to an end , Glory to God

All three of us have suffered emotional abuse by the people who should be in our corner.

the powerlessness we all suffered that got disguised as ' a good life'

private pain-public perfection

i had this experience recently when a friend was cruel to me on whatapp and subquently blocked me but then gratiously said we could talk if we met in public. I disagreed for my own well being and wished her well. this was an example of private pain - and fake public performance . the unsettling thing is this lady has moved into my street basically since and she is everywhere and people keep trying to bring us together

..its the universe trying to tell me something important

its abuse that's been kept hidden by deep shame . abuse that happened in the shadows where nobody could see and find out so it was allowed to fester and fester spanning generations . abuse that got hidden behind a perfect life

That deep shame manifested in my lifelong blushing . The shame became visible and i was mortified as a teen .my face would go as red as a beetroot when my bullys teased me.. They would ' hiss' loudly .. . it didnt seem normal, like an affliction . it was crippling .Now im exposing this generational trauma/shame finally to the light  and healing . but  blushing is a sign of beauty..my natural beauty mocked 

why would i have always felt this deep shame, it was passed down to me .shameful abuse hidden by shame . in the past you didnt really talk about domestic violence. it carried shame. but we now live in a time where we can finally talk about it .

i had to buy the book ."copeing with blushing" ' in secret and i put green foundation on my face that was supposed to calm redness on the skin. it was affecting my life so much . mum noticed but didnt say much. i found i blushed more around unhealthy characters that i felt uncomfortable around. the unhealthy characters caused me to  blush with their shame or if i was around a fake environment and people. I

I am living , walking truth and in a world that doesn't accept truth, i shine bright and in a lot of ways i'am not accepted. mum and granny were too.also i believe when im aroud people, i feel their shame. i see through people into their souls. its why ive never felt comfortable in the public eye. also if i ever drank or smoked i felt intense shame .. thankfully i rarely drink now . i believe alcohol attracts darkness

all the above thread runs down my fathers family line too. you could say daddy lived a great life on paper a big landowner and farmer who worked for himself with a god fearing wife and children  , yet it too was full of dark pain.in his abusive childhood with an alcoholic dad and his lifelong health struggles . i often wonder too if my dad was also dealing with a jealous sibling  ( because he was the eldest and inherited the land) like mum was ,so both of my parents were under this spiritual attack . Why was my uncle so invested in our family and im sure still is  ?  so absolutely they would find the one child in the next generation to dump all this pain on .. and that ended up being 'me'.

of course this being ireland. its all stemming from land and the deep connections to the land

And im sad to say this same pattern is now evident in my youngest .

Thankfully my two eldest are protected one up north and one in boarding school.

 

So this memoir is me bleeding out to the world our generational pain and subsequently washing our bloodline in christ's transformational blood 

The freedom my mother gave me

Looking back on my childhood, almost fifty years later, i'm beginning to understand the extraordinary gift my mother gave me

She gave me the freedom to become myself

We grew up in the irish countryside during the 80's . our upbringing would be unusual by todays standards. mum had something of a hippy spirit, although there was no drugs or alcohol involved. she rarely drank . the occasonaly glass of wine at an occasion and her face went bright red.. It was a frual, earth-loving existance, deeply connected to nature and grounded in her christian faith

we lived somewhat outside the conventions of mainstream society. . The real education happened beyond the classroom. in the fields, on our bikes on endless adventures. we were allowed to explore, to imagine , to question , to be bored and discover the world ourselves. There was a wonderful sense of freedom. i didnt grow up feeling particularly restricted by societys expectaions. in many ways until recently i was unaware of them . and i believe my mother deliberately nurtured that freedom. she was never a woman who followed the crowd. she had her own convictions, her own understanding of the world and her faith in God. she was capable of standing apart from popular opinion when her conscience told her something different.

she marched to the beat of her own drum. and i think she recognised that same spirit in me.as a girl i was a tomboy , i loved being mucky and outdoors, wild hair and rosy cheeks.i like animals more than humans. mum never tried to mould me into societys idea of what a girl should be.. she didn't insist on grooming , being tidy or any efficiency at household chores.of course there were occasions where i was expected to wear a dress for church much to my displeasure .and i did help mum with chorse because i felt empathy for her. i didnt ever notice any my siblings helping her .I was the only one who helped around the house and on the farm as a child . i think my brother would help on the farm occasionally 

but fundamentally i was allowed to be myself not someone who was in training to be a perfect woman in society.. i learned many of those traditionally feminine skills later in life, when circumstances required them. yet i remain deeply grateful that my childhood wasnt dominated by these expectations

mum was more interested in developing the evolved human being that producing the socially acceptable woman.

i wasnt simply presented with the polished version of our family history. i heard about the pain and injustices  and complicated relationships.i grew up understanding that appearance did not always tell the whole story

perhaps that is where my instinct to question things began

my mother encouraged me to think independantly , to listen to my conscience and not accept something merely because everyone else believed it. the ability to look beneath the surface, 

which i am doing now in uncovering all the family truths and seeing for myself what is going on behind the scenes. mum was pivotal in this quest in priming my mind from birth  for discernment. mum passed this gift on to me and im now in the perfect place to receive it ..its why i always wanted to be around her and learn from here even later in life. i always felt a deep longing to be in her presense.. as any child would 

Then in my 20's i travelled 

america opened another world to me, california , florida expanded my understanding of what life could be. There were very liberating years.i explored different ways of living and possibilities for my future.The freedom i found in the wider world was an extension of the freedom mum had first given me and daddy in giving me sheepstown .

mum recognised the independent spirit of her daughter. she gave me permission to be myself , to think for myself and the life tools to do this. above all a faith in God 

my mother gave me roots like a tall flourishing tree but also wings like a spirited white unicorn

This gave me such a strong foundation when i came up against what she and granny came up against .

in saying that i always had what mum called ' my own pure faith' that she loved . I pray in churches and also on farm walks, drives, in my home and garden and when i do my daily sea swims.

Mullingar

sheepstown is very isolated so mullingar became the town where we could feel less isolated. its a great town with heaps of culture and nightlife. we had so much fun there growing up .going out in Danny  byrnes and the nightclubs . we would meet with mum for tea in the greville and food arms . these days i love days bazarre coffee shop . if i had to live in any town in ireland it would be mullingar .. its close to dublin.The fleadh was fantastic there over the past few years. daddy loved joe dolan and would go to see him there with mum sometimes .mum and daddy went to see shirley bassie in dublin once. Theres a great new road to mullingar now from delvin so its very close .its a bit of life and atmosphere which if you spend any lenghty time in sheepstown you crave ..

 

Finding my truth- My native American journey

When i travelled to America in my 20's, my mother had dreams of stardom for me but something in side of me knew not to chase it and to stay away from nesting in L.A. i did visit twice for a short weekend..That whole scene seemed so sleazy and male dominated .i was also desperately escaping the family system in ireland . i would somtimes just fling myself into the world and see where id land.

I ended up discovering something far more important than fame. i uncovered a 'truth' . i uncovered the real true America . The truth revealed itself to me . I had returned to portland OR after a brief trip to barsolona and was working in a bookshop with a friend.i had been staying with him but he decided to not let me one rainy night and i found myself on the streets. i wandered into a bar where over pool i encountered a native american brother and sister. shayne and stacey. she had a red streak in her hair. They took me under their wing and put an umbrella over my head . Ill never forget the kindness they showed me and their mum felicia who is full blooded soix from south dokota.She was also a born again christian who witnessed to me . i rededicated my life to christ and got baptised in the columbia river.Their family opened the door into a world i knew almost nothing about except the old  black and white western movies .I became immersed in native american culture, attending Pow Wows , discovering a history .felicias house in brownsville was the coolest. it had old furniture that she had picked up . so homely and indian fry bread and sun tea. They were so kind to me. .felicia had two children that she had adopted brian and jessie. we would float down the river together in the summer . i loved jessie like a sister. i had found my new indian family and i loved them. i have a lovely momory of a christmas there . my first xmas away from family . felicia wrapped a million girts for me

I was welcomed into their community as the only white girl there and experienced extraordinary hospitality and acceptance. As an artist i began painting the ancestors and members of the community bought my work at felicias jewellery stall. one man bought my whole collection.. it was an awakening to the history of americas indigenous people, to the dispossession of their ancestral lands, the suffering, the bloodshed, the generations of injustice and the struggles that continue today. The deep connection to the land , like the irish. i wore the native american jewellery 

I had gone  to America in search of a dream but i had uncovered a truth and it was the very people whose history had been pushed aside who welcomed me and healed me so gratiously . their entire history /race had been erased . how can a country thrive after commiting such a crime to such deeply spiritual people? how can the world thrive because america sets the pace ?

..just like what was happening to me in my life. it was no coincidence that i ran into the native americans . i married shayne in a christian church in brownsville  . his mum felicia called him shayne which she said was an irish name. she was obsessed with irish people so she had that dream in her heart for shayne. infortunately we ended up getting divorced at the age of 30 due to his drinking . Unfortunately many of the native americans have trouble with alcohol. shayne got involved with a native lady so he was unfaithful . after i left he moved her into our studio with her family.as i mentioned before he tried to take my life

so here we have it again the pattern

granny a god fearing woman married grandpa who was from a good protestant family and it ended up being abuse she had to endure privately. she couldn't possibly say anything bad about him but mum saw and witnessed and told me. granny honoured her husband and stood by him 

mum a god fearing woman married a protestant from a great family and endured daily abuse but didn't tell anyone and always saw the best in him ..she didn't like me complaining about how he treated her.. she honoured him and stood by him .. i remember her in the end wheeling him around in n a wheelchair when he was on kidney diallallysis.

the same happened me . i fell into a trap thinking i was getting married to a good christian but i endured private pain too . i was very god fearing too . this happened me twice .

we all fell into a trap

WE was never the villain in their story

WE were never meant to feel bad . it was never the truth. the universe has been standing beside me all along . its pushing the secrets into the open ..i have resilience now 

i remember in electric picnic after taking some drugs in my late 20's the universe literally opened up before me in the green fields of ireland. i come from the O'Neill family and felt so connected with that high kings of ireland heritage. it took me months to recover and come down from that experience .ive been sharpened by the universe.

 

i want to put down another truth.. my brother has made a lot of money in his life and in America  in tech and he never helped mum with it in any way and he could have. her house needed repairs and updating. she needed financial help. she never benefited from his money and she should have , she was living on a widows pension..

she waited on him like a maid. she always treated him like a king.and  so did granny .she brought him into the world and did everything for him, she was his single parent. she sacrificed so much for him. he never gave back to mum . He even used sheepstown and the rags to riches story ( coming from a small irish farm in ireland , its wasn't small...!) for his benefit . just like when i was a child and it used to bother me that he would just let mum do everything for him and not help her.. this has also bothered me greatly and it needs to be said.

i always thought that was awful. he never visited her when she was dying and he could have. This has always upset me my whole life. how she was treated and then the same started to happen to me

How family never helped us

i watched poor mum left on her own to do everything alone.. her husband didnt help her at all and she had three children. There was an awful incident when mum came into her inheritance . she bought her sister out because she wanted to keep the house in Sutton. her sister demanded the full amount even though they were sisters and mum was shocked . she could barely afford it but she wanted to do it for her children.mum begged her to allow her to give a little less because they were sisters and she knew mum struggled as a lone parent and single person. mum was shocked and hurt when they went to Hawaii with her money ... she was under the impression the money would be used for important things.. mum experienced betrayal after betrayal 

 

she would slave in the kitchen with noone helping her. mum watched granny managing on her own, with no help from her husband or family

then it was my turn .. after my 2nd husband abandoned us in dreadful circumstances, as a single mum , i begged my family for help and then when i was put in the desperate position of systemic abuse , to my horror they still didnt help or give me any empathy and would ignore my messages..

my family could clearly have helped .. they all live high end lifestyles . they wouldnt even give me a listening ear and if they did reply it felt soulless

they wouldn't even allow us a night in my dads old homeplace in sheepstown when i couldnt afford a holiday 

This is not how family treats family!? ..Red flags and a Clean Painful Pattern running through the Generations

lets face it. most of us would end up mediocre at best if there was no diabolic activity in our lives. if there was no temptation, no fighting against demons, most of us wouldnt develop any level of virtue whatsoever

Fr Chad Ripperger

yup this is all for my benefit believe it or not 

In this life the people who love God deeply carry the most trials . saint Teresa

you might have been raised with all sorts of problems and all these disorders and it may not be our fault. it doesnt matter . its still your obligation to CLEAN UP THE MESS . if you dont , you're gonna have to stand before God for not having made a reasonable effort

Fr Chad Ripperger

The only way to overcome pride is to work on the virtue of humility. you must be willing to be humilitated . No saint has attained perfection without accepting humiliation. The only ones in heaven are humble. The only ones in hell are proud. choose wisely

That one above cuts deep . ive experienced humilitation over and over in my life. it was God trying to teach me something 

Chad Ripperger

the 6th generation- my childrens generation

he talks about 'generational spirits' , destructive behavioural patterns passed down through families and eras. Evil spirits passed from generation to generation.. the way they are passed is if someone commits a sin then it gets into the home then it starts picking on the other people and then it starts getting passed from generation to generation. passed from parents to children. .someone of authority will allowed it to continue. someone who is not in the state of grace is more likely to be affected. people with no godly protection.. going to mass everyday and holy water helps  to stop them.or seeing a priest to get an exorcist 

The truth

in our family on my mothers side, now this probably goes back further generations but the generations i know of which start at granny. Grannys sister sinned by being deeply  jealous of her sister marjorie, ( the wedding picture speaks this , the sister and the mother )  a generational evil eye spirit entered her and then this spirit got passed down to my mothers sister and then down to my sister .This resulted in a smear campaign in each generation against the 3 marjories generating from this demon. it projected itself on the marjories in mums and my generation .and an authority figure narcissist held it in each family . it feels so good to finally understand this .. its been a journey but the pattern is very clear now . mum lived this and told me her heart. mum witnessed this and it just broke her heart how it played out with me  . looking back on the old photographs they tell the story , mum and granny left a map in photographs for me.. i have all the old albums ive been looking through to piece this together and all the painful stories i was told and experienced 

i believe this also happened on my dads side with a demon , this demon took aim at my mother instead of my dad when they married and then to me , then i ended up attracting abusive characters over and over. And because of the demon brought in by envy, that mum and granny too were attracted to demons in abusive characters, my dad and grandpa. The horrible thing was both dad and grandpa came from good protestant families so that was a trap. mu experienced pain form her mother inlaw too

All the marjories were doing trying to find a decent partner to have children with

Each marjorie felt all the marjories pain deeply .

This pain has spanned generations but there is a obvious pattern, an only sister who doesn't shine bright who stays attached in an unhealthy way

They shone with gods beauty and talents but attracted evil over and over in 

then i got to a stage recently where i experienced what it means to live in a society with no god. i experienced pure evil and i needed to know why my life had gone this way and why this was allowed to happen. i was entering rooms that were poisoned against me before i entered them.

im thankful i know now. Once they poison the minds of the people around you . they think they have your mind poisoned too but i always knew in my heart and in my mind that there was something evil up. Tha'ts not who i am or who God made me to be. That worthless, bad , ugly , downtrodden person .lifelong gaslighting . mum brought me up and gave me opportunitys to expand and open my mind . She instilled my deep worth in me through God 

ive been going to church everyday and am praying through this with a priest and God

 

grannys generation is the lost generation.They accepted suffering without complaint . to offer up suffering was part of life. life was sufffering, a veil of tears. they didnt talk about their problems . they didnt teach their children to embrace the cross. that demons started to thrive. their inability to embrace the cross, no delight in suffering like the saints, in alility to have to go to penance. lots of demons have gathered over the generations  . they owned only what they needed , no indulgence  in the lost generation. the greatest generation. self control, self denial .

embracing the modern world rather than embracing the cross was passed down to us

fear God rather than fear MAN

i believe mum tried to live like granny had shown her because granny was from the lost generaton..( before it went wrong) mum couldnt confirm to the fallen world around her as it got worse and worse . she brought us up the right way . 

when mum came to the school to collect me from my private boarding school in dublin. i in my teens ,i was embarassed because she wasnt glamerous like the other mothers and she had an old country car that wasnt pristine . we didnt go on foreign holidays . we had a frugal , down to earth life in a bungalow on the land growing our own veg meat that i appreciate so much . what a lesson she taught us. we would walk everywhere sometimes stopping the car early to walk the rest of the way. she got a big  old black irish nelly bike when we were in our teens that she used to go to the shop instead of drive in the country. there was a petrol station a mile away. she washed clothes by hand and dishes and didnt use harmful cleaning products . she washed in rain water or the sea /lake which is what i do too.

. she knew how to protect the earth and it meant so much to her .. she knew that by protecting the earth , she was honouring God because he made it..

she was so real and embodied truth .she taught me from an early age by example,  i didn't need to follow the rest  .you dont have to blindly follow the herd off the cliff

. i could stand in my own truth. i always thought she was very cool ..and when we went to Austrailia i understood that the young generation of the world agreed. it was the first time i had got to experience her outside of the roles that i had always seen her in. it was her true essense that she showed me. i will always be so grateful for that time with her. That's why i am honouring her here . she deserves it ..im so blessed to be her daughter and now she is my guardian angle . what an example to me ..i really do believe we follow our mums as daughters. we end up just like them in appearance too whether we like it or not.

i believe that mum and granny because they lead saintly lives are with God now and because mum is my angel she has seen the injustices that have affected my life since she died  and has asked God to interceed and he has . There has definitely been a shift in the right direction ..

The injustices at the end- my mother and grandmother

A girl called freedom 

There are  certain things in life that remain with us. Things that were never properly explained, questons that were never answered, and injustices that leave a mark lone after the people we love have gone

i have carried some of these for years particularly concerning the final chapters of granny and mums lives

They deserve to be spoken about . my granny was a remarkable woman, gentle, dignified and quietly beautiful .

when grandpa died she experienced freedom. she spent that time in sutton surrounded by her daughter and grandchildren and wonderful church and friends and neighbours.. Those were precious years

yet her final days were not what i would have wished for 

again to outsiders she had it good. living in her home helped by her daughter mum in the end ) with mums sister and husband  controlling from galway  . granny lived to be almost 90.she entered a great nursing home on the seafront and was able to keep her home, yet the pattern continued ..There was private pain. at night granny was ignored by staff and left in a helpless state with no support over and over. once there was a big drinking party at xmas and poor granny was forced to listen to loud music and shouting all night long . she was put into a tiny room with no window right in the middle of the centre. Those were her final days and mum was devastated and found it very hard to get over her death in those circumstances . The nursing home closed not long after so this was very common

mum struggled with the thoughts of her lying there waiting for someone to come.

my mother too was a woman who endured more than she should have had to endure

For months she had been suffering from persistant indigestion . she repeatedly sought medical advise, but her constant symptoms were dismissed as something minor.i witnessed one doctor myself and felt she wasn't taken seriously

she got worse and worse and lost weight . i googled her symptoms and cancer appeared but noone believed me. there was no cancer in the family.and she had lead a healthy lifestyle. i often wonder whether an early investigation might have changed the course of events.

eventually my mother was admitted to hospital where cancer was diagnosed . i will never forget the night she called. i was the first to hear by the fire in sutton. i felt my heart sink. she had chemotherapy and then surgery because she had previous heart problems .she did not recover from the operation. i prayed over her body before she died . There were conversations, unanswered questions and concerns expressed within the family about aspects of her hospital care. There were matters that should have been investigated , although no formal complaint was made.mum was only 71. she  said she lived a good life and wrote a notebook detailing her life. i said to her mum are you going to write about the pain?.. i remembered all her pain .she said , no she couldn't . i remember her going into her church trying to get help with her painful life circumstances  and she didnt feel heard. im blessed they did help me 

There were matters surrounding her estate. mum had extensive savings about 50 thousand that just vanished. I have currently the same problem with the same solicitor holding money that should be mine  . as executor of her willl, i also remember being asked to agree to changes regarding her wishes, i refused. 

mum always said. never change a will . i heard her voice in my head

The importance of allowing woman to be heard, believed and treated with dignity

The Three Marjories

Marjorie mayne, Pamela marjorie and Lorna marjorie

Three Generations, Three women Three homes , one pattern

There is something i have come to recognise about the three generations of woman in my family- my granny , my mum and i were all critized in the home about the housekeeping . what strikes me about this pattern is that we always kept lovely homes , not immaculate showrooms or tight ships. but they were real homes  lived in and cared for . we are all more outdoorsy people who don't put a huge emphasis on housework. , perfered to bein the garden or on the land or out walking by the sea. These homes are our sanctuarys and a woman is her most vunerable in their home. its where she cares for her children. its a sacred space 

we come from a protestant tradition of frugality, practicality and self -reliance. nobody was helping us when we got critized .we were doing it ourselves with no help. DIY was part of our life . we painted, maintained and worked on our homes ourselves without outside help.

These were hardworking woman doing the best with what they had , yet somehow their efforts were constantly measured against somebody elses expectations . i feel really bad because when i was growing up i would give out to her a bit for her clutter and i heard it said by another sibling ' she doesnt see dirt' poor mum .. 

my son niall has memorys of mum and i having a strained relationship. but i was so glad to have been in her presence the last ten years of her life.. i treasure those year

The contrast between the simplicity of protestant values- thrift, hard work, independance and making do- and the pressure to meet other peoples perfect standards . why were three generations of woman made to feel that their home and their job bringing up the children was never quite good enough?

Three generations of woman. Three different lives. Three homes subjected to judgement 

we were made to feel ashamed of our beautiful homes /lives when we were the ones doing all the work on our own. The people who should have helped us didn't help.

 

A Standard to Keep

Growing up Protestant in the Republic of Ireland

a memoir reflection

mum would say to me ' your protestant , you have a standard to keep' These words have stayed with me throughout my life .There was a certain expectation attacked to being protestant. it 'wasn't about money or possessions. it was about how you conducted yourself .how you represented your family

we were brought up with traditional protestant values of thrift, independence , hard work and making do with what we had. We did things ourselves, mostly mum . Growing up in Sheepstown , i was aware that we were different. . religion was woven into our family history. my dad had to marry a protestant to inherit the family land .There was a divide between protestant and catholic families in those days. my fathers family growing up didn't play with their catholic neighbours . real protestants dont move with the changing fads. They just live the same way all the time

we got hate letters in the post a few times for being protestant .

later in Sutton, eggs were thrown at the windows of our family home around the 11th of July , orange order celebrations .These incidents were not everyday occurances but they stayed with me . they reminded me even in the republic of Ireland where we were born and our families had lived for generations, there were moments where we were made to feel like outsiders.

yet Ireland is our home too and the fact that we are O'Neills gives us a really strong heritage that dates back to the high kings of Ireland. I named my first born son, Niall O'Neill after a prominent high king . i was in my late 20's and wandering around dublin city. i went into Trinity College and had a look at the oneill hisotry . i decided then that my first born son would Niall . Then not long afterwards, i met his dad in san fran on a hot easter sunday . we attended the jesus parade at the local park in the mission

O'Neill

We decent from Niall of the nine hostages, king of Ireland 379-406 AD One of the greatest clans of ireland. Niall means 'champion'.. The jacobite Sir Niall O'Neill leading his company of dragoons at the battle of the boyne . the coat of arms on a white field for Purity and Peace , holding a red hand , symbols of Ui Neill denoting strength, courage and Might . In chief are three stars for constancy and on base a salmon denoting Un Neill dominion over lough neagh. as i mentioned my eldest son who is now 18 is called Niall O'Neill after the high king if ireland. he is my 'soaring eagle' . he even got a soaring eagle tattoo in Egypt this past summer . i am so proud of him 

Close to sheepstown beside westmeath is meath . An MHI meaning 'the middle' . its know as the royal county. The hill of Tara was the seat of the high kings. it was where finn mac Cumhail had a  battle and slew the monster of Tara.. On the hill of Tara there is a stone called' Lia Fail 'which was given by the Tuatha De Danann , it was used to inaugurate new kings as the stone would cry out if the king was wrong

and my cousin was called hugh oneill named after  an important irish leader in co.tyrone . The earl of Tyrone .around the late 1500 and early 1600. He lead the resistance against English rule. The nine years war- . he was trying to keep irish independance and make alliances even with spain. after the war , he left ireland in whats called , the flight of the earls . it marked the end of the old Gaelic order .

so because of sheepstown and being oneill i always felt a strong connection to ireland. when i travelled i found it hard to stay away for any length of time ,being just another fish in the sea was a tough one for me.

A Protestant O'Neill

 

our protestant identity was not simply a religion we practiced on Sundays. It was part of our culture , our upbringing, our domestic lives and our understanding of the world 

They were practical , lived in homes where things were repaired rather than replace .we were encouraged to be resourceful. A home didn't have to resemble a modern show house to be a good home. i have carried these values into my own life

and perhaps that is why in recent years, i have sometimes felt misunderstood when people have entered my home and judged it through a different set of expectations .I have felt that familiar sense of being different , of having to explain a way of living that is normal to me.. it made me think about how cultural differences are misunderstood , not only between nationalities but within Ireland itself . i think ireland has this view that protestants are rich but they live very simple lives i know nowadays that  people ( in the protestant schools that my sons go to) do give an affulent impression but i believe a lot of these families are catholic . The protestant schools are smaller especailly in the city so they are sought after 

we often speak about diversity in terms of people arriving from other countries. yet Ireland has its own cultural and religious minorities ,with histories stretching back centuries

i grew up with a strong family identity while also feeling slightly apart from the wider society. a year ago i found myself chatting to a protestant minister from Austrailia in the local inn. we talked about what it was like growing up protestant in the republic of Ireland. he seemed fascinated . i was surprised at his interest its worth recording .. my life is worth recording ..

it is about the invisible divisions that exist in irish communities and the way those divisions shaped ordinary family life. and it involves my mother who carried her own understanding of what it meant to be a protestant woman in Ireland

there's a dignity about being a protestant that was passed down to me 

what happens when the very values you were raised to respect become the things other people misunderstand or judge?

My Protestant Heritage and Irelands Religious Divide

im just going to write some slang words for protestants so everyone is aware of them

the phrase henrys bollocks is a historical and darkly humerous slang insult directed at protestants , particularly anglicans or member of the church of ireland. it references the polular belief that the english reformation- and the resulting split from the roman catholic church only happened because king henty VII wanted an annulment from catherine of Aragon t omarry AneBoleyn and father a male heir .. another one is ' proddy0 woddy green-guts .

souper is a deeply historical insult dating back to the great famine in ireland. it refers to impoverished catholics who converted to protestantism in exchange for food from protestant run soup kitchens , as well as the protestants who ran them

Growing up in a protestant family in Ireland. Daddy and mum and i  had many catholic friends in our local community .. recently as a single lady and lone parent ,I personally felt the sting of being judged or treated differently because of my protestant background ways in regards to the Irish system which is predominately catholic . Looking back over Irish history , i wonder how much of this comes from wounds that have been passed down generations . The Penal Laws imposed terrible restrictions on Catholics, creating divisions and resentments that would shape ireland for centuries. yet ordinary protestant families were not necessarily part of the powerful ruling class. even today, controversies surrounding Orange Order marches at Garvaghy Road in Portadown remind us how deeply these historical divisions can run .I cant help but think that there is a smear campaign against the protestants  that's spanned generations and its still raging to this day.. its a worldwide smear now backed my hollywood heavyweights apparently .. what would they know about it? i also believe that whats now going on at wilsons hosp school is part of this . how a man is terrorising it daily and frightening the children but noone is standing up for the protestants . we have been silenced . 

More recently, heather humphys, a presbyterian who stood for irish presidency in 2025 spoke publicly about the sectarian abuse she and her family experienced during the campaign. Her experience raised important questions about how far ireland has truly moved beyond its religious divisions. 

so there is a pattern here .. patterns repeat ..history gives us knowledge..

its also another underling smear thats added to my family run-relationship/ community smear.

The queen of smear campaigns eh! well that's why the truth needs to be told finally after generations of silence 

Pride, Power and the woman before me

a girl called freedom- The most beautiful girl

i have been reflecting lately on something that has taken me almost 50 years to begin to understand- the relationship between pride, humility, religion and the power of woman

i was born into the protestant faith and my grannys family are methodist.granny went to the methodist church.being humble was woven into granny and mum and i 

Christanity has been part of my life for as long as i can remember. my children attended church of ireland schools and the protestant community along with the catholic community supported me and my children particularity through difficult periods in my life. i went to evangelical camps and churches in american and ireland 

recently i started praying the rosary and learning about the saints mainly the virgin mary. The repetition of the rosary remined me of the chanting during yoga . there is something calming almost hypnotic about repeating prayers. i can understand how some people get profoundly attached to such practices 

but i also began questioning the influence of religious institutions 

ultimately my faith is in God. i do not believe that God belongs exclusively to catholicism , protestantism or any particular church . what intrigues me most was the catholic teaching surrounding humility, pride and vanity 

i wondered whether some of the things i always valued about myself and the woman in my family could somehow be considered sinful. Granny could have been a queen. yet she lived a beauty and the beast life and cinderella life. she was gentle, humble and unassuming . she did not concern her self with outward displays of wealth. There was something naturally dignified about her . Her power was constrained by the circumstances of her life. 

my mother recognised this . she saw the beauty and potential in her own mother and it broke her heart to witness the limitations placed upon her 

my mother too, experienced disappointment and struggles of her own .she felt her beauty could have opened doors but was encouraged by her abusive father to marry an abusive man . she then set her sights on me  because i looked just like her and granny 

mum believed i had enormous potential . a life in the public eye. i remember granny saying to me.. 'people will notice you lorna' . i had all the assets a girl could have . mum always asked me would i go on the rose of tralee or marry a prince 

we understood that appearance could carry influence in the world . beauty could open doors, attract attention and sometimes translate into opportunity or financial independence . i believed that's why we were all attacked our main attacker being our sisters ( who should have been our no.1 supporter) my fame could have opened doors for her .. my fame could have lifted my country up . yet i never felt my country supported me, to the contrary..i felt erased . how can the most beautiful girl in the world be erased .. ?? who had all the opportunities in the world.. 

but the lifelong smear campaign had taught me to doubt myself , my mind, my beauty , my talents .. i remember looking into mirror at the turn of the century and being tranfixed and honestly taken aback by my beauty .i was astonished , this has happened over and over . when i look at pictures ..the same happened with my art.. i knew i was great and was constantly bowled over by my talent... but the world never allowed me success in any  of these areas and i never pushed it because of my low self esteem and psychological /spiritual warfare 

She is erased because she is a child of god , an annointed one . God has a purpose for her life.. for his kingdom 

my mums relationship with me was strained laterly because she couldnt handle seeing my beauty fade like she had painfully watched her mums beauty fade with no recognition when she watched woman all around her excel who didn't look half as good as me . she said she couldn't understand it ..i was from a different era to granny .. and i had her support .. she sensed something was up behind the scenes too

yet i also witnessed how little protection beauty or personal presence could offer a woman when she lacked independence and control over her circumstances . i remember looking in the mirror once during an awful encounter with an ex and saying to God.. God why did you make me so beautiful ? when my life has had so much pain in it.. why couldnt a man just love me and treat me properly even  ? why havnt doors opened up? The facts were there right in front of me all my young life .i was outstanding looking and that opens doors in our world so why didnt it happen for me? none of it made sense .. There had to be something vile going on behind the scenes and there was, within my family...i see all the procedure now you can get now  , great jawline, full lips, high cheekbones, defined thick prominent eyebrows ,roman nose, regal forehead,  and i had them all.. naturally .and all the other parts that people cant pay money for like shapely long legs and broad regal shoulders ,long neck,  just pure elegance .i still look like a royal and so did granny .seeing woman pay thousands to get what i had/have . now i know why mum felt so much pain about this and i did too . it just seems like such a waste and i apologise to the young me for not seeing her true beauty ..and allowing her to shine throughout the world . mum and i could have gone on an extraordinary journey together all over the globe..i always held this horrible feeling that i let mum down and myself ..but now i know i had jezebel demons working overtime behind the scenes to stop this from happening .why did these lovely marjories who had such elegance and beauty have so much pain??

.it gives me some peace about it but it does feel so good to acknowledge it in this blog . to allow the young me some dignity for her to be seen finally ... not erased

because of how god made me,  i shouldnt have had a life in survival mode 

but then i think of the verse Roman 12;2

Do not confirm to the patterns of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind'

Maby my life had value in ways that weren't always visible .1 samuel 16;7

"man looketh on the outward appearance , but the Lord looketh at the heart"

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul'Mark 8:36

in saying all of the above ive lead a very humble life and still am very humble and so were granny and mum  and thats the correct life in God's eyes 

Looking back, i realise that i did try to pursue that life my mother dreamed of for me, although perhaps i never had the confidence or determination to push myself as far as i hoped for . i remember being in school and people scouting for miss ireland canditates and they chose my friend not me. years later i was scouted for modelling in portland while wearing my superman hoodie that i lived in at the train station. when i returned to ireland mum and i arranged a photoshoot with professional make-up and hair. i remember i had a job cocktail waitressing at the time.and my sister and her greek boyfriend came to my bar .I sent these photographs to assets modelling in dublin but no reply . i went to celtic models and got some professional photographs that i still have. there were dissappointments along the way that deeply affected me as a sensitive person.i was painfully shy . for years i carried the pain that i had somehow failed at life for not pursueing this dream when god had made me so beautiful . but i understand something now that i couldnt see then . much of my life had been simply about trying to survive difficult relationships and circumstances, leaving little room to pursue my own ambitions . its hard as a woman.

i remember a mother in a childcare centre telling me i had a georgous peaches and cream complection . the book the artist way had just come out by julia cameron . i still have it and im proud  to say im finally putting it into action..

 

yet through it all i cleaned hotel rooms, i raised my own children mostly alone , spent 20 years caring for other peoples children, giving them love, kindness and precious childhood memories. sharing my creativity with them .creative art projects . im in my element when im doing art with children . i worked at a lovely montessori ,mo's montessori here in north dublin which had an art area that i would love to follow the lead of the children and get busy creating art.i once saw those years as evidence of a life that had fallen short of its promise . but today through my faith, i see something entirely different . i see a life of humble service to others, a life in which i made a difference to others. i met a girl annalee  a while ago at the local lake at sheepstown and she said she always remembers me and the lovely time she had with me and i have shaped her life. she had just come back from amsterdam . i had told her of my trips there and all my other world travels. when i had taken the job as her childminder .. her mother niamh had prayed for me to help her in a difficult situation and i helped her . That was God using me to help others . That was a worthwhile vocation not a waste of a life 

my first boss janet said when i first got a job with her in ' little footsteps' christain childcare center in portland oregon .that i could do anything.and she would always say to me what a difference i make to peoples lives . 

and perhaps when god looks upon my life, it will not be the fame, fortune or oppurtunites i missed that matter, but the kindness i gave and the lives i touched as a childcare worker and loving mother 

perhaps i was never a failure at all . i was simply measuring myself against the wrong dream

i have lead the same humble, frugal, hardworking lives my mother and granny lead and i am deeply proud of that ...i followed their example 

Humble yourself and God will desend to unite himself with you but if you are proud, he will depart from you

St Augustine

im proud to say i had God with me my whole life

 

 

Lorna Marjorie O'Neill

 

 

 

 

 

 

looking back i see a curious pattern running through three generations 

my granny , mother and i were all woman who  experienced lives that fell short of what we had imagined 

like the cinderella story and beauty and the beast story and snow white 

not because we were waiting for princes to rescue us but because we were woman whose possibilities were over shadowed by other people 

it gave be dignity to know where i came from

but was that pride wrong?

the question became particularly important when i began listening to catholic discussions about vanity and the virtues of mary

i even encountered suggestions about the spiritual fate of marilyn monroe, with her beauty and the atttention she attracted being discussed in moral terms. We do need to pray for the people in holllywood. A lady had a vision of her on the bottom tier in purgatory on fire . its on you-tube 

it troubled me that a womans appearance could become part of a judgement about their soul. i also listened to Father Chad Ripperger , a catholic priest and exorcist , speaking critically about feminism

i found some of his arguments hard to accept. how could anyone speak badly about woman turning against their husbands without considering what might have happened behind closed doors. woman have historically been powerless. woman needed independance to leave relationships that were harming them. They needed to fel powerful in their own lives. granny and mum didnt have the freedom to exercise their power .i didnt really until now as i was heavily bogged down with single parenting . mum was bogged down with children as a single mum .. she said that when she first moved to sheepstown grandma saw her acting carefree and said ' soon you'll be tied down'

ireland has a long catholic history and i have sometimes felt uncomfortable with what i percieve as a culture of judgement, particularly around women and appearance . there have been times in Ireland when i have felt people looking me up and down , accessing me before i have even spoken. it feels uncomfortable

i travelled to san Francisco with calum as a baby , thats' a whole other story..The first day i arrived there i took him to a playground and began chatting with another mother. for the first time in years, i didn't feel judged ..i could just be me.. i do wonder how centuries of teachings about feminine modesty, obedience and humillity may have influenced the expectations placed upon women.

the figure of Mary interests me. she is traditionally associated with humility gentleness, purity and devotion

. yet she has another side. In the magnificat, she speaks of the mighty being brought down and the humble being lifted up. This is not a message of submission.it is also a message about the reversal of power. perhaps i had misunderstood what humility really meant. perhaps true humility does not mean making ourselves small . perhaps it means recognising our gifts without believing that those gifts make us superior to others . and perhaps pride becomes destructive only when it turns into arrogance , vanity or contempt. There must surely be a difference between believing oneself better than others and simply refusing to believe oneself beneath them

i think of mum , who recognised so much potential in the woman around her, even when life did not allow that possibility to flourish 

i dont believe that god would ask a woman to surrender her dignity in order to demonstrate humility.

There is a difference between the pride that seeks to dominate others and the pride that allows a woman to stand upright after generations of being made to feel small.

woman have been down trodden for centuries 

The three marjorie's are not lacking humility . we have already given so much of ourselves away. my task at 49 is not to diminish myself further but to recognise the value of what these woman passed down to me..

The pattern here is all three of us had so much to give the world .. we could have saved lives on a grand scale ..but because of the diabolical in our family tree and a culture where woman are disempowered we were harnessed .

my brother found success 

it  pained mum and i the most  that we got hidden from the world , she couldnt understand it ..granny seemed to graciously accept it .. but im still alive and i still have a voice and now an outlet to the world ..im writng for us all .. i am ' the three marjories ' . the living word. 

beauty was only part of our story. our humanity, courage, intelligence , tenderness and unrealised dreams matter  just as much. i can feel proud of us three woman without feeling that pride is a sin.

Because there is a kind of pride that comes from vanity , and there is another kind that comes from finally knowing your worth

after 3 generations of cinderella stories, that is what freedom really means . not waiting for someone else to recognise our value, but learning , at last to recognise it ourselves ..To trust our own instincts not get carried along by the ways of the world 

 

Another Painful Truth Pattern

i remembered another painful pattern and that is an attack on motherhood like i'm experiencing  . my granny was such a wonderful gentle lady and motherhood was her joy . my grandfather was a bank manager and they always had a home and she desperately wanted to have a third child. my grandfather refused and refused . This hurt granny and mum spoke of her pain . granny would have been young enough to have a third child and she wanted a boy. grandpa was so cruel to her mum said and he went and put the pram in the attic .. this broke grannys heart. mum was so glad to be able to have her third child even though daddy's health wasnt great . he wasnt on tablets when my sister was conceived.. she thought she had broken the pattern but it resurfaced again with me.

when my first born son niall was born mum took our big old pram down from the attic and i used it on the country roads in sheepstown with niall. i loved to be able to look at my baby and he had room to move around.id fill it with flowers i picked along my sunny sheepstown walks . that was such a joyful time in my life with my first born son and mum in sheepstown. such a warm sweet memory. she would leave the pram in the garden under the trees shade when he napped . i got to learn from her how to be a mother . unfortunately i got rid of the pram after that and it broke mums heart because it reminded her of when grannys pram was hidden away. im sorry now i did that , it resurfaced generational pain for her . i would have loved to have had it for my other two babies ..

Boarding school days

i was about 12 years old when my body started to show to the public what i had been subjected to in my childhood. hidden narcissistic abuse. my adoles

The sense of loneiness/ isolation  and guilt provoked by domestic violence is tainting . i felt ashamed and this shame was stemming from being the scapegoat in my narcissistic family  .how this violence was protected by silence .. how its still protected by silence to this day by my siblings. i have never had a conversation with them about the severe domestic abuse mum suffered under daddy. , They will actually defend daddy ..i had a conversation with my sister with her telling me how great daddy was when mum did everything on her own. she managed the money , suffered the abuse, drove the car, worked the farm , reared the children

fear, shame and helplessness is what i was brought up in and attracted into my life over and over 

my dad was a narcissist and very cruel to my mother . he projected his darkness on me the scapegoat in the family ' the beautiful, spirited, sensitive , child of God

people with NPD are, people with inferior mindsets and shame that they project on others in an attempt to feel superior. i had been projected hard on as a young girl growing up and this shame was coming out as a deep blush to my bullys .. i thought my life was over . they saw the abuse and added to it. like blood to a shark..i had gangs of small boys surround me like a wild animal in the corridors . nobody stood up for me . i doubt that level of bullying would be allowed these days , in open view. i didnt say anything just hoping it would go away and just feeling so ashamed because they were so loud and i was shy and sensitive .

Despite the bullying i did have a good experience in kings hospital. i wasnt hugely academic but i got by. we went to chapel everyday . i think it made me very indepentant which served me in life. it gave me wings to fly across the world. i would recommend boarding school. now i dont really have many friends left form my school days but my sibling does and they have served as lifelong sisters to her. In the summertime it was heaven  with cricket and tennis. big expansive playing pitches and grounds to wander on .it was hard boarding though and i missed home daily, counting down the days till i would return home on my calendar. There was a phone near the dining hall that mum would call on, on a sunday .i missed her. we went on a trip to shakespear country in endland. stratford-upon -haven . we went on a boat when i was about 16. i had just started stealing my dads cigerettes out of his brown jacket and i remember i had my first public fag on that boat with the girls . some of them had taken up smoking too. That was one of my first times out of ireland. we had gone on a trip to london with the family to see all the london sights too. i remember daddy didn't leave the budget hostel , he was watching footy .

we did the ouiji board at school one night and it worked !. we had saturday school . it was a half day so we would head off into the city on the bus beside the school . i had my first alcoholic drink in o'neills bar . my friend and i took up shoplifting and would come back with heaps of clothes ,. my first run-in with the guards was trying to steal fancy underwear in clearys . all the other girls would be jealous of al the clothes we got .The school found out and the lovely chaplain had a chat to me wondering did our family have money for clothes.. he was so kind.

my friend hosted a night camping in a field beside her house when we were 16 and we all got drunk and hopped around like bunny rabbits we went to the feile , the trip to tipp in thurles in the summers . it was mad . i had a snog.i joined a gardening group and brought back geraniums for mum which she kept for years and i did pottery that i kept for years too. again i had my won style . i have a memory of mornings with teachers walking down the hall with high heel shoes making a very loud noise and rapping her keys on the blinds ..to wake us up and then we would all get up and line up for a shower . it did feel a bit like being in the army . we wore a tie. the older girls were insistent that we wore deodrant , mum hadnt pushed that on me, she didnt wear any .i remember the girls had heaps of cosmetics and i didnt have much . i didnt really care about that . i had a friend shirley who was obsessed with cleansing, toning and moisturising daily and i got into that habit for years . i was obsessed with all the dirt i could get off my face each day.i did hockey but wasnt really that good at it .  found it hard to hit the ball hard. i would have been better off doing football . i got my period during swimming in the pool and was stressed about making the pool red with blood . i started to use pads.i think what kept me sane there was being able to go home to sheepstown and get away from everyone . Once i ran down the farm saying i didnt want to go back to school and hid .

my friend and i slept the night in the public toilets in oconnell street on a night out. it was her idea. we didnt sleep . we just hung out.. gosh what a mad thing to do. 

i was 16 when mum and i went to ballinlough castle to see the prince of wales . a picture was taken for the local papers called waiting for the king of mum and i and our dog duke who looked like a fox with his read coat . 

Diary extracts

name :Lorna O'Neill 

Age: 14 

Eyes : green

Hait reasonable short, curly 

Face : lovely biggish teeth. i had braces for years to correct my prominent teeth 

shoe size: 7 and a half which is big for a girl

hobbies: horse-riding, swimming, hockey

my birthday. a day to remember. it got announced on the microphone at breakfast. it got written all over the blackboards each class. i got presents from my dorm. i was glad when it was over .

Brought the paper up to grandmas . got up at 830 thinking it was 930. fed sheep and bullock. went into town the long way. went home buying lots , a bit too much. went home , stayed home, fed sheep. wet day .played with duke and tried to make a bird. cut up cards and stuck them into scrapbook. home for a flower festival, daddy looks like christy brown. went mad playing soccer. went home by the woods and fed the calves with milk. they sucked my hands.my bike was making an awful noise so i spent the day looking for a nut to keep the mud guard from rattling . i sat in the garage in the sun , sorting them out.i persuaded mum to get me calves so we bought three with the help of haltons .they cost 225 each except the friesan cost 200 . we bought nuts and we had hay for them . The paddock was very high and needed to be eaten . clementine the limo is mine, frazier the friesan is half mine. bambi the chairlie was my siblings.i bought a bag for my holidays. it cost 4.99.A safari bag. They are so cool. then i made a shop manager get me this trendy red t-shirt out of the shop window. it cost 4.99 too. i bought myself an american football , baseball black hat. it cost 1.99. i got oil colours too in the shop .. always the artist eh!

mum and i left for dublin at 10am on a bus eireann bus . we shopped in dublin. mam had to go to switzers so i toured grafton street. mum had to go and get some contraception 

it rained all day so i counted cattle twice and soaked myself.. my purple jeans were wrecked . red trousers were all the rage . went to drumcree church and had communion for the 2nd time.it was mummys birthday so i gave her note paper . it was very pain but she liked it .

Wilsons hospital school

I had been chatting to a day pupil girl  fiona lamb about leaving Kh. it was like a fantasy . she left and then i did too.

sheepstown was closer to wilsons hospital school and i decided in 4th year i wanted to change schools and mum agreed. you could have a pony at wilsons which was so cool .it was hard to adapt to country living and stuff like stone floors and stairs and it was weird seeing the countryside out the windows. . i had got used to nicer surroundings urban surroundings . i would get lots of bars of chololate in the tuck shop and munch them under the covers at night . i started chatting to a boy about the farm in sheepstown and sheep. he came from a farm too . he was small and nerdy. he then asked me out and i said go ask another girl instead. the other girl was a bit nerdy too. the other boys teased us so badly . i just wasnt attracted to him but looking back he would have been a nice boyfriend for me. just the other kids would never have left us alone.This boy was so sad and rejected , he hurt for years over it . i met him again in dublin when we were in our late teens at ' the 13th floor' nightclub. a goth /rock small club on o'conell street in dublin . it was the coolest. nothing fancy about it at all. i apologised to him and he said he apreciated that .. i did fancy him then but i was too shy . i always thought the guy should make the first move unfortunately i heard he died at his farm in a freak accident with machinery which is really sad. if i had played my cards right i could have been a farmers wife on his farm.

The school was going on a transitional year trip to donegal and there was a big bus ready for us to go. i didnt know the year too well . i hadnt really made many friends so i decided to walk home 20 miles on lovely hilly country road to sheepstown in my crepe shoes . I think i just needed to be free after years of being stuck in baording school. the freedom of the open road.i was young so it was easy and safe area .i had been in touch through letters with my friends in kings hospital and i thought id had enough of wilsons .i walked and walked and walked . it was almost dark when i arrived home and jumped in through the window into my bed. mum got a fright . she then went and had a chat with the headmaster in wilsons . she was embarrassed .she had to pack my stuff . i had a good friend tanya who left kh when i did and i think i was able to slot into her place and return. i was glad to return to KH . i think i was chanelling my rebellous uncle edgar

we made clothes in home economics and i wore my homemade bermuda shorts for our fashion show. i was a model for the night. theres a picture of me and my good friend katherine. 

 

 

ive been carrying the weight of generations , anxiety, its time to take off the mask, its time to allow other people to see me. history has its eyes on me . justice. meant to reform, meant to change, i stand to inherit a legacy . this life i know im designed to inherit and pass down to others . my voice echoeing into the future. .tapping into future . its for the wounds the battles, the pain, it is because of all i've experienced .. a bill to be passed a law to be changed world wide.

here to change things on a global scale on all four corners of the world. family court reform?i will touch them all.I am the turning point that history   has been waiting . shift the way the world works. here to change things on a global scale . all four corners of the world. i will touch them all

i question whether this is meant to manifest . is this too big?.. this is not too big . it is a future timeline calling. me . it is my future self looking back to me and extending their hand.. calling me forward. ive always known  i had this purpose. its bigge,r than where i am now. 

history has its eyes on me. the life i know i was designed to inherit. my voice, my name ..for the wounds the battles , the pain .. it is because of what i have experienced .better than anything we know today. im here to change things on a global scale. all four corners

i still fear being seen. i still question whether this is meant to manifest. its not too big. its not just a desire. its a future timeline. its a future self, timeline looking back to me and extending their hand. calling me forward. its bigger . The turning point that history has been waiting for 

legacy. the live we live , the life we know we are designed to inherit.my voice echoeing through the future. tapping into future energies. my karma  ..is better than anything that we know today. Ireland is no place for these type of dreams lol its a nation of begrudgers and misery. Thats why mum always sent me stateside , she knew my dreams were bigger than ireland that ireland would only hold me back and it did....

Surrendering the generational pain to Jesus

As i continue writing my memoir,, I find myself uncovering truths, patterns that had been buried for generations. The pain granny carried, the pain mum carried and the pain i carried myself. and i carried all their pain.. I am beginning to recognise patterns that repeat themselves through our family , sometimes hidden beneath the appearance of a happy and perfect life. at times its a lot to bear, but im learning that i do not have to carry it all alone. When it becomes too heavy, i think of jesus carrying his cross. I remember that he suffered for us ,that he understands sorrow, betrayal and injustice. i  imagine placing the whole burden at his feet. The sorrow of generations.like jesus sorrowful mother, mary magdalene. my task is not to carrry all our sorrow but to bring the truth into the light and allow jesus to carry it like he carried his cross. i imagine him beside me with the cross. i can remember without being imprisioned by the past. through truth and faith i find peace.

and i pray for and ask God to bless everyone involved in this .

At the moment im dealing with a solicitor on my back in regards to my divorce im learning to trust God in handling this for me. As i said before i do not have to live in fear and intimidation.

Transitional year 4th year

I worked in a local vet in mullingar and brought a cat home i felt sorry for because they were going to kill it.The cat ran away. i thught i cant work in this area.all they do is kill healthy animals.

i helped train race horses with john bonham in castle pollard. I white washed a stable.. i kept a diary . i remember on the last night he brought us out and we had a nice asian meal.i kept a diary . ill locate it and write me. i got a horse sklachi which i brought home for a while. a big friendly horse. i got a chance to do dressage and jumping. i always loved jumping horses around a jump course .

my friend and i had a look around the colleges in dublin . i went to the vertinary college and saw into their fridge. There was a frozen donkey standing up there . These were animals they used to train the students. it was very eerie.I went to protestant country discos and had my first snog in one in trim. it was gross. the guy called the phone in school. he wanted to meet again at the feile in tipperary.

i started jogging in the beautiful grounds of kings hospital. my firend shirley was athletic. we would go for evening runs and i tagged along . i became addicted. i loved the way you could run on own anytime you wanted and all you needed was a pair of runners. it became a way of life, i would always carve myself out a stomping ground whereever i went. i have great summer memories of playing doubles tennis and munching oranges in cricket matches in the summer. 

that summer after finishing school daddy pulled a knife on me in sheepstown. mum came between us and decided to send me away for the summer to america and pursue a hollywood dream . she knew i was like a rose in full bloom and the funny thing was that summer when i did go to florida. that song, a kiss from a rose by seal was out . 

 

 

 

 

i didnt really know what i wanted to be when i left school . we had career guidence but i didnt get anything out of it. i just wanted out. id started goingtto the smoking area with the group and they were surprised to see me and i wasnt considered a cool kid .

An unprogrammed mind

Reflections on childhood, freedom and the labels we give ourselves

During one of the most difficult periods of my life, when i was struggling with the family courts , enormous pressure surrounding me. A dear friend who was supporting me suggested that i might be neurodivergent . I took the suggestion seriously . I began researching it and its characteristics associated with it.difficulty concentrating, disorganisation and an inability to conform to societys expectations. i recognised parts of myself in these descriptions but something did not sit comfortably with me. I began to wonde rwhether we are sometimes confusing individuality with disorder. we arnt all made from the same cookie cutter.i grew up in the country and my childhood wasnt governed by endless rules. mum had her own way of living.she wasnt interested in having a perfectly organised home . we didnt see people much so didnt need to dress up for them. she sang bible songs with us. she allowed us to be children. we could be messy, mucky,spontanious and wonderfully imperfect.

that along with all my travelling around the world shaped my mind.. and living and working in different countries where life was different

are we too quick to label people who simply experience the world differently?. we have to be very careful about teaching people to see differences as something wrong with them. I understand that autism is a real condition but i also believe human behaviour is complicated. stress, difficult experiences , upbringing and personality can all influence how we concentrate, organise ourselves and respond to the world.And surely these things deserve consideration too.i have struggled a bit with organisation but does struggling with organisation necessarily tell the whole story of a persons mind. i don't believe it does. 

i believe i am a child of God. I believe my life has meaning and purpose. and i no longer feel the same need to explain every aspect of my personality through a psychologal label

just because a mind doesnt conform doesnt mean there is something wrong with them. sometimes it means that person has learned to walk to the beat of their own drum. Just like my dear mum

Growing up in a narcissistic family and wider society where i felt controlled and diminished, i learned to become  lesser version of myself, simply to survive. Then , the wider system expected me to conform to yet another set of expectations, it felt like another layer of programming- when all i ever really needed was the freedom to discover and become my authentic self. My mother nurtured the authentic child i already was and i held her belief in me deeply but mum herself had the same upbringing as me and was now in an incredibly abusive situation with an unhealthy family system in the background.

My mother never had to teach me to be powerful. she saw that strength in me from the start and encouraged it always. she could see the free spirit in me from the start and encouraged it always.someone who wanted to live true to herself. later , after painful experiences and complicated family dynamics, that spirit got heavier. she'd ask what happened to me but i hear it now as grief for the lightness she had seen. looking back i notice patterns among the woman in my family that sometimes carried comparison or rivalry and ive wondered how much that shaped the pain we carried. At boarding school, our lives looked different - my sister built a wide lasting circle, while i left with just a few close friends that has unfortunately got smaller over the years.I sometimes moved at the edge of her world and wondered what that difference meant about me. She had established a social network surrounding her while i tended to navigate life more indepentantly . i believe her marraige revolved around this network .

For a long time, i interpreted that difference as a disadvantage. i wondered whether my independance had made me more vunerable to difficult relationships and situations. I didnt have my siblings or father or a good male friend to help me with abusive men. I had experienced bullying at school and later intimate relationship abuse which brought back that feeling of isolation.

 

over time, ive realised its less about who was around me and more about reclaiming the person i was before these experiences., My faith helps with that. It fells like gods love is gently helping me step out of old regrets and remember who i am. And thats a freedom i didnt know i could have again. 

Finding my way back to the woman i was

My mother never had to teach me to be powerful. she recognised that strength within me from the beginning and encouraged it to the very best of her ability. A free spirit, a child of God , a strong will and a natural desire to live authentically

But as i moved through life , experience difficult relationship and painful family dynamics , that spirit gradually got weighed down.mum would sometimes say.' what happened to you' ' you were such a beautiful spirited child'.. i understand these words now. she was grieving the disappearance of the carefree child and spirited child of God i was.. I wonder in the complicated relationships between woman in our familys  whether comparison , rivalry and perhaps even envy played a part in the pain that was passed down.

As i grew older , i found myself repeatedly entering relationships that diminished my confidence. Like so many young woman, i had been surrounded by stories suggesting that happiness and fulfilment would eventually be found through romantic love, marraige and motherhood

But i had not fully understood how unresolved childhood experiences could influence the relationships i would choose.Not every relationship was painful. the father of my first child is an important and positive presence in my life.and our friendship and shared experience of parenthood have remained meaningful to me.

other relationships left deep emotional wounds.For years i struggled to understand why certain experiences seemed to repeat themselves even as i moved between countries and different chapters in my life, i often felt i was standing alone. The most important revelation has not been about the people around me at all. It has been about discovering the person i was before these experiences began to shape my understanding of myself.

This is where my faith in God is so important. I believe that god through his extraordinary love has been helping me to understand my life. Not by encouraging me to remain trapped in painful memories , but by showing me that i no longer have to live inside them.For many years , i carried regret, confusion, sorrow and unanswered questions. it was almost as though , i had become imprisoned within my own thoughts, continually revisiting experiences that i couldnt change. 

But through prayer , reflection and the love of God , I have begun to experience a different kind of freedom.

I no longer feel that i must understand every persons motives or explain every injustice to find peace. I can acknowledge what hurt me without allowing it to define me. i can understand the different patterns without believing that i am destined to repeat them,. And i can appreciate that my strength was never depentant upon belonging to a particular social circle, having powerful connections or receiving approval of others.

My mother recognised that strength in me when i was a little girl. She encouraged my authentic, powerful self because she could see it. and now after many years, i feel that God is helping me to rediscover it..

Perhaps the greatest freedom of all is realising that the person i was created to me was never truly lost . she was just waiting to be heard again..

That summer shimmered with life and hope .,in technicolour and now moving into autumn.. everything is changing.. i have awoken out of my unconscious state..When i was at the christian camps there was an american guy there who was playing the guitar singing ' great is thy fathfullness' over and over with such passion..

i know who i am ..i have a big purpose to lead people out of unconsciousness into consciosuness through my art and writing .All i have to do is get out of the way and let God work through me. he will work miracles on me. my life has changed . i had always felt called . i had three awakenings in my life. The first time was when 'the word' jumped off the page of the bible in sheepstown when i was 21 after my first boyfriend attack . i remember walking the road in sheepstown with the bible in my hands just in absolute awe .each time God was forging me in fire , i came out stronger for him. he caught me after each fall . There is a pattern there. he caught me after the death of my pony, he caught me after each abusive relationship, my dad and mums death , after my abortion and now what is happening in my family . he was forging me in the  fire all along for this moment .

i cant try to pretend to be like everyone else anymore. life was knocking me up for trying to mould myself into what i thought people wanted me to be.. all the various roles expected of woman..ive had enough of the pain. i would end up dead if i kept going the way i was going. an unhealthy space.

Close your eyes, have no fear. The monsters gone hes on the run and your daddys here' john Lennons . beautiful boy Darling boy .Satan has fled and God has taken his rightful place 

Forged in the fire 

'i have come to set the world on fire' and how i wish it were already blazing . Luke 12:49-53- Jesus said

Fire has always been a part of my life, as a little girl in sheepstown. From my earliest childhood memories in the irish countryside where firewood from the farm was our only source of heat to the spiritual awakenings of my later years.Fire has always held a strange powerful significance for me. it has been a source of warmth, comfort, destruction, purificayion and ultimately transfromation. . i watched mum pick firewood from the country roads, put together kindling and spend the whol evening keeping the fire alive ..it would sometimes smoulder for hours. daddy would chop the logs outside the window. he found it great exercise and calming .looking back i see something of my mothers own life in those fires. she, too carried a flame within her. Throughout all the difficulties she endured, nothing extinguished her bright spirit, the embers remained.fire was woven into the lives of my grandparents too. I remember visiting grandad and being encouraged to put our hands towards the fire to warm them. it was such a traditionaly irish experience , gathering around the hearth. 

Grandma and granny had a mound of ashes in their yards . i remember grandmas, it was massive . a mountain of ash filled with rats. compost and ash mixed together .i was fascinated by it. ashes are what remains after the fire has passed and out of ashes new life can emerge.years later during an exceptially difficult period, i burned some old damp furniture at my sheepstown bungalaw in the winter  to get the house ready for renters. The flames rose high and the heat was tremendous. trees surrounded the area yet the next day they were only slightly black, no fire spread. today when i think of that fire, i think of moses and the burning bush .. in exodus, moses encounters a bush that is engulfed in flames and yet it is not consumeed.. There are fires that threaten to consume us, fires of grief, betrayal, humilliation, loniness and suffering , the flames are fierce that we cannot imagine how anything of ourselves could remain. yet , we endure. we may be marded by the flame but we are not destroyed . like the burnung bush, we can stand in the flame and know that God is there. not nesessarily as the author of our suffering but as one who refuses to abandon us within it

I reflect on my life, mums life and grannys life/ three generations of woman who experienced profound suffering . There were times when our dignity was violated, when our trust was betrayed and when those who should have offered protectionbecame sources of pain. i understand these experiences as spiritual warfare.i have felt that evil can disguise itself in the most familiar forms, appearing where love, safety and compassion should exist.it is difficult to reconsilethe innocence of a trusting heart with the cruelty that human beings can inflict upon each other. yet i have began to understand the lives of the saints in a new way. we were forged in the furnace of adversity. not because we were perfect, nor because suffering makes anyone holy but because holiness can grow from the way we respond to suffering ..The saints had pin in their lives but they didnt let the suffering ahve the last word.Their relationship with god became stronger than the circumstances surrounding them . This is one of the great mysterys of christianity. satan wants us to believe that suffering grinds us down and he wants us to be bitter but christ invites us ot unite our suffering with his own upon the cross. our suffering can be transformed into compassion, wisdom and grace. suffering need not be wasted 

The fire of divine love

The fire of the holy spirit gives us courage to face christ. . a fire that awakens our soul, burns away what seperates us from god and calls towards a more profound understanding of our purpose.The element capable of destroying can also purify. The fire of the holy spirit gives us courage to face fear which is one of our faiths biggest obstacles .i would not be where i am today which is fully blessed and in full surrender to christ if i hadnt gone through all the trials i did. 

The perfect Prey

i was just listening to an amazing podcast called perfect prey when something caught my attention. The speaker drew an analogy with Ursula , the sea witch from disneys The little mermaid , describing how she grew bigger and bigger as she was attacked . Of course , Ursula as the villian of that particular story. but it wasnt her character that interested me. it was the image of someone larger when others tried to bring her down. i thought about something my solicitor said about my former partner. ' why would he look else where hes got the perfect prey ....perhaps initially i had appeared to be the perfect prey. someone who had already endured so much. someone whose kindness, openness and willingness to forgive might be mistaken for weakness 

but what happens when the person you thought you could destroy refuses to disappear? what happens when every attempt to diminish her only makes her more determined to reclaim her voice ?

i began to see something extraordinary in that image of ursula growing larger . not because i identified with the villian but because i recognised the symbolism of expansion under pressure..i had spent so much of my life being made to feel small. yet somewhere within all that suffering something in me was growing . not bitterness, i hoped for but understanding, not a desire for revenge but a deeper and deeper awareness of my own dignity..

i began to understand how christ shapes us through suffering and how the people who had tried to diminish me did not get to decide who i would become

again the burning bush in moses scene. i could be surrounded by flames and still remain.

Perhaps i had been seen as the perfect prey by family/ neighbours , ex's and work and school bullys , even systemic , in my life but i was never destined to remain prey..by the grace of god i have exited those painful chapters in my life..This is my time now .its God's time.

.i have been called to ' the supper of the lamb" by the Grace of God through reconciliation 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left school with a few b's in art and history, geography. i failed maths . The rest c's but i didnt really care. i was free..That summer 1995 when i was 18, bon jovi was coming to dublin and i was sad to miss the concert because i fancied him .. mum had booked me on my first J1 visa to the U.S . i was heading to NYC ! on my own ..I landed in the sweltering heat and remember trying to sleep in a room on my own. i had to sleep naked sweating  ..but the city outside buzzed ..irish people do not do well in heat 

my boarding school days had made me very independent 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tales from a restless wanderers life 

when i would travel into a new country the first thing i wold do is buy a packet to cigerettes. the cigerettes would help me to relax and soak in my new surroundings.. mum would say i was at my happiest when i had a big rugsack on my back. i had a big khaki rucksack and i still own it to this day. once it got lost and ended up in the army. because i had spent my 20 years being narcissistic abused, i was very much in my own head. a young girl should be in her body and her heart, not her head.unhealthy introspective . but when i travelled , i was basking in the present moment because everything was stimulating and shiny and new. i had no choice but to get out of my head .i felt free. a girl called freedom .

Three generations of Marjories experiencing life long spiritual warfare. At this age of 18 mum sent me out to america to pursue a career in the golden city she was sure id achieve. but i ended up having the most wonderful adventures which ill detail but again the spiritual warfare was evident as i met one narcissist after another ..The same spirital warfare id experienced earlier raged on, draining my lifeforce.The accult means hidden knowledge but that knowledge isnt hidden

anymore 

outside of ireland there is a whole new world that i discovered when mum arranged for me to go to camp councellers u.s.a. when i landed in new york i was immediately struck by how large people were and all the coloured people . and  the freeway that went on forever into the sunset. 

i found my way to port authority on my own the next morning and headed on a bus to maine. i looked out the window in the freeway at all the huge trucks and cool motorbikes like from the moves. easy rider bikes.

i reached the forests of maine . magical fireflies, deep lakes and tall tree forests . The awesome north american landscape in all its splendour . we entered the campsite. This is where american children get to spend their long summers out of their parents way .. They have fun though, great weather, barbacues adn a choice of cool activities like horse-riding, swimming in lakes. horse-riding was my chosen activity . it seemed like the two irish girls were doing all the donkey work.. i couldnt break into the english girls circle. we had nothing in common. we visited the local towns called european names like naples. america grew on me. 

 

i got to a camp near portland out in the woods. camp councellors U.S.A . The firelies lit  up the night. grenn day was playing . i was helping with the horses but again and this is something that happened throughout my life. if i took regular jobs id end up being treated like a doormat. there were english girls doing all the horse riding teaching and i was lift with the hard work cleaning outt the horses which i didnt mind but iit honestly felt like baording school again so a bunch of girls and i got together one night and planned an escape over a map of america. we stayed a few weeks 

id take jogs while stopping for a cigerete on the way ..The chef drove us to portland and we ordered pizza and watched a michael jackson doc then the next day we got the greyhound bus down the east coast . the bus went through the southern states . it was like the movie the colour purple . i sketched and wrote in my jourmal . what an adventure .we hit daytona beach florida . i found  a public pay phone beachside  and called mum ..she was shocked but not angry . a 21 mile beach. we cruised the boardwalk and got jobs in a go cart track and in hotels. i got some denim cut off and my body just blossomed in the sun .a girl from scotland, a girl from london , a girl from wales and me an irish girl. what a bunch we were all very different with different accents ..finally free from the school system . i met a beach bum dallas and had my first sexual experience . i smoked a joint for the first time and clove cigerettes. we dyed our hair, got tattoos and noserings. when i finally returned after that summer granny and mum were sad to see i have changed my appearance like that. i had a thick brown head of curls and they loved my natural appearance . the world had changed me. i do remember feeling like i looked boring before and i didnt want to look like that girl who was bullyed in school anymore ..i felt my appearance needed a lift. but the bleach ruined my natural hair and the earrings left scars on my face. 

i have a memory of walking barefoot along the beach with dallas and then entering tourist shop and buying that ' footprints' souvinoir

Footprints

I was 18 years old when i spent the summer in daytona beach, florida. i have a vivid memory of walking along the beach towards the end of that summer. i was wearing my cut-off denim shorts and a little white top with a sun on it . i had carefully picked out of the shop . my long curls were bleached and my skin had turned golden brown . my body was slim with large breasts.. beside me walked dallas , my first boyfriend. dallas was tall with long blonde hair and a beach drifted appearance.. he had told me stories about his connections to a new york gang and he lived outside convential society. i was drawn to people like that.but he had difficulties with alcohol and although he was sweet and charming, he was also abusive verbally . at 18 i didnt understand what was happening . i remember one particular afternoon walking barefoot on the warm sand.. we wandered into a tourist shop and i bought a small decorative piece for mum . it was made of shells and had the 'footprints' christian poem on it. . The poem tells a story of someone looking back over their life and seeing two sets of foootprints along the shore , representing their journey with jesus . yet during the most difficult periods , only one set of footprints remains.. the person wonders why christ had apparently abandoned them at the very moments when they needed him most . these were the moments when christ was carrying them . i still have this today and mum threasured it.

perhaps it was gods gentle way of telling me that whatever happened , whereever life took me,and however lonely i would become that he would remain beside me  and when i could no longer find the strength to carry myself that he wold carry me. there is something deeply moving about that tought now. 

 i went into the shop looking for something for my mum and now i wonder whether god was leaving a message for me. gods presence during the difficult journeys of my life.

There is no such thing as an ordinary life

one of the most profound discoveries i have made through writing my memoir is that there really is no such thing as a ordinary life.For many years i felt i had been pushed into the background of my own existance. overshadowed by the achievements and lives of other people, particulary within my family. i had become accustomed to seeing myself through the lens of those who overlooked me, rather than recognising the extraordinary richness of my own life. but something remarkable has happened to me as i bega to write in my sitting room in north dublin looking our on my autumn garden. i have become the central figure of my story again. . my exotic travels, my adventures, my children, my art , my courage and all the beautiful experiences . what i want to honour here is that creativity runs through the three generations.i remember mum and our bungalow and the old typewriter in the dining room that sad there almost unused, she had tried this.. too..but she was too exhausted by life after all the psychological strain and single parenting and minding her mother in old age. i write now for them, to give voice where there was silence, to give shape where there was exhaustion. writing has become my way of recaliming  our dignity and our truth and our creativity .. i was always a beautiful writer and artist all my life..God gave me the tools ..his gifts that im now using ..for his glory and for the future generation

A different Altar

I have come to understand that some of the deepest wounds within families are carried silently from one generation to the next.They are not always visible. sometimes they reveal themselves through jealousy, comparison, rivalry, control, or the unspoken expectation that one person should never rise beyond the circumstances into which they were born ,growing up in ireland, a small island where community, reputation carry weight and how difficult it can be to step outside established expectations. There can be unspoken pressure to remain in ones place, to belong without standing out and to succeed without appearing to surpass anyone else.

looking back over the lives of granny , mum and i , i see three woman who shared many gifts. We had beauty, creativity, sentitivity, intelligence , warmth and a love of nature , deep faith-filled woman.yet our lives were also marked by suffering, dissappointment and struggles , that in different ways, prevented us from fully expressing who we really were. But who we really are never left us, granny revealed herself to mum, mum revealed herself to me and i revealed myself to my children .its been passed down the generations . i cannot claim to know what lay in the hearts of everyone around us but i can guess at deep envy because what we have is true worth. mum would say to me quietly so noone could hear ' you have what they want lorna'.

i can now give language to the patterns i experienced and to the ways those painful experiences shaped our lives . recently i have deepened my relationship with jesus, i have begun to understand the process through the christian language of spiritual warfare . Not a battle against particular individuals but as a struggle to free myself from patterns of fear, resentment comparison and inherited pain. i believe granny , mum and i have been up against gangs of people engaged in spiritual warfare against us for generations . i believe what is left unspoken can continue to influence future generations. and perhaps one of the most powerful things we can do is bring those experiences into the light, name them, seeking healing, atonement , and above all plead the blood of jesus on them .To refuse to pass these same wounds on to our children

An essential part to that healing has been learning detachment. not detachment from love, compassion or forgiveness, but from unhealthy relationships , expectations and the need for other peoples approval. i no longer want my life to be defined by what others think of me, what happened to me or what i believe was taken from me . i want my life to be defined by God.

in my home, i have created a small place of prayer around my fireplace. There is holy water, rosary, a picture of jesus and pictures of my children . it has always been a sacred space . my great grandfathers big black clock is on it. my son pulled the hands off it as a toddler. he literally stopped time ..! i have found great comfort, in attending daily mass, praying , contemplating the sufferings of jesus and mary at the cross , reading the bible .prayer group , placing the difficult circumstances of my life into God;s hands . i believe granny and mum are held in gods love. i take comfort in imagining them praying for me, interceding for me and sharing in the good that may come from this artwork . page by page, im discovering moments of grace that i did not always recognise when i was living through them . my memoir is a platform through which Gods goodness is revealed . im inviting you to witness my spiritual journey . my deepest freedom comes from no longer allowing the a painful  past to govern my future in christ

The story of the bad sister

There is something almost cinderella like about my relationship with my siblings. except that, somehow i found myself cast in the 'bad sister role.I have been reflecting on the relationships between sisters across three generations of my family .Each of us just had one sister. There is something wonderful about that bond. two girls of the same mother, that same blood , the same childhood home, the same school and family history . in some ways sisterhood ought to be the closest relationship a woman experiences 

And yet , looking back i have begun to recognise how much of my life was spent feeling that i was somehow failing in a role i had never really been allowed to fulfil.my sister was born four years before me and strangely enough i always felt like the younger sister . i felt like she never allowed me to have my birthright place of older sister i delighted in her as a baby , i was allowed to love her freely. but as we got older something changed . she developed her own friends and moved into a world that seemed seperate from mine. distance was forming between us . in boarding school i was dealing with my boy bullys and felt too embasassed to move too much in her life there and i felt guilty for that. i dont remember her approaching me much either .my face would turn bright red whenever i was exposed or embarassed ..

iin adulthood when i was i needed her she wasnt there for me . i longed for my sister to stand by me . at her wedding i felt peripheral to the celebration. then when she began having children, i found out about her pregnancies from other people. when tragedy struck and she lost a baby. i found out about it from a church. i  publication. i was never allowed inside the important chapters in her life.as the years passed i continued to feel that seperation. when i spoke about abuse within my own marraige, i remember her repeatedly saying she didnt know my husband but i wasnt asking her to act as a judge . i was asking her to listen to her sister. 

i joined her in my 20's in san diego after a breakup and went down to mexico with her friends .. my visa had run out . she could have told me not to go like any sister would because i was sad and wasnt thinking straight  . i ended up having to leave america and she gave all my clothes away to her friends without asking me or bringing any back to me.i felt violated .

i feel no concern from her about my well-being or respect for my property 

i began to believe i was the bad sister . The bad aunt 

the one who didnt make enough effort. i remember being told off for not being there for her during a health scare.The one who failed to maintain family bonds. This is the story i carried for years . and now because i have put up a healthy boundaiy with her. im again cast as the bad aunt.

and growing up in my teenage years in sheepstown

and it wasnt confined to my sister . looking back at my relationship with my brother , i recognise another form of distance . important developments in his life, including deeply painful family expereinces often reached me indirectly. i was excluded from his whole life 

again i wondered why? was i the wrong one.. The sister i was never allowed to be. when our parents died we were never there for eachother . i was never given the grace of being allowed to comfort them in their grief.The grace of being allowed to be their sister . i realise that much of my sadness came from feeling that this grace had never been extended to me.. for years i interpreted that absence as a personal failure. i wantnt loving enough, i dont make enough effort. but relationships cannot be built by one person alone 

i have made the decision to stop accepting a role that has caused me so much pain. i can honour my family history without surrendering myself to it. i can recognise the sadness of lost relationships without allowing that sadness to define my identity.i can release the guilt of believing that every distance, every silence and every broken connection must have somehow been my fault . i was a sister who wanted to love and be loved .i am no longer willing to spend the rest of my life playing the role of the bad sister . That is not the whole story of who i am .

i am finally free to write my story , my truth. i began to fear that the story of the bad sister was no longer confined to my own generation. i was worried that it was being handed down to our children, just as i had observed painful devisions among the woman of previous generations.. when i entrusted my child to my sister during one of the most frightening experiences of my life., i did it out of love and a desire to protect him. it was an act of love not an admission of failure. The greatest freedom of all is knowing that the next generation does not have to inherit the devisions of the last when they never should have been there in the first place .Time has the power to  heal rather than perpetuate a long lie 

i think of my aunt how she would act so confident while my poor mum broke apart in her presense. she was sending me the message that my mum was the problem without speaking but i knew something was up . it didnt seem right what i saw before me was not the powerful strong loving mother i knew in my heart .. something was affecting her negatively . a painful pattern that im now experiencing in spades that i refuse to hand down ..to our children..

Behind doors- the hidden shame of my family

voiceless no more- ryan cotler a book i recommend

within the private, concealed chambers of the family home, emotional abuse can take on its most insidious and enduring form. hidden from the outside world, destructive patterns may pass silently through generations, protected my loyality, secrecy and the unspoken demand that nobody challange the established family narrative

i have begun to understand how a family can resemble a closed authorotiaran system , where certain individuals hold the power to define reality itself. within this hierachy, there are those who are favoured , those who enable the silence and those that are assigned the burden of blame. 

 i believe i became the scapegoat

The daughter whose life did not fit family narrative

 The sister whose struggles were interpreted as an embarrassment. The woman whose pain was not met with understanding but appeared instead to reinforce a story about who she was . That happened within the relationships where i should have felt the most safe.in ireland where family is sacred , these patterns are hard to escape.stories can travel beyond the family home, through friendships, neighbours and generations. until a persons reputation appears to have been shaped before they enter a room.

my connection to ireland has always been profound. my mothers presence , my fathers family, our land and my oneill heritage gave me a powerful sense of belonging . yet alongside that belonging existed an equally powerful feeling of being misunderstood.as a protestant woman in a catholic country, an artist, a single mother whose life has not followed a convential path. i wonder have my differences made me easier to misunderstand or judged also the fact that i never fit the sterotypical woman in society .

the deepest wound as not the judgement of strangers but the feeling of betrayal within my own family.when the people who have known you since childhood appear unable or unwilling to recognise your humanity, something fundamental is shaken . confidence erodes. self -confidence suffers . i have experienced what felt like a systemic erosion of my identity, my dignity and my right to tell my own story.

betrayal is a soul level violation.

but all betrayal is self betrayal. The person who violated you, your safety, your relationship first and foremost violated their own soul, their own conscience, their own heart . we cannot expect a person to be loyal , loving or trutful with you if they cannot even be that with themselves . so if you've been hurt by someone and wish them harm, please stop and understand them to be that deceptive and disloyal, it means they are already engetically dwilling in the realm of hell. They have caused themselves great spiritual harm. Theres a reason people who deceive and betray others are positioned at the bottom of danteshell. demons inhabit the body-mind of those who behave this way . but our job and duty is to safeguard our own soul from allowing their demons to destroy our light and carry us into the underworld with them .

but in writing this, i feel some relief .. the story told about someone is not necessarliy the truth.

i was made to feel that i carried the shame of the family but perhaps the greatest revelation of my life is discovering that the shame was never mine to carry..

I remember an occasion in my 20's in crooked wood near mullingar with my sister and a friends of hers. we were meeting some local people, neighbours of friends she knew and i remember feeling somewhat detatched from the converstaions. By that stage, i had travelled , studies at college and experienced a much wider world. my mother had raised me to believe i possessed something special that the world wanted and i believed that to be true. it excited us both .. it gave a pep to my step everyday and lifted me if i felt down . it still does after all these years. we believed i had gifts, possibilities and the potential to achieve extraordinary things . i had grown up with big dreams , with the belief that the world was there to be explored and that i could reach for the stars .i read that book about kris jenner . she had a big dream in her heart for her daughter kim and nurtured it. mum tried to do the same for me. perhaps i did see aloof or disinterested in the people whose lives seemed very differnt from mine. but i remember my sister putting me in my place as if to say. you are no better that these people. why cant you engage with them?

i felt she wanted to extinguish our dream , but this dream is from god and it cant never be truly extinguished ..i still have it to this day .nobody is better than anyone else but there is a difference between believing yourself superior to others and believing you have extraordinary possillilities within your self.i wonder if she mistook my ambition for arrrogance or if she found it difficult to understand to ambition ..it seemed like she wanted it crushed .i remember something similiar after returning from america, having lived in the U.S. after living abroad i began to see ireland diffferently , as a tiny small minded island in a massive world .sometimes i expressed my frustrations on facebook and she objected to the posts so i blocked her . that was a long time ago now. .. i felt judged for having my own mind .i also remember her becoming emotional in an irish bar when we were drinking in  boston, she wasnt an emotional type of person. i was shocked . at the time i understood it as her missing me as i was married in the US at the time, but now looking back i wonder about the complicated dynamics between us. was there an expectation for me to return to the family role. gradually i began to feel the confidence my mother had nurtured in me was being challanged , that the girl who once had big dreams was being encouraged to think smaller and my mum seeing how painful my life and ordinary my life was , how i wasnt making any attempts to move into anything better gradually succumbed to having her dream for me dimished to and that broke her heart . even though it was still there right up to the end. mums big dream for me never died just like my big dream never died. because it was from God .

this whole experience broke mums and my heart daily my siblings would elavate themselves in their jobs but i always felt crushed when in reality they should have supported me in achieving my dreams and they would have been part of it too ..i dont believe that they didnt see my potential , in the artistic  world . they just chose not too and they stood firm in that belief to the point where i felt confused and started to not believe in my self. i would think , if they cant see it how can it be true and poor mum being a scapegoat too .. scapegoats are never believed ! but the truth is .. it was true .. God had blessed me with extraordianary girts to make the word a better place , gift that mum and granny had  too so in actual fact mum had witnessed granny being erased , she got erased herself and now she was witnessing me being erased .. it was so painful for her ..thats why im writing this memoir to write the truth and our story finally to release pain that was never ours to carry . 

i never felt uplifted or supported by my siblings , i always felt judged and crushed . i felt looked down on.. as if my life dosent matter, erased ..but what a life to erase !..i went to visit my nephew recently and i had those feelings again .. as if im not good enough to receive any support from my siblings like real family should .. it saddens me to think that this false narrative has passed down the generations . They still cause me pain  and i shouldnt have to feel that way. it was never my pain to carry ..when i put up boundarys they dont seem to care . how is that how family should treat family. its a hard pill to swallow

The difference between thinking you are better than other people and believing you are capable of something extraordinary 

My First Summer Abroad 

Florida and New York

When i think back to those summers in america. i remember freedom. real freedom. The kind that comes when you are young , thousands of miles from home, with very little money in your pocket and the world seemingly waiting to be discovered. america was pretty cool then and a great place to be  when you are young.we had been watching baywatch and beverly hills 90210 and home and away and neighbours . both depicting american and austrailian life which seemed so much better than ireland and england. A way better lifestyle .i loved it .

The girls and i stayed in the hotels we were working in but when that ended we stayed in a deserted hotel . we had the place to ourselves . i think one of the girls worked there.. There was an outdoor pool and we would go skinny dipping at night .. we didnt drink that much but it do remember a beach malabu night with a friend i went out the second year with . the room we stayed in there had been a stabbing so that why the hotel was closed we heard.MTV was on all the time. that song TLC no scrubs . i was still working at the go-cart track. There was an old man gary who owned them, he said i was beautiful . i bought baked potatoes from a cool amican diner . it felt like a sleazier world for women there and more dangerous. when i walked everywhere at night i felt a bit awkward and dallas said i might be mistaken for a prostitute. i took a ride home once with a gang of guys and ended up in a dodgy neighbourhood but got home ok so a lot of risks . i think mums prayers kept me safe.we did the rides on the boardwalk and visited st. augestine .

dallas my guy was in the background those two summers in daytona beach. i often wondered whether growing up within difficult family dynamics had influenced the kinds of people i felt attracted to. sometimes we become drawn towards what feels familiar, even when that familiarity is unhealthy .mum had been my rock and i watched how she just put up with bad treatment and i thought thats the way men were..years later , i would replect on the possibility that certain patterns from my family of origon had followed me into the wider world. The bullys at school and dallas have been my first experience of recognising that struggle. i left daytona to head up north and realised i had head lice . in new york i stayed with a family friend shiela and got the bus into new york everyday to see the statue of liberty , i went into the crown, and the empire state building. 

 i loved the excitement of america and feeling like i could be myself but leaving home doesnt free us from the emotional patterns we grew up with.i headed back to ireland but i know now in mums heart she had wanted me to stay and give america a go. she knew i was the right age but i had my own free will and she was my loving mother so of course i was welcomed home with open arms.

Dallas was part of the story but he wasnt the story

granny and mum who had raised me without daddys input collected me at the airoport in dublin. i sensed dissapointment  from them when they saw my bleached blonde hair and tatoo and piercings .

perhaps they had hoped i would recognise that i didnt need to change myself to belong anywhere. They feared i was losing sight of myself . i think they believed i had been given something special from god that did not need any alteration. it was like my appearance screamed to them that i didnt think much of myself.they were methodist woman grounded in their faith and belonged to a generation that understood the world differently . they knew there was something precious about the way god had made me and they felt what i had done to myself just made me like everybody else.none of the woman in mums family wore makeup or dyed their hair. i tought it was boring but now i think its cool.

i had barely got out into the world and i was already loosing sight of myself....i mentioned before the scene when i cycled down the 2 hills to my frieds house and she was amazed at my transformation .. she decided to do the same even travel to the east coast , minus tatoo & piercings. i was already starting to influence people.eh!

after boarding school for so long. i needed to just be at home in sheepstown with mum so i hung out , got a FAS course in the town which paid. you got paid to learn.. one of the publicans that mum knew saw me hanging on the streets of delvin with a rough enough crowd and told mum . your daughters too pretty to stay in delvin.she was right lol .. i would cycle in on my bike and eat stacked bowls of cornflacks everyday.. i had a very weird relationship with food. i would sometimes load up and sometimes fast ..i was never a foodie.my hair got dry and my roots came out. i should have grew the dye out but i didnt and my poor hair was never the same. i still have  a great big bush of long curls though. i visited the scottish girl i had traveled with in glasgow and we went on a holiday in the canarys with just a bar of chocolate . we slept on the beach .i remember listening to meat loaf a lot then. i was at home on my own because my sister was still at boarding school and my brother was at college.

I had caught the bug all right that would last a lifetime but im very glad that i was blessed to have got the chance to ravel at the right time in my life.i travelled in my late teens, 20's and 30's .. i really did get it out of my system and i could just relax then in ireland with my children. i got it our of my system. i loved reinventing myself in different countries . go somewhere, get a place to live, a job and then a boyf. with no apparent plan for my life, i ended up back in sheepstown doing a course, youth reach. it was really for children who didnt finish school .i would cycle two and a half miles into delvin everyday and live on bowls pilled high with muesli, cornfalkes and potatoes, i started to put on weight and my tan faded and my bleached blonde hair dried out with dark roots that i couldnt afford to touch up .we learnt to cut and sew. life skills . i remember having a cuppa tea and fags . the teacher was called masie. it was a rough enough crowd. we would drink our money at the weekends. one night i raided mums cooking whiskey and staggered into the local pub for the night. there was a house just outside the town where people went to sleep with eachother . i was pinning after a local lad who was no good. i needed to get the hell out of delvin which i was lucky to be able to do. 

 

An extraordinary life

I used to beat myself up with regrets and think my life got derailed but writing it out everyday and looking back . i see an interesting life with depth, ordinary days and sharp pain, love, hope and fear, all together and thats what makes it fee alive, like a work of art shaped by surviving, not perfection

A girl called freedom- the lifting of the veil

as i write my memoir and revisit the different chapters in my life, something extraordinary is beginning to happen. it is as though a veil is being lifted before my eyes. for years, i blamed myself for so many painful experiences , endlessly questioning my decisions and wondering what i should have done differently. but now, looking back with greater understanding , i realise that i was never acting in isolation. i was shaped by the family i was born into , the relationships i encountered, the emotional pressures placed upon meand the guidence and protection that were sometimes missing when i needed them most . as a child i carried responsibilities that should have belonged to adults. as a young woman i made decisions while navigating heartbreak and vulnerability. even in motherhood i gave what i could with the love knowledge and circumstances available to me.through my faith i have come to understand many of these struggles as part of a deeper spiritual battle . yet my greatest revelation is that i no longer need to interpret every painful outcome as evidence of my own failure. i cannot change the circumstances into which i was bornor the choices people made but i cn change the way i see myself. My life was never the catalogue of mistakes i once believed it to be . it was a journey of experiences through which i was learning, enduring, loving and growing. The greatest freedom is laying down the blame and burden and knowing that i was doing my best with what was around me.

The courage to break the cycle

i had the sensitivity to feel what seemed like a curse , all dressed up like it was normal with everyone else defending it , the insight to recognise the pattern, the strength to survive it , and ultimately the courage to face the fire and break the cycle

And perhaps the most extraordinary revelation of all was that the very senttivity i had once considered my weakness was, in fact, one of my greatest strengths . it allowed me to recognise the patterns that travelled through generations, to question what others had just accepted (mum thought something was up!. and ultimately to find the courage to choose a defferent path 

i was not born to carry the pain forever. i was born with the capacity to recognise it, survive it , and finally bring it to an end ..hallulah 

The pride i inherited. 

I was approaching 50 when i came accross an examination of conscience concerning the seven deadly sins. There it was.. Pride. such a familiar word, yet suddenly it carried an entirely different meaning

My grandmother had taken enormous pride in my beautiful , warn, kind, simple soul of my mother . my mother, in turn had taken enormous pride in me. it was something passed through the generations, almost like an inheritance. 

my mother dreamed of greatness for me. she believed i could become a star, that i could set the world alight . and somewhere along the way, her dream became mine.i carried it for decades. Even when i became a mother myslef, even when i was raising other peoples children, there remained a painful feeling that i had somehow missed my destiny. i remember a friend martin, saying.. ' but lorna , you are only 'the help'?! i remember returning home from american, exhausted and defeated by expereinces i had barely begun to understand . mum looked at me and said' you have lost it now lorna'

Those words stayed with me. For years i measured my life against the one i believed i should have lived . The success i might have achieved , the person i could have become.  i couldnt look at old pictures of myself because that truth just screamed at me. i felt stupid, a failure. and i had so much of my life left to live ...over recent years as my beaty fades with time , ive damned myself and a rage set in 

i believe that destiny that i never fulfilled because it did become a big regret . i was soaking up mums pain and my pain .. that big regret became ' a cross' along with my other crosses . pain i could now use to save souls for jesus 

 

but as ive got older and my faith has deepened ive started to see those years differently .i was sitting in my sitting room about a month ago and i heard christ's groaning on the cross, he said ' i make all things new'.i had experienced much of my life as a battle against darkness. there had been people and situations that left me feeling dimished, confused and defeated. But i began to wonder whether the very experiences i had regarded as defeats had ultimately drawn me towards God. Perhaps some of the paths that closed before me were not simply lost opportunites 

one in particular.. a bunch of young people were going to hollywoord, i was 24 and they had invited me to go with them from las vagas hostel . they knocked on my door early and my narcissistic ex raphael but his arm out to stop me and i stayed and continued to live under his dark spell . he had cheated on me with an english girl the night before which is why i had made the deal with these people who saw my distress and wanted to help me . they said they were going out to clubs in hollywood that very evening .. what an adventure that would have been !

we were having crazy evenings of jumping in to the pool and the jacuzzi drunk every night and then cruising the strip during the day drinking the free bloody marys 

. i think at the time there were other factor that had me stay with rapael and one was ' fear' .feat had been instilled in me. the fear of being a woman on her own so far away from home and how i needed a man to protect me. he had helped me escape a drug lord in san diego.so he was positioning himself as my protector but he was anything but! he was an alcoholic and woman abuser .a memory stays with me, walking into the hostel all free spirited with glitter in my hair  . wearing cute outfits that i could fully pull off !i remember a short orange mini dress with a puffy slieve that made me look so darling with shapely golden  long legs and  bright piercing green eyes . The guys inside the hostels eyes just popped out. i believe they arranged with the group to have me moved to the sister hollywood hostel because they saw something exciting in me . ive played that time over and over in my head wishing i had made a different decision . its time to let that go to free myself from that 'pain'. i wasnt aware of the deep spiritual warfare attack at the time that spanned back to my childhood.There were dark forces at play .

i cannot claim to understand why God permits suffering but i have come to believe that suffering need not have the final word. and perhaps the greatest revelation was this. i did not need to become famous to have lived a worthwhile life. The worlds understanding of success is not neccessarily God's . there is dignity in raising children , in quiet acts of love that nobody applauds. i can recognise the pride that shaped my familys expectations without condemning my mother or granny . i can acknowledge the dreams they held for me while releasing myself from the obligation to fulfil them

i remember granny saying to me as a young girl ' people will notice you lorna' watch how you conduct yourself" i remember a time in sutton when the three marjories were together and mum took some picture of of me in their beautiful floral  garden thinking these picture i could use for modelling . Their beautiful child in their beautiful nature garden ..mum was so excited and realy thought these pictures would help . i still have these picture and when i look at them i see pain .. the pain of how i wasnt able to make these things happen for myself and how i was dissappointing my poor mum and granny  who had sacrificed their lifes for me and paid for countless trips to america to make this happen .  i felt so bad in my short black tight skirt . its hard to look at these pictures now because of the painful story behind them .. our dreams had turned to shame ..

i have a momory in sydney when i was at this older womans house with an ex. this was a very painful relationship and i was not comfortable . i was wearing a white dress . i was about 35. i spilt my drink on the white dress and the older woman just laughed and laughed out loud. it was so weird .i was always quite clumsy  but that was so rude of her. she laughed shamelessly 

And i can repent of the vanity that may have become entangled with my own ambitions . Today im learning to surrender those old expectations to Jesus . i no longer want to spend my remaining years grieving for a life i never truly lived . i want to recognise the value of the life i was given. and for the first time i feel a deep sense of peace . perhaps i was never meant to set the world on fire in the way i once imagined . perhaps i was meant to discover a different kind of light but the key here is to stay close to God . because thats where true peace lies...i also have begun to realise that i knew what to do all along and i made the right decisions that were in my alignment all along.

Coming Back to myself

There comes a point in life when you begin to realise that perhaps you were not wrong all along. Perhaps the problem was never that you couldnt trust yourself. perhaps the problem was that you had been taught not to

I have spent much of my life questioning my own decisions, my instincts, my feelings and even my memories . i would make a decsion and then condemn mysefl for it . i would follow my intuition adn later wonder whether i ahd made a terrible mistake . there was always that lingering doubt 

and now after almost 50 years i am beginning to understand where that doubt came from . When you grow up in an environment where you expereience psychological manipulation, emotional confusion and spiritual warfare, something happens to your relationship with yourself.

you begin to loose your own centre . the family home and system is supposed to be sacred. it is supposed to be a place where a child learns safety, belonging, love and trust. it is where you discover who you are .. i , where your feelings should be acknowledged and your voice heard .. i felt sheepstown the location surrounded by quiet and nature and mum did nurture this strongly but not by the other members of my family ..poor mum was affected by the same warfare that i did.

when that sacred space becomes a place of emotional violation, where your reality is questioned or not acknowledged in my case  , and your feelings are dismissed, you begin to turn on yourself.. you learn to distrust your own perceptions. you stop listening to your gut. you begin to believe that other people know you better than you know yourself .and you easily get lost in other peoples agendas ( like when i was always on my childhood friends agenda in sheepstown, going to the lake everyday , not minding my poor pony when she needed me most ,not even factoring in my own thoughts or opinions).and before you even had a chance to form into the person you were supposed to be you get disconnected because of immediate environmental factors within your own family system, extended family included , my mums domineering sisters family , my cousins , my uncle on my fathers side 

this is erase, a strange dissapearance of my true self.you are psysically present, but somewhere inside you feel hollowed out. like an outerbody experience.. mum would comment on how i was loosing myself to my first husband in oregon .. how i was just pandering to him, all giggly and lost .its like watching your life unfold while never quite feeeling that you have permission to inhabit it fully ..how being that beautiful felt like something almost outside of me that i couldnt ever really eccess to benefit my life, family or country. . my identity has become something you are constantly negotiating with the expectations , judgements and the opinions of others. 

when you learn to doubt yourself within your family you carry that doubt out into the world , in relationships, jobs.. i always felt i had to do lower end jobs that was all i was built for . i didnt derserve a well paid job where i could feel respected by myself and others. that was somehow beyond me .. but that was never the truth .. i was always made for so much more ..you become vunerable to other peoples agendas because you have not been taught to regard your own needs, feelings and instincts as equally important .a people pleaser. you accept situations that do not feel right because how dare you challange them? you begin looking outside yourself for permission to live your own life.

but your own inner voice is still there, quiet perhaps but never gone entirely

The decisions i once questioned

one of the most extraordinary things about this stage of my life is that i am beginning to look back at decisions i once regretted and see them differently 

i think about my younger self with that dream from my mum deep in my heart, standing at the crossroads of so many possibilites . i think about los angelas

i would have given anything to have been able to make mum proud of me. i know she was proud of me anyway

for years i have looked back and wondered whether i should have just gone out there at the age of 18 when mum origionally sent me .. ripe for the taking ..would i have had a more glamerous or successful life. had i been disobedient to god for not using the intense beauty he had kindly blessed me with ..mum was a godly person and granny and they had pushed this endlessly. 

now i see something else . i wasnt drawn to los angeles . something inside of me resisted it. i had my own deep feelings about the entertainment world. i didnt like acting as a child.. i didnt like its emphasis on image and its potential for explotitation. if you remember my face had burned in shame as a young sweet 16 year old girl if anyone looked at me. The life i imagined there , did not feel right for me. .and perhaps my younger self understood something that my older self spent years trying to explain away sometimes our deepest wisdom is not found in what we ursue but in what we instinctively choose to leave behind. 

. my time in america was spent connecting with the natives and born again christians in portland and exploring the awesome landscape

. Thats what i was drawn to 

i can now recognise when my confidence was undermined. i can recognise when i was made to question my own feelings.

im now recognising that i no longer have to live according to these old patterns 

i am understanding that so many of the decisions i critised myself for were made by a woman trying to find safety, meaning, dignity and belonging. They were made with the knowledge, courage and understanding i possessed at the time. i no longer wish to condemn my self.. i do not need to rewrite my past to make peace with it.. even though i am..lol 

i do not need to prove that every instinct was correct or that every road i avoided would have led somewhere terrible .

its a cross now what was a deep regret . i can let it go finally

coming full circle

i feel like i am now experiencing a return to my own body . a return to the person i was before i learned to question everything about myself . more comfortable with my own decisions. to listen when somehing doesnt feel right, without thinking that i must be mistaken.i can change my mind without condemning myself.i can listen to advise without surrendering my judgement. i no longer have to give other people authority over the truth of my own lived experience . i have come to a peace that my family will not reach me on this level so i pray for them daliy and ask for forgiveness 

the freedom to trust my inner voice , to honour my experience rather than condemn it ..to recognise my own worth without waiting for someone else to confirm it. i recognise this discernment as gods healing in my life. what if, instead of endlessly examining everything i did wrong in my life, i gein acknowledging all the ways i tried to do right by myself .  i deserve compassion not condemnation. what if mmy instincts even when imperfect were often trying to guide me towards a life that was truly my own.in finally giving myself permission to trust myself.returning to somebody i have always been.

the girl whose instincts were once so natural. the young woman who travelled the world ( i see now i travelled so much to escape painful family dynamics. )The single mother to young children who continued trying to make the best decisions she could while trying to navigate a difficult experience that woman loose themselves to everyday , in my case without family assistance but thankfully the church    . the artist, the dreamer, the believer..The woman whose voice was sometimes lost beneath the noise of everybody else's expectations 

she was never gone, she was waiting to be heard and now at last im listening 

I have spent a lifetime searching for freedom , and went to the ends of the earth to try to find it  only to discover that true freedom lay within me, learning to trust myself again.

What did jesus say when we decide to make a commitment to obeying him and not obeying an unhealthy system

Matthew 10:34-38

"Do not think that i came to being peace on earth. i did not come to bring peace but a sword. For ihave come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter -in -law against a mother -in -law.and a mans enemies will be those in his household.. he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me

i am very blessed to have found real family in my friends, church and neighbours .

Killester PLC Art and Drama

i decided id better get my act together and head to college. first i did a course in killester and stayed with granny.for a year. i made an orchid sculpture made out of tights and thread from grannys drawers which were full of everything cool. granny helped me during that year. she came into the college to see my sclpture . i made a few friends and would hang out in the city wearing army boots which were all the rage. i thought i was ' the crow' from the movie .fibber magees and the 13th floor were great with rock music id get the night link bus home. i didnt really want to try to rent anywhere but i do remember trying it out for a bit with some school friends .when they had an apartment in portobello . we had an end of year show and i dressed up as a cavalier . i had to head bang to curt kobans song . i remember a guy commenting after. i looked quite the cavalier . granny wanted to come to it but i was too embarrassed at my scene . i should have let her come.i think after boarding school where i was a 7 day boarder and rarely got home .. i was just glad to stay in what was our 2nd home in sutton because granny was kind enough to open it out like a home to us. grandma didnt do that for us in sheepstown .sheepstown house got too big for grandma in the end and we wanted to swap houses but she wouldnt agree . it was prob for the best but grandma struggled on her own in such a big cold house in the end and was put in a nursing home far too early . i took the dart into town from the house.i remember seeing couples goinf out to howth and feeling like ' why dont i have a boyfriend? it seemed like there was no men in sight and that made me feel unwanted . i knew i was pretty so why was i never pursued ? its a feeling ive always had in ireland ..almost like an isolation pattern .granny let me paint in the house and someimes in our homeplaces there was paint on the doors etc, granny and mum just let me but i remember my aunt in the background complaining .we went into the abbey threatre and drew the seats etc. its a really old building .i loved it.

 

The Orchid House

a girl called freedom

there are memories that lie quietly within us for years , almost forgotton, until one day they return with extraordinary clarity

one of those moments has come back to me now, from the year i was living with granny in dublin and studying art and drama . as part of the course we began visiting the national botanic gardens in glasnevin particulary the wonderful glasshouse where orchids grew. mum and granny who were wonderful gardeners and like me obsessed with flowers were so excited .it was spring time and we sat in the warm glasshouse amongst the tropical flower. we used large pieces of sugar paper and paint and pastel . and sat drawing for hours. i have always had a fascination with flowers . the orchid is one of my favourites . my neighbour bought one of the paintings. i made an orchid sculpture 

Grannys drawers

one of the most wonderful things about living with granny that year was how much she encouraged my creativity. granny thrived off art . we had the ability to imagine something that doesnt axist and bring it into being however imperfect that my seem to the world standards . its still real art . granny had drawers overflowing with old materials, bits of fabric, objects and ends over a lifetime. houses arnt like this anymore. granny and i would rummage together. granny was not house proud . we didnt have a perfect plan just fun and curiosity . we used old tights and stuffed them with materials . granny never told me to be neat and tidy or told me i was making a mess. she didnt try and force me into the traditioanal role of the girl in society . theres a picture of me with granny in the garden wearing boys clothes .. how cool was granny 

granny wasnt just supporting my art. she was collaborating with me

my orchid was displayed in the college for years . we were so proud. granny came in to see it .

i did make mum and granny proud ..

both granny and mum gave my imagination a place to flourish 

 

 

 

 

San Diego Days 

That summer when i was about 20 we spent a summer in san diego. what an amazing place .. big tall palm trees. we stayed on a roof . there was a tatoo parlour across the way. i handed out flyers for an clothes shop. i stood on the street for a few hours a day. i often had handing out flyer jobs. its a good way to meet people. i went to hand out the flyers at the club and i met this guy paul . it was the summer princess diana died. i was handing out flyers in the club line. there was an older lady. she was single and about 50 who had the clothes shop i handed out flyers for. people always took my flyers but were not too excited about the shop ..lol. i remember a night swimming in the harbour bay along with all the yaughts and expensive boats .san diego seemed like a rich place but there were alot of old people there. mission beach and ocean beach was amazing. 

i have a memory of seeing a beauty contest with women wearing bikinis on mission beach.. it honestly looked weird, so fake . i stepped over the line by mistake and i got told off by the police . the gueard was horrible. i had never been spoken to like that before . i remember too an incident in oregon when i was rambling around the countryside like hucklyberry finn, a policeman asked me for my I.D . i was shocked and felt intimidated ..

my friend vanessa was there and she and i got a job in sales with a few guys. it was real American .. all this motivational speeches in the morning . i found it hard dong a sales job as  i was never a people person. we went to mexico and drove all the way down the country. it was so hot.. i was sweating buckets . i remember walking down the street and a gang of mexican men just followed me . the country looked so brown. we went out in Tijana . it was the first time i had seen real poverty .The tiqueila was amazing. we got a train down from san diego. i got a job in dairy queen selling ice-cream. it was a lot of fun . we would eat so much ice-cream and when the boss was away we would play ..i got loads of tips . i made a friend who taught me how to scateboard . we would scate all over the city. it was so fun being young in california living the life , swimming, scateboarding , such freedom. those two summers in san diego, i was free from toxic family and i didnt have a narc boyfriend. im so glad i got to expereince true freedom from all those relationship toxic ties that seemed to shroud my life over and over . 

but ive come to the realization that not a single person ever doubted me or hated on me. They dont even know me enough to doubt me . They only doubted them selves and hated themselves and projected it onto me. nobody really knows me , but me.theres no need for me to worry what anybody thinks of me because they dont.

there was a big wheel outdoor rides. we went for maxican food. i fell in love with mexican food. burittos . especailly the authentic places with all the music. and the burittos were only a dollar. so much cooler food than ireland and the weather and people were so much better. Ireland has a heaviness to it. There's a lot of darkness in ireland that hide in the shadows , bad spirits, the country holds onto years of bitterness especially up north . ive always struggled with this in reland

i always felt i could not be my true self in ireland . i remember when i lived in portland oregon, i came home for a bit and i had bought this cool orange round wolly hat i had bought in a trendy part of portland .. 23rd street ..immediately i felt i had to take it off. " you have a bird on your head love" some young kid shouted so i went right back to just wearing boring clothes again, not feeling i could be the colourful artist i truly was. i still feel like that by the way i could pull off that orange hat. 

The pattern of Silence

I began to wonder whether the patterns in my family were much older than i had ever imagined . Generations of woman had experienced suffering behind closed doors. my granny, my mother and eventually myself. But it wasnt simply the suffering that was passed down . I was the silence surrounding it. The stories people chose to believe. The truths that were acknowledged and the truths that were buried. i began to recognise another pattern. the way a persons story could be taken from them and rewritten by others .i began to see this being played out before my very eyes. it seemed unbelievable but then i remembered the pattern and realised it was the same 

During one particularly distressing period in my life about a year and a half ago. Lying in bed, i saw what appeared to be a dark figure beside me. It seemed to carry the appearance of someone connected to my suffering .

every generation had also contained someone who remembered the truth, 

granny had spoken about the abuse she witnessed in her family of origon, mum had spoken and now im writing .i don have to prove myself to anyone.

The Tin Man and the Yellow brick Road

i was thinking about the wizard of Oz a film i had watched as a child , never imagining how deeply its meaning would resonate with me later in life

In particular, i thought about the Tin man

He was searching for a heart and i thought , thats exactly how i feel

There are things that happen inl ife that change you so profoundly that you cannot simply return to the person you were before. you cannot just get up the following morning and go on as if the world is the same place. because it isnt. something has been revealed. a veil is lifted and things you once believed in, the institutions you assumed were there to protect you , no longer appear as solid as they once did.yo ubegin to question everything. something has happened that has challenged you understanding of how the world works. and once you have seen behind the curtain you cant unsee it.

The extraordinary moment in the wizard of oz when dorothy and her companians fianlly discover the truth about the greatand powerful wizard. behind the magnificant spectacle , the commanding voice and the frightening display of authority is and ordinary manoperating a machine.The illusion is shattered and everything looks different.we live in a time now where authority is increasingly questioned rather than automatically accepted. The collective is changing too. dorothy eventually discovers that she possessed what she needed to return home, perhaps we spent too much time looking outside ourselves for somehting that has been waiting within us.

you can loose your faith in the systems around you without losing your faith in God, humanity or yourself 

Galway 

cluine Mhuire

i went to art college at the age of 20 . i got a place to stay locally that was close to the college. i got a job in a local hotel. galway was a cool city to go to college in . i was studying fine art. the beach was close by .id get the bus back to sheepstown on the weekends or we would hitchhike to dublin .i met a girl there called helen. we thought we were the two english performance artists gilbert and george. again i would cleave to people and always found it hard to work solely on my own. 

we went out to liquid nightclub. my grant came through that night so we would rush out to get it. there were all night partys where we would get caught up with groups of people in galway for night and end up in padraigs pub at 7 in the morning looking out over the bay

i have a vivid memory of seeing two skinheads charging at each other like bulls with blood splattering everywhere even hitting me. The traveller familiys in galway at fued . we had formed a ring around them .it really shocked me

 we went mushroom picking . i went mushroom picking alone. i was always comfortable alone . sheepstown had equiped me for life. i didnt need cheery groups so live my life .how much fun was that. i thougth galway was las vegas . i would have a cup of mushroom tea and head out alone tripping ..you didnt need to go out with people in galway you knstantly knew people everywhere . its a small place . i would dress as i liked . i didnt really put too much effort into how i dressed just tossed something on , i fi felt like wearing makeup i did but in those days women in ireland didnt really bother much with make up ..galway had wild atlantic weather so you hair was messed up fast. you needed to wear all body water proofs . galways has a cool artist community . a lot of like minded peopel around so i really felt at home but i hated the weather . the summer was beautiful . with the swans at the claddagh ..i really soaked up galway but as i said its very small so i had to get out after a few years.

 we took acid , hugged trees , went to the cliffs and roared out to sea ..i would take blue speed and smoke week with a nerdy group . we would talk about the beatles and the white album .one of my friends reminded me of oscar wilde . i had a few hippy girl friends and we listened to the frames . summer was lovely there and we would lie on the grass and soak up the vibes. my friend miriam and i lived for a bit in a rose cottage and would routinely skip college and hear into galway and try on clothes . we never had much money but we didnt need money . i lived on tins on peas and beans . sometimes in fried mushrooms . the accomatation was crap. disgusting houses but we didnt care . i do remember coming back from my summer in san diego and a girl had tried on all my clothes .without asking me. i arriived back late and i got the most awful room beside the kitchen. i felt like i was being treated badly . jealousy ..

i spent 4 years igalway . i finished my diploma in fine art specialising in sculpture which i found more exciting .. i was always a painter but i wanted to be the art .. i was the art not what i was creating .. i was already the art without doing anything and i felt i was in the prime of my life to show 'my art ' off to my tutors. i did a piece once where i just stood there fully clothed .. why should i put on a show , its not theatre, or tv or movies. its art and im living breathing art ..but again it was men and i dont think they fully understood a powerful young womans art in ireland . 

people always want to be entertained ..but i represented ' pure enlightenment' . i didnt need to entertain or engage . my mere presence was enough . like the buddist teachers, like jesus christ .. his mere presence was enough..i still believe this in my life today .. i am art .. my mere presence, is my art. my motherhood, my homemaking ..my grandfather norman knew about stillness .and the power of presense . mum experienced him as a very peaceful man. i know that in his past there was a lot of pain and he was very abusive but i soaked up his teachings as a older man. he would create stone walls in the stillness of sheepstown. he would walk his land daily on his own communing with nature tending to his flock. he didnt speak much  and didnt have much of an interest in people

my granny marjorie how she was so peaceful . her life in sutton was a prayer warrior . she would knell at her bed at night and pray for us all .i never say her angry. she never spoke to me in a bad way . i do remember her telling mum to soak my head once though when i was having a tantrum ..i

A RANT. my mothers gospel 

believe we have lived in a world driven by the patriachy where its all about control and doing which is very male orientated . its time now for us woman to take the lead and bring about power in just 'being' ..'prayerful being' . circles of woman in deep daily prayer . we have to thank mother earth earth for sustaining us and ask her for her forgiveness for allowing her dreadful destruction .This could take years and years but it needs to begin now.. The tables have to turn and they are turning ..Nature is suffering, our children are suffering ,, people are suffering daily..the poor are the most afflicted by this..so rather than chase money , we should chase healing and yes our lifestyles will suffer but our lifestyles are suffering anyway .. its not a choice anymore ..stop flying... stop buying needlessly,, stop driving when you can walk, stop washing your clothes in washing machines non stop .. stop using dryers..you dont need a shower everyday ..stop spending money on looking good, use that money for more important things ..life is not just about appearance.. its about kindness, fellowship and love ..stop talking , thinking badly about people , its toxic..stop using heating nonstop when you can just put on a jumper or move around to keep warm. be real.. i dont want to feel like if im talking to someone that they have a mask on .. people need people to be real . our children need us to be real..woman need other woman to be real..

The Art of Being

The power of simply existing

when i returned to art college in my 30's in dun laoighaire I.A.D.T to finish my visual art degree. i really did now have a dublin set of eliteists as tutors. some of them were artists themselves and just needed to teach to pay bills . they were more interested in their own work . i remember one lady cecily being someone who didnt seem to support me at all. i always felt judged .

i was about 30 when i stood in front of the art college in a venue in i think temple bar which is an art district in dublin and also a drinking disrict .. This was my performance, i didnt speak, i didnt act, i didnt try to entertain anyone. i wasnt naked. i simply just stood there on a stage.. and i remember feeling powerful. i saw myslef as the true art. . my existance. Gods art .i was interested in the expectations placed on women in society expected to entertain men sexually  , or join them in jobs. i remember my performance wasnt well received. there was a man judging it. looking back i can see that confidence came from God and my mother. . i had value in my entireity, in my own spirit, in my beauty , in my presence.. i knew i was part of something greater, God. all i needed to do was recognise that power.

what a powerful piece of art that was 

but how could a pathriocal society in a small island realise this? thats the truth im realising now. im finally recognising my own arts worth 

im going to put together an art book . lornas art manifesto complete with all the pics and art works i still have

The woman in the mirrors

Around that time i created an art piece using mirrors. i had travelled , had a few unhealthy relationships behind me and a good one too.i had a child niall.who was at home with my dear mother . who was i beneath everything that had happened. how was i beneath all the roles expected of woman.i did this piece naked first and then with a tanktop and shirts . i had a few large lifesize mirrors gathered together in a large room. i played the music spiegal von spiegal over and over . i faced myself adn just moved how my body wanted to , very gently . its agains felt so powerful . i breathed against the morrors.i felt alive and pure. everyone left me alone. it was for myslef.i was meeting myslef again after all those years. i feel like im now at that life stage again where im meeting myself again after all the years and this is why i am writing this memoir.

The art of being

The power of simply existing

The Tao that cannot be spoken

Ramana Maharshi, the indian spiritual teacher. he was known for teaching through silence and presence rather that relying on words. people felt peace and spiritual awakening just by being in his presense. 

 recently i found myself listening to teachings about the tao, an ancient chinese philosophy philosiphy associated with Lao Tzu. one of its central ideas is that the deepest truth cannot be fully experssed by language. the tao that can be described is not the eternal tao. i found myself thinking about my performances. perhaps i had been exploring something similiar all thoese years ago without knowing the answer or having the words to express it. the experience itselfwas a meaning . it didnt need to be translated into a speech or justified to a panal of tutors. it simply had to be lived. you can point towards the moon, you can describe it , you can write poems abou ti but none of these things is the experiennce of looking up and seeing it for yourself. . my work is about presence, existance . we live in a world thats overwhelmed by noise. everybody seems to be talking , explaining , promoting , performing , competing for attention . online there are millions of voices all trying to be heard above the others. evreything must become a spectable .. the society of the spectable was a book i read as a colllege student. i always loved reading and books changed my life . id spend hours reading in the library.i wasnt entertaining anyone in my art and i was questioning why i should have to .i was encountering myself in the mirrors. its like ' here you are girl' here you are.. what a miracle you are.my worth was never dependant on other peoples approval. it was never something a tutor, a aprtner,  an institution or an audience could bestow on me. it was never theirs to take away. my mother / god had planted that understanding within me. my art had allowed me to explore it . i didnt need to create a spectacle. i dont need to convince people that i deserve to exist. i am here,i am alive and i am part of gods creation.

the most powerful performance i ever did was do nothing at all

i was being and that is art in its purest form and what an exquisite work of art i am just the way god made me

im going to write about all my art pieces as i studied sculpture in cluine mhuire. i wrote about the bath piece where i lay in a bath naked in a small room at the top of cluine whuire art college  and covered my body in rose petals . my body was really covered in bruises because i had almost gotten killed my my first narcissist boyfriend . it was very powerful as roses are flowers that boys traditionally giver girls to ask them out or ask for forgiveness if they have wronged them . i felt that that piece was a cross. i had seen the words of the bible jump off the page in sheepstown after the incident. God was using it for good . each time the enemy attacks God uses it for good. i played the song. rise again and i did rise again , gabriele.. it was a powerful song 

a reading from the book of Apocalypse 7 2-4 9-14

john saw another angel rising where the sun rises , carrying the seal of the living God. he called in a powerful voice t the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea.' wait beofre you do any damage on land or at sea or to the trees until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. then i heard how many were sealed, a hundred and fourty0 four thousand out of all the tribes of israel

after that i saw a huge number , impossible to count of people from every nation, race , tribe and language they were all standing in front of the throne and in front to the lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. they shouted aloud. vistory to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. ans all the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four animals prostreated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words. amen. praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our god for ever and ever amen

one of the elders then spoke and asked . do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes and where they have come from. i answered him you can tell me my lord. then he said. these are the people who have been through the great persecution and they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the lamb

the word of god.

Galway

The digs in renmore

when i first arrived in galway to begin my college years . i stayed in digs in renmore. the accommodation had been arranged through my mothers sister brenda. who also lived nearby in renmore with her husband denzil. i didnt have a good relationship with my mothers sisters family because i sensed all the pain they were causing my mother.The family was friends of my aunts. ao it seemed like it would be a good arrangement.there was a room where the students stayed and for the most part, things seemed fine. but something happened in that house that , looking back , i feel needs to be acknowledged . one night the landdadys son came into my room and had sex with me. i was a young girl in my first year of college , away from home and finding my feet. i was vunerable. what strikes me now is the apparent sense of entitlement. as though because he lived in the house, he had some sort of right to enter the room of a young girl who was staying there.

he didnt 

over the years i have sometimes wondered whether other young woman who rented rooms in that house had similiar expereinces i dont know

i understood that young man had a girlfriend at the time who would visit the house .. i wanted to tell her 

Purposely Arrested

a girl called freedom- the galway years

i was 21 years old studying artin galway when i created what i now consider one of my most significant performance art pieces

i called it Purposely Arrested

looking back, i can see something in that work i couldnt fully articulate at the time. i was exploring freedom, confinement, authority and the boundaries imposed upon us by society. 

i was revealing a truth that now is more evident because of social media and the internet and my own experience.. The corruption in the very organisations that are there to protect us. The artists job is to reveal truths.. they are the truthtellers.

The piece began in the ocean. i covered myself in a large sheet. i used the ocean because galway is all about the sea. i draped it over my head and body with my face partly visible amost like the virgin mary. it was also like the woman who are expected to cover their bodies in suppressed countres .. i was bound yet surrounded by freedom.

it was about society . how people are expected to follow unwritten rules .. growing up in the country . i was shocked at how people lived everywhere how they were expected to behave and dress . sometimes in a free country .. why did they do this..to themselves.? my college tutors two men put the arresting image of me bound in the sea in their office ,.. i remember ,, of course i wasnt taken seriously .. i needed a good woman artist who might understand my work which was about women in society..

the sencond part of that performance was to reverse the expereince

Rather than standing physically bound in an open space. i wanted to explore what it meant to feel free within a confined space

so my firiend helen and i took estasy tablets and smoked some weed and causeed havoc at the clubs  and bars . then we went to the garda station and damaged a car. we deliberately provoked an arrest . what i remember most vividly was the strange difficulty we had in attracting anyones attention. however we were arrested and there we were two young art students in a cell. we told eachother our life stories. we had deliberately surrendered our psysical freedom, yet within that confined space we expereinced a kind of emotional freedom

the artisitic question still interests me. what is freedom? we thankfully had a good solicitor and he explained it was an art instillation 

is freedom the ability to mover whereever one chooses or is it something deeper, something within the human mind that cannot necessarily be confined by walls 

what has become evident is through my art the truth 

sometimes the artist only fully understands the work decades after creating it .. and great art is not just ' a painting ' ..like society would have you believe 

can a person be physically confined and still remain free? and can a person appear to have complete freedom while living with invisible restraints?

The invisible restrainsts

when i was 21 i stood in the ocean my body covered in fabric and loosely bound with twine

 the sea stretchedendlessly around me . there were no walls, no locked doors , no physical boundaries. and yet i had deliberately created the appearance of confinement

i was standing in freedom yet i was bound. and years later i would become to understand just how significant that image really was. because there is another kind of confinement in this world. one that cannot always be seen. one that leaves no obvious evidence for the outside world to recognise

it is the invisible restraint of psychological abuse and coercive control

a person can appear entirely free while living under extraordinary emotional pressure. something beneath the surface quietly dimishes their independance. and often nobody notices.

looking back over my family history i can see how pattern of fear, silence and control affected successive generations. my mother lived for decades in a highly abusive relationship , marraige. as a child i absorbed far more of that atmosphere than perhaps anyone understood. i was not only witnessing my mothers suffering, i was living under the emotional environment that suffering created. children do not exist seperately from the pain of their parents. they breathe the atmosphere of their homes. and sometime the consequences of that atmosphere follow them into adulthood. i always felt that my place within the family was already determined before i was even born ..i was not allowed to be lorna marjorie oneill. that person was never acknowledged ..that unique child of god was never allowed to be ..and even to this day .. my family will not acknowledge my true self ..

but my true self was alwasy there, she had a bright spirit. my spirit was in my artwork, in my travels . travel offered me freedom from that person i was expected to be within my family system. that false entity ,,

travelling did not always protect me from running into unhealthy characters but it gave me a chance to start again.but motherhood changes everything.. There are circumstances from which a person cannot simply walk away from, particularly when children, legal obligations are involved . i have questioned how systems intended to protect famililes can also leave individuals feeling overwhelmed , financailly exhausted and without a meaningful voice. i understand now that freedom is not always the absense of difficulty, nore is strength the absense of pain. i remain a mother, responsibile for my children, home and daily life. i continue to create, to write. i do not see myself as a defeated woman. throuhgt christianity and especially the teachings of christ i have found a language for suffering that does not end in despair 

in the beatitudes christ speaks

blessed are those that suffer persucution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

in a world that so often measures success through wealth , status , influence and authority. christ directs our attention towards humility, mercy, truth and righteousness.

whay is nost remarkable is my art was already asking quesions that would become central to my life

the freedom to know who i am, and to refuse to allow suffering to become my identity .. i can leave that with christ 

a few truths 

fawning is a trauma response .if you grow up in a narcissist family of oregon you cant be your authentic self in your family home how can you then be the person you are supposed to be in the world . i was always confused mum had such big dreams for me but my brother or sister or dad never encouraged me at all in life. that made me question if i was able to achieve the dreams i had in my heart too. it was mum and i that had those dreams but all the rest were silent  and now i know.  why they didnt want me to achieve the big dreams they understood i was capable of achieving . their silence was pure evil .they even stole my dreams.

one of the guys online gerger who speaks about trauma speaks of the lower state they keep you in with coercive control . by using silence and manipulation . you start to loose competance in life and not want to even try. i lost sight of my dreams and didnt think there was any point in even trying that everything i tried wouldnt work out .but then i looked back recently and wanted to scream at them ... why didint you push me to even try because i knew in my heart i could have achieved anything i put my mind too ...i had so such good looks and talent .. they would have benefited too but now i believe god didnt want me to bring them on my journey with me . i wasnt supposed to bring them with me and that world isnt a world of god . its of the world and god didnt want me there

i reached the age of 24 and had a quarter life crisis. there were times when my sister appeared to act like a loving sister but looking back now it was to her benefit and there was something really grim about each time

my sister was not there when my first boyfriend beat me up badly ( i was unrecognisable) but she was there during my quarter life crisis and went with me to the doctor and suggested i go on anti depessants .. i didnt thankfully .

the second time was after i had my abortion.. i see now my family didnt want that child alive 

 

i had a few unhealthy boyfirends behind me. paul was the worst . mum booked us a holiday skiing in andorra and then i hit barsolona ..there was a girl in andora , a young girl who took such a shine to me .. i was a magnet ..

The demon of envy

Three generations of sisters

i remember seeing my aunt at my sons confirmation in armagh. i was dressed beautifully for the occasion. i think we were taking prefessional pictures and i had bought an autumn dress on my trip to colerado. i had make up on which i didnt normally as i never thought i needed it . when my aunt saw me she seemd startled as if she were seeing me for the first time. for my life i had felt she had a dimished image of me as though she had decided who i was long ago and had never questioned it. i saw some guilt in her impression

.my aunt brenda would regulary call my mother and tell her about how one of her daughters was doing modelling something mum had always dreamed of for me becuase she honestly thought my beauty should be noticed and it pained her that it wasnt.so when mum heard repeatedly about how her niece was modelling . it was like my aunt was saying that her daughter was prettier than mums but she wasnt prettier than me . i had height and intense beauty that could have put me on the world stage if i had worked it right and mum knew that ..but mum didnt know how to make that happen for me only send me out to america where i repeated fell into the hands of narcissist men..

i had witnessed my mothers suffering within that family . i knew of the hurt of exclusion, the gatherings in which she was left out , the ways in which she had been made to feel less important than others .. 

how my aunts family were projecting that same pain onto me because i  was the scapegaot of the family and mums daughter .

i have come to understand much of it as coercive control, exercised not necessarly through dramatic confrontation but can be , i met with dramatic confrontation with my brother and sister repeatedly but with exclusion, disapproval, family alliances and the quiet withholding of affection and recognition. i wonder whether my aunt , looking at me that day had expereinced a moment of discomfort about the part she had played . she was in her mid 70's.and my mum had passed at that stage ..

it brought me back to the brothers grimm conderella, to the two sisters desperately trying to claim the golden slipper encouraged by a mother who had taught them that being chosen was everything. how the ugly sisters had cut their feet to the point of them bleeding to trying to fit in the slipper. desperate measures. they were willing to do anything to stop conderella from shining , even sell their souls ..i believe my granny had a sister who was plainer than her who was envious and that the mothers encoureged this and granny was ganged up on. . 

my grandmother and her sister

mum and her sister

my sister and i 

three generations in which beauty , comparison, rivalry and exclusion seemed to have played their part. i began to wonder whether the real inheritance had been envy itself. in my spiritual understanding envy can become profoundly destructive. i thnk of it as a demon. i am no longer willing to accept the identity that i felt had been assigned to me. i had been a young woman with extraordinary creative possibilities , a young woman who wanted to make art, travel, perform and live freely. i had believed i had star potential and so did mum . but along the way beneath the weight of judgement  and difficult relationships i had lost touch with that possibility. but that woman never dissappeared . here she is, writing about it.

i never needed to convince anyone of my worth

i had never needed to fit into somebody elses slipper

i had only needed the freedom to stand in my own shoes 

The greatest victory

and so i return to the brothers grimm and their real conderella story. the 2 sisters so desperate to fit into the golden slipper that they were prepared to injure themselves. their mother encouraging them , teaching them that being chosen was worth almost any price

i think of the woman in my own family. my grandmother and her sister. my mother and her sister. my sister and me. three generations, rivalry, comparison , exclusiona and pain. and i think of that beautiful young woman i once was, with her extraordinary dreams, her artistic spirit and her bleiefthat life held something wondeful for her . for years i wonderedwhy she had not been celebrated and so did mum, why had she encountered so much opposition, why was she made to feel that she was somehow less than she knew herself to be . but i understand something now. i was looking for recognition in the wrong places . there is another kindof recognition, one that matters infinitely more than beauty, success, family approval or worldly achievements 

it comes from God. in matthew, jesus says 

well done, thou good and faithful servant .. i can hear those words in my head and i pray to hear them one day..

not that i was the ost beautful, or successful not that i defeated those who opposed me but that i reamin faithful but sespite the suffering, the rejection, the dissappointments and the many times i was brought to my knees, i continued trying to live a life that honoured god . i have not lived a perfect life, nobody has but i have sought truth. i have showed up and loved my children. i have stood up for what is right . my worth was never something another person could take from me . to stop competing for a place in somebodys elses story and recognise that god has given each of us a life of our own. i no longer want to inherit rivalry. i want to end it. the greatest victory is not to be chosen over another woman . it is to live a life that honours God 

And that is where i believe i have won.

My mothers love as expressed through her inheritance

For much of my life , my mother dreamed of seeing me become successful and was truly dismayed right up to the end when it didnt happen. she would say over and over. i dont understand lorna

she believed in me sometimes more than i did.she saw possibilities in me that the world did not always recognise. i remember her saying with sadness in her eyes. i cant make success for you 

but lookiong back now i realise something extraordinary 

she did 

 my mother made so many of my dreams come true. she took me travelling to austrailia and new zeasland . she took me swimming with dolphins. i can still picture her at the helm of the boat , watching that magical moment

my mothers love was expressed not only through the life she gave me but through the inheritance she left behind. she had left me security , independance and the oppurtunity to build a future . she gave me a foundation upon which i could build my own success which im doing right now in my writing 

her greatest legacy was not simply the property she left me . it was the love, security and freedom that came with it. she also left my sister and brother property although my sister tried to cheat me out of some of mine using manipulation 

mum gave me the dignity of respecting me as the older sister in her will which my sister couldnt handle and rebelled against becuase my younger sister had always positioned herself as the older dominant sister and not allowed me that dignity which was always my birthright and the truth

my mother had a painful situation with her sister when mum had to buy her sister out of the house and then her sister went to hawaii with mums money. mum begged her to let her give a little less because mum was a lone parent /single lady and they were sisters. mum was on the widows pension  .. mum has horrified to think a close family member would do that and force her to pay all the amount .. .. it didnt seem like something a family member should do. i think then mum fully realised what she was up against , which is what im also realising.. a dialobical thread in our family . it was a very hard pill for mum to swallow and mum should have put up a boundarie like i did but mum was a christian  ..poor mum suffered under that woman her whole life and i witnessed it ..mum was let down and made to feel pain over and over . betralal after betrayal. i remember hearing my uncle jeer her.. poor pamela he would say and jeer her about something that didnt matter like if mum didnt bring toothpaste on a trip . they didnt respect mum or give her any dignity .. mum was only human and even though she repeatedly forgave her sister and her brother in law. mum was still human and all the feelings of anger and anxiety in their presence built up. and i felt it while brenda would act all calm. im experiencing this now where my firm boundaries with my family are used against me with wider family , to make me look like the bad aunt 

coercive control is a recognised criminal offense now . it is the underbelly/crux  of society and it has always up until now gone unnoticed because it is insidious . it is the devils work, the great deceiver . it runs through what looks to society as respectable familys and respectable relationships, communitys  because it happens behind the scenes and often the victim doesnt even recognise it . this is why im writing and writing about. it is often diagnosed as Add, depression , bipolar etc. when the person just needs to move away from unsafe relationships. but the system which is still run by the patriochy needs to be updated to recognise coercive control in family court setting, criminal court settings ..bcause abusers are trapping victims in the system. its entrapment . the courts , lawers etc need to be educated in how to spot an abuser manipulating the courts . the abuser will tie the victim to the court which  causes ongoing deep stress and financial abuse.

The little girl who longed to be seen

its just such a tragedy that the girl with the biggest potential in the family , the best looks and creative powers was cast as the scapegoat and blamed for all the familys problems when my dad was the abuser . my siblings to this day will not speak about the awful abuse that my mum had to endure from my dad . they just blame everything on me and bcause i am an artist, a sentitive person , of course i soaked up all this pain as if were mine and then this pain attracted more pain . i definitely was dealing with deep sibling rivalry which of course would make me a target. i was a vunerable young girl who should never have been subjected to this unsafe environment .mum tried to protect me but she was a scapegoat herself too and pain was dumped on her too and she attracted pain too . mum had deep sibling rivalry in her family also and granny . we were all targeted in our supposedly respectable protestant familys in ireland .both mum and granny and i took the blame from the abusive fathers 

there was times in my teens where i rebelled against being cast as the scapegoat and that reaction was again used against me 

granny was a prolific artist and empathic, humble, caring gentle person . i saw her paint the promised land expertly . my mother was a humble, gentle person, empathic, prolific artist i lived in her artful home which she filled with beautiful artistic wild and garden flowers . i am a gentle humble prolific artist empathic person i detail my art works which astounds me to this day . i live in an artful home , mums home, grannys home filled with love and inspiriing pockets of nature

There is a particular kind of grief i have carried throughout my life one that i have struggled to speak about because i have always feared it might sound like vanity. it is a sadness much deeper than that

granny, mum and i were modest god fearing woman. we were shy, assuming people who never sought the limelight or attention. yet my mother saw somethnng in me that she believed could take me far beyond sheepstown and ireland. she imagined that perhaps i could reach people, inspire people, even become an instrument for god in a much larger stage

she would encourage me to try and get excited with me before i left for america. i did try, but looking back i dont think either of us really knew what to do with the possibilities she saw in me and i saw in myself . there was no plan , noone showing me the way and as life unfolded, i found myself in relationships and circumstances that gradually dimished my confidence and sense of self .

mum watched that happen with a heartbreak . what once felt like possibility slowly became dissappointment , and somewhere along the way i began to carry it as shame, as though i had failed ehr, failed myself and failed the little girl i had once been.

this is the girl i am trying to acknowledge now, not simply the loss of a particular future, but the feeling of having been unseen, unsupported and gradually erased 

and perhaps the saddest part is that i carried this sense of failure for so long without realising that i had never actually failed. i was a young woman trying to find her way through life and i fell into one trap after another .

i cannot go back and give that girl a different life but i can give her a voice . i can tell her story without shame. and perhaps , in doing so, i can begin to mourn what never happened while making peace with the life that did.

i have to say with all my heart the best thing that happened in my life is my three boys 

memoir- when evil had no name

i have often wondered whether the particular kind of protestant christanity i was raised in played a part in allowing destructive patterns to continue through the generatoins of my family. both of my parents were protestant. my mother was a christian woman who believed in goodness, forgivelenee and doing the right thing. but i wonder now whether that goodness made it difficult for her to recognise the capacity for deliberate cruelty in others. perhaos she could not bring herself to believe that people particularly those closest to her, could harbour such destructive intentions. perhaps even acknowledgeing that possiliity would have felt somehow unchristian to her

when i expereinced my abortion i kind of felt pushed into it by my family .. the catholic church came ot my rescue. the catholic church has a language for spiritual struggle, for recognising evil, and for seeking protection through prayer. its understanding of spiritual warfare and its ancient pratiices including exorcism are very different from the expressions of christianity i encountered growing up. i am beginning to understand how i needed a faith that allowed me to acknowledge the reality of cruelty without feeling i was somehow unchristian.. i needed permision to recognise that not everyone acts with goodness, that forgivelness does not require accepting mistreatment, and that love does not mean remaining defenceless.

mum never found that language, granny never found that language and perhaps that is one of the reasons so much suffering remained hidden within our family

today i attend mass because it gives me peace, i find comfort in the prayers,i can recognise the suffering, speak about it openly and refuse to let silence be my inheritance .

Three Generations of Truth- the woman who would not bow

you know i believe my dad was like this too so i could not escape it ..i was always confused as to why my siblings were not this way but not everyone is born this way. i have come to believe that my grandmother, my mother and i were born into this world carrying something that could neither be taught nor taken away. it was an instinctive knowledge of truth. we did not need to be told whom to worship, whom to obey or what to believe. somewhere deep within our nature, we understood that truth belonged to God , not to idols of the world

three generations of woman, each passing somehting sacred to the next. my granny passed it ot my mother and my mother passed it ot me in the real lives they lived. the suffering they endured and the truths they refused to surrender

reading the return of the gods i find myself reflecting on baal and the ancient pagan gods as symbols of a world that places power, status, control and human approval above god. i see echoes of that ancient struggle in modern society, where appearances can become more important than integrity , where those who possess power can determine whose voices are heard, and where truth itself can seem negotiable

i believe the three of us resisted that temptation by our very nature. we were not woman who could easily bow before false authority or pretend that something was right when our conscience told us otherwise and perhaps that is why our lives were so painful. i think of us as chosen woman,not chosen for superiority , privilege or worldly success but called in my understanding of faith to carry a light through circumstances that threatened to extinhuish it. we were human, vunerable and sometimes frightened. but there was something within us that suffering could not entirely destroy. our inheritance was not wealth, position or power. it was conscience. it was the courage to question what others accepted. it was the refusal to make an idol of anything that demanded the surrender of our souls.

granny was not erased, mum was not erased , i was not erased. our stories have lived on . that is what it means to break a generational pattern, not to carry forward only the wounds but to carry forward the truth , the faith and the courage that survived them 

we did not bow. and through the telling of our story, we will not be forgotton.. our truth lives on in the next generation..

 

The silent protest - henry street

long beofre i began ot understand the spiritual questions that occupy my thoughts today, i was already exploring them through art. i did a performance piece i created on henry street one of dublins busiest shopping streets. i dressed entirely in black and placed a smallstrip of black tape accross my mouth . the effect was stark, almost authoritian . there was something vaguely reminiscent of hitlers moustache in the image. what happened in the holocost is what happens when there is no god ..questions of dictatorship , obiedience and the suppresssion of individual thought into the work. i walked among the crowds near one of the great department shops surrounded by the machinery of modern consumerism.

people hurried past, buying , following advertisements , moving through a world where consumerism had become almost a ritual 

i wanted to question it. i never felt comfortable with it. it is just about image and aquiring endless stuff , how are they nobel ways to spend your time.., money ? what about truth, kindness, fellowship , love ..the poor . were we becoming rebots.? had we surrendered our individuality to a culture that told us what to desire, what to purchase, how to look and even what to think?

the tape accross my mouth represented silence. the black clothing suggested confirmity , control and the loss of individual identity. my presence among the shoppers was a quiet interruption of the ordinary. i was making a statement without speaking. looking back i see a spiritual dimension to that performance that i could not have fully articulated at the time. in the biblical story of baal, i now recognise a symbol of false worship, the elevation of something created above the creator. and i wonder whether modern consumerism can become its own form of idolatry with money , image , status and materialpossessions occupying the place once reserved for God. i was questioning a society that seemed increasingly willing to exchange its freedom of thought for the comfort of belonging. perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that i was exploring these questions as a young artist . this was my I.A.D.T years where i studied for my bachelors degree.. i did not stand on henry stree preaching . i did not carry a bible or speak of baal . i simply walked dressed in black with my mouth covered .i asked lifeling question

what happens to the human soul when society teaches us to worship everything except truth? 

perhaps my art was already searching for god even before i understood that was what i was looking for ..

The fame i did not chase

The instinct to remain independent was stronger than my desire for recognition. i remember thinking i dont want to be trapped by them.. im too wild and appreciate my freedom too much.   there was a time when hollywood might have been within my imagination, perhaps even within my reach.i had artistic ambition, a powerful sense of individuality and a desire to express something extraordinary through my work. but always something resisted in me the pursuit of fame. i could not explain it then, all i knew that i did not want to surrender myself to a world that might demand i become other than who i was .. reading the return of the gods today particularly its reflection on conformity and the creation of new  idols , i recognise something of that instinct. had i pursued hollywood relentlessly, would i have found myself participating in the very culture i had once challenged through my art? would i have been expected to worship celebrity, appearance, money and approval? would i have gradually exchanged my own truth for the version of myself that others wanted to see?

i had walked down henry street dressed in black, with tape across my mouth, questioning a society increasingly shaped by consumerism and conformity

perhaps i had already recognised the danger of allowing the world to define my identity

Today through my christian faith, i understand that resistance in spiritual terms. the biblical image of baal speaks to me of false gods, of the temptation to place worldly power above truth. i once wondered whether i had missed my opportunity to become somebody, now i wonder whether the greater achievement was remaining myself. perhaps i did not lose my chance to shine. perhaps i simply refused to let the world decide what my light was worth

Father forgive me for the times i craved a place at a table you would have flipped 

ive come at last . they have kept me out for a long time but i have got in at last- Aslan is on the move -the witches magic is weakening 

it is a sign for all those who seek to walk in the ways of God and who are called by his name to take encouragement, heart , strength, hope , and courage and to live unbowed in the face of the Gods. it is time to be strong and of good courage. it is time to be bold. it is time to let go of all fear and concern and to take a stand against the darkness and for the light.

the darkness will end but the light will be forever. and so it is written, be strong in the lord and in the power of his might , for greater, much greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world

Jonathon cahn

June 25, 2022

The Child who was misunderstood

it was listening to a podcast about why traumatised children are so often misunderstood that i found myself walking in nature, trying to absorb what i had just heard

something had shifted in me. for years i had struggled to understand why my life had taken so many painful turns. why i had struggled to establish boundaries, why i had become involved with people who were not good for me. and why i had felt like a spectator in my own life . now for the first ime i was beginning to see a connection between the child i had been and the woman i had beocme

perhas i had simply learned to survive in an environment that made it difficult to become myself. my father , brother and sister sent the message to me .. im not worthy ..i never felt protected or loved by them . i felt they were ashamed of me my whole life

The story they told about me

I grew up with the feeling that something was wrong within my family, although i could never quite explain what it was. my sister would say that i was bad at my core to mum. i wondered how many conversations about me took place when i was not there

graduallly i began to feel that an identity was being constructed around me, one that i had never chose and one that wasnt me.. the cockroach identity, the reptillian./ the difficult child, the irresponsible girl. what i now understand is that a child exposed to coercive control, criticism and emotional manipulation can struggle to develop a secure sense of herself

her confidence may be weakend. her boundaries my never develop properly. she may grow up seeking approval from people who are incapable of giving her the love and security she needs

and then something unfair happens. the consequences of that upbringing become the evidence used to condemn her . when i later entered unhealthy relationships, made poor choices or found myself in difficult situations, these experiences appeared to confirm the story that had already been told  about me. but what if the story had been wrong from the beginning? what if i was not a bad girl becoming a troubled woman. what if i was just a traumatised child trying to find her way through the world?A

 

A mothers love

my mother was the person i looked to for protection. she loved me, she encouraged me, she gave me opportunities. but she was also a woman enormous suffering of her own. she had suffered coercive control her whole life. she was trying to nurture children while liveing with coercive control, and domestic violence. and now i recognise how vunerable our relationship was to the influence of others

i felt that people around us were repeatedly encouraging my mother to see me negatively, introducing suspicion and criticism into a relationship that should have beena source of safety. the protective bond between us was strained. but it was never destroyedmy mother continued to love me and i continued to hold onto something of myself. perhaps that is one of the great tragedies of generational trauma, a mother may desperately want to protect her child while struggling to protect herself. and sometimes the very people who should be strengthing that bond are contrubuting to its diffficulties

The urge to escape

I had lways loved travelling. american especially held an almost irristable attraction for me.i wanted to go somewhere i could begin again where people didnt have a programmed view of the person i wasnt. imum would give me money to head off crossing the atlantic. i thought of myself as adventorous and i was . 

but listenig to the podcast made me wonder whather there was another explanation for my constant urge to get away

flight

the instinct to escape an environment that does not feel emotionally safe. perhaps i had alway known, somewhere deep within me m that i needed to leave

i could sense something unhealthy in the relationships around me, even when i could not explain it

i could escape the surroundings but not the patterns

A life spent surviving

instead of confidently building my own life, i became absorbed in other peoples live, unhealthy mens lives . perhaps i believed that finding a man would give me the security and direction i had never quite developed for myself

the real me never dissappeared , she appeared in my artworks, in my writings in my love of beauty and in those extraordinary moments where i felt the world opening up for me. 

My mothers garden

i remember mum in the garden, gathering sticks , tending her flowers, walking along the sea. those ardinary moments were her way of finding peace amid the turmoil of her life. nature had been her refuge, it did not judge her, the flowers did not criticise her. the sea didnot ask her to explain herself. she would exist and she was allowed to feel joy without spurring jealousy in others 

i am the same way, no matter what is happening in my life i can get out and enjoy Gods world in nature and feel pure joy.. bliss. in a world where relationships could be predictable and painful, nature offered something stready. something that asked nothing of me

What passes from one generation to the next

one of the most painful discoveries of growing older is recognising patterns that seem to travel through generations

i have some to understand how deeply a childs relationship with a protective parent can influence their sense of safety, belongng and identity. and i can understand how painful it can be when that relationship is placed under pressure. there are experiences in my lifetoday that have made me recognise these patterns with a clarity i never possessed as a young woman. i can recognise the pattern. and perhaps recognising it is where change begins

i can refuse to accept the story that there was something inherently wrong with me and i can choose not to pass that story on

The land of the living

later that day i went to church. i was still carrying the thought .  i opened my prayer book and came accross a passage about suffering, consolation and the hope of being transormed through gods mercy

 it spolke of grief and humiliation , of pain being changed into something greater

The land of the living

i had spent my whole life searching for that place. perhaps the land of the living was not somewhere i needed to escape to, perhaps it was the life i had never fully allowed myself to inhabit. a life in which i could trust my own judgement. a life in which i could create, love and make decisions without questining my worth. a life in which the pain of the past no longer determined the possibilities of the future

The freedom to be ourselves

and the change at last , to live

At the secreta

 

i will go down o just judge of the living and the dead. i will go down in spirit to that dread place where thy hand is heavy on thy children, the heirs of thy glory. There i will sigh and lament . i will unite my prayers to the sacrifice of thy dear son that thou mayest shorten their pains and change their sufferings into consolation, their humiliation into glory. lord in the grief that oppresses them, their soul cries unto thee. have mercy on me for i acknowledge that i have sinned in thy sight. one thing i asked of thee, this will i seek after :that i may dwell in thy house for ever to behold the fair beauty of thy temple. i believe verily to see thy face in the land of the living..

The Cinderella Inheritance

Three generations of woman sent into the world unprepared

For years, i thought my mother was wonderfully cool. she wasnt one of those woman who insisted that her daughter learn how to clean a house , scrub a bathrooom, cook a dinnear or become the perfect homemaker. There were no endless lessions in domestiveduties, no expectation that i should spend my childhood preparing to become somebodys wife. and i loved that about her . it seemed so modern such freedom.

i have a memory of grandma teaching me how to clean a basin in her pantry in the belfast sink saying your mother doesnt teach you this because she doesnt do it herself . 

but now, looking back over my life particularly through the lens of generational patterns and scapegoating, i am beginning to wonder whether what i interpreted as freedom was also , in some ways , a lack of perparation

i did go to boarding school and that did prepare me in a way. i knew how to put on a duvet cover 

i now feel like i went out into the world without certain practical skills . and i discovered that the world was not always forgiving of what i hadnt been taught ..its like a had a target on my back for woman.

i wonder did this stem back to granny . i know granny was great at sewing because she had to sew clothes for her daughters because grandpa didnt give her much money . did grannys mother teach her any skills a young girl should know entering a marraige?. i do remember granny said she was very distant . when a woman is occupied with surviving a controlling relationship , how much freedom does she have to nuture her daughters in the way she might wish?

 

my mothers inheritance

Then came my mother . she too entered a controlling marraige and she was critized for her domestic abilities. daddy called her ' a dirty pig' .those words have stayed with me.how humiliating it must have been for her to hear such things in her own home in front of her children.. mum was not a woman who placed enormous importance on having a spotless house. she had other qualities, other interests, other ways of expressing love.

but instead of those qualities being appreciated, her shortcomings in housework became ammunition against her

as a child i received the message that my mother was inadequate. there was shame attached to not having the life skills a woman should have. my mother had perhaps never received the guidenceshe needed , yet she was being judged for what she did not know. and then without intending to , she passed down that lack of preparation to me

i do not blame her . i understand her

cinderella goes to work

as a young woman i found myself doing an extraordinary number of cleaning jobs. hotels restaurants, childcare settings, cleaning bedrooms and toilets

here i was a strikingly beautiful young woman, with artistic imagination , creativity and ambitions of my own repeatedly finding myself scrubbing toilets

and the strange thing was i was never good at it.. i remember thinking when on my first day of my first childcare job when i found myself unblocking a toilet' so this is the working world, wow its awful '.when i went for that childcare job , my boss janet had hired me and said' you could do anything you set your mind to lorna' and she wasnt wrong.

i remember working in bewleys hotel in dublin when i was in my early 20's living in my sisters flet and i was cleaning heotel rooms

ne day during the horse show a man remarked on my appearance and youth and said he was astonished that i was doing such a job. he said they must be paying me very well to have someone like me cleaning rooms for a living

i remember being told by my superviser to go back repeatedly to clean a toilet . it was humiliating ..other woman seemed to be so much better at it than me. . i remember feeling that the criticism

The criticism followed me

years later when my children were still young, i decided to try air bnb in my rental preperty

i remember spending hours cleaning the house , trying desperately to get everything ready for the guests .and yet once agin i found myself being critized for my cleaning . the reviews were mixed some peoples reviews were great but others were extremely harsh.

i think about granny , mum and i . three generations of woman who, in different ways expereinced critism and control within their domestic lives

i wonder how much of my own struggles came from that inheritance

instead of seeing a skill i could improve, i had learned to expereience those criticisms as judgements on who i was.

my own son

but patterns arnt destiny, now with my son i try to add something different- cooking together, showing him how to look after himself. its my quiet way of changing what gets handed down .

 

The child who learned to turn against herself

how family scapegoating can affect development

i am beginning to accept something profoundly important about my childhood. when a child grows up in a family where they are constantly blamed, critized , diminished or made to feel that thy are the problem , something can happen to their developing sense of self.in strad of learning to trust themself, they may learn to doubt themselves. instead of recognising that the people around them are behaving hurtfully , they may begin to believe that they deserve the treatment they receive. and this is perhaps one of the most damaging consequences of growing up as the family scapegaot. 

The child learns to turn against herself

its really interesting in my family . my mum really built confidence into me and believed in me. i was almost like a golden child but she put these really lofty expectation on me that i can understand why she did because i did have real value to offer the world . in a lot of ways she wanted me to live the life she didnt and felt bad that she didnt . she really put a lot of pressure on me that i still struggle with to this day.. i looked just like her , an even better version of her and she wanted a daughter just like me . when she married daddy she envisaged having a daughter with naturally curly hair and height . i think she was blown away when i matured into exactly what she had dreamt of .and that put a lot of pressure on me because i was also the designated scapegoat in the family .. a combination of scapegaot and golden child if that makes sense. but i was only mums golden child, the other family member would not allow that and they would work on mum to get her to treat me like the scapegoat only . i found mums dreams for my life really exciting and realistic on one level .. mum was willing to and able to  back me up with support but on the other hand i was being taught my the other members of my family, my siblings and my dad and extened family to doubt myself and they didnt say anything or instill any confidence/ self -esteem in me on any level. 

how does a young mind make sense of that contradiction? i have been reading about ways children adapt to difficult family environment and one idea particularly struck me. 

sometimes it can feel psychologically safer for a child to believe they themselves are bad, inadequate or unworthy than to confront the frightening possibility that the family members they depend upon are not providing the safety they need

because if the problem is within the child, perhaps the child can fix it.

perhaps if she becomes successful she will finally receive the love and protection she longs for

i always felt like i was letting mum down by not being successful which was so painful 

and i always felt i was letting the other family members just by existing 

i had learned to turn the critism inward.

i was going out into the world lacking the confidence that comes from being supported, encouraged and believed in . mum believed in me but the others had all ganged up , my siblings, daddy and extended family ..i believe it was jealousy at its very core ..and they knew they only had strength in numbers .. but it was never real strength. i had real strength on my own and they knew that .so they trying to get me to forget it

mum was a scapegoat herself and was easily silenced .. nobody believes the scapegoat 

when your family repeated tells you, directly or indirectly that you are the problem, it can become difficult to recognise your own abilities .

you tolerate behaviour that another person would question immediately. you forget you are entitled to be treated with dignity in the first place. this is where developmental growth can be affected .not because a child lacks intelligence or ability but because so much of their emotional energy is occupied with navigating the relationships around them . you become extraordinily sensitive to other peoples reactions, looking for signs of dissapproval , rejection or anger. i would find being around people exhausting 

energy that might otherwise have gone into exploration, learning , confidence and independence can become absorbed by the need to feel safe.

i had absorbed a story but had never consciously chosen. the more i reflect on this, the more i understand why recognising harmful family pattens can be so difficult.to acknowledge that someone you love has hurt you is painful . to acknowledge that people i depended upon to protect me is even more painful

and yet recognising these patterns does not require me to hate my family .

i can acknowledge my own experience without continuing to define myself through the criticism of others . that is what healing means to me now.learing that another persons dissapproval does not automatically mean i have done anything wrong. learning to be the encouraging voice within myself that i needed when i was young

beacause the child who learned to turn against herself can also learn, in adulthood to stand up for herself

and that is where the pattern finally begins to change 

Feminism began at home

 when i began researching the womans liberation movement of the 1970's. i discovered something that made me look at my own family differently .so much of that feminist writing of that period was concerned with what happened behind closed doors. The home, supposeedly a place of safety and love, could also become a place where woman experienced financial dependence , humiliation , inequality and control. The feminist of that generationbegan to challenging the assumtion that these were merely private problems

i think about granny sewing clothes for mum because she had so little financial independence. i think about mum being critized for her housekeeping and how these critisms could diminish her in her home and then i think about me and how i experienced domestic violence on all levels in both of my short marraiges .

three generations of woman experiencing domestic violence 

would every woman's daughter experience the same domestic violence she experienced in her childhood ? the cycle of abuse by men sucessfully ran down the generations in my family .why are woman not treated with respect and dignity in their own home? . a woman is at her most vunerable in her own home 

when i think back to when i was a young girl looking for a partner .. i didnt in my wildest dreams think i would ever be abused by men .. even though i had witness ed mum being abused i honestly didnt think that men were all like that ! if you look at social media now . the ' me too' movement came up and everyone said ' not all men' but now with the epstein files and more ,, we are drawing a conclusion that '' it is all men'..and that is a grim truth

and as much as i respect the catholic church's teachings it does not agree with feminism and i have a real problem with that because i have lived with coercive control and it is evil..what those woman fought for, i have lived 

My mothers Monastic Life

the beauty of doing without.

my mother lived an almost monastic life. looking back i can see something deeply spiritual in the way she lived. it was a different time then but it was alreadyin quiet opposition to the values of the  modern world.she had veyr little interest in material possessions.. she didnt need beautiful clotes , expensive cosmetics, elaborate furnishings or the comforts society continually tells us are essential to happiness. she did without. in her rooom was , a bed, a bible, a bed, pillow, sheet and blanket. it was like entering a cell of a monk or a nun.she was careful with everything, not wasting electricity or heat or water. she would put on a wool jumper and move around.. she would feed everybody first , then eat the leftovers often standing up. when i went through mums clothes , my sister didnt seem to want anything or mums or my brother. she had a bundle of old clothes, some stained, some belonging to her mother. they smelt of mum and i wore them myself for ages 

we live in a culture that encourages us to acquire, improve, replace and consume. we are told to loook younger, dress better , buy more and surround ourselves with comfort. my mum rejected it all.i wonder now if she was practicing almost unconsciously , something very close to christian asceticism. a kind of daily fasting of refusing excess.The fasting of simplicity and contentment

mum didnt scream money , nothing about her screamed money our house didnt scream money . daddy didnt scream money. our life didnt scream money . this is the old protestant ways 

Finding my feet in Galway

i was about 2o years old studying art in Galway, and looking back, i think those three years were among the most wonderfully liberating of my young life. mum had taught galway would suit me. she knew her daughter was an artist, a little unconventionl perhaps and she imagined i would find my feet there , she was right. galways was a city where i could be different, where eccentticity was almost celebrated, where i felt free to experiement, explore and become whoever i wanted to be . the only down side was the weather but the spring and summers were georgous.

The fine art course was a three year diploma and after spending the first year exploringpainting, textiles i chose sculpture. it seemed to offer somethingmore exciting, something less predictable . i wanted to use what ever materials i could find, explore ideas without boundaries, and use my own body as a work of art. we had an old man tutor. he seemed very cool almost like a sage.. he gave us freedom to follow our instincts rather than prescribing what art should look like.

 i had two close friends, helen and miriam and together we began creating performance art around galway. helen and i would dress up experiementing with our appearance and turing ordinalry situations inot artistic performances while mirjam followed around with a video camera

i found it very interesting to dress up , wear wigs and reinvent myself. i was so captivated by my striking appearance and thought i could be a rock star even but i couldnt play the guitar.i remember dyeing my short hair black and wearing a black and white striped shirt with a collar creating a rather androgynous britpop inspired look . it was the 90's and we had  so much freedom and fun, no cell phones. we were not trying to look conventionally pretty. we were experimenting with identity, challenging expectations and enjoying the freedom to be whoever we fancied that day.

one of our performances took place on a beach. galway is on the west coast of ireland. helen and i dressed up for a formal restaurant meal but still very artsy.we put a table on the beach. the absudity of placing something so ordinary as a restaurant dinner in such an unexpectated setting delighted us.. we were taking everyday rituals out of their usual surroundings and making people look at them differently . i dont remember anyone looking at us though . it was a quiet beach.. there was humour in it.. it was a comment on society and how we have all been accostomed to things a certain way but why did they have to be that way.

i was fascinated by pop art, particularly andy wathol and the factory in new york.i spent hours in the college library poring over books on modern art and the artisits who had challenged traditional ideas of what art should be.. i made a big pair of red lips out of plastic.

i was exploring more unsettling ideas about television, technology and the influence of mass media. i explored television static. how easily people cn be influenced by the images it consumes.. helen loved a pint of guiness and we would aften dissappear into one of galways traditional irish pubs. i loved sitting in the roisin dubh in front of the fire studying for an exam .galway had a wonderful admosphere full of music, students , artists and interesting characters.i would get caught up with the commune people . on the weekends i would get the bus back to sheepstown travelling through the countryside passing through ballinasloe and athenry . i would stop in athlone for a fag.. i felt like bob dylans rolling stone ..and i would listen to it on my cassete player my head in the clouds as the bus meandered through the countryside . life was full of possibilities and freedom.sometimes i would hitch hike to dubiin with a few friends 

for a little while i belonged entirely to myself. 

The Slow Erosion of self

understanding the patterns of coercive control

looking back over my life. i have come to understand that abuse is not always something that announces itself. it does not always necessarily arrive with cruelity or obvious

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2026 Lorna O'Neill all rights reserved ..