“Hannah, Grandmother” by Paula Meehan and “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill” by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill are poems that recover and demonstrate the significance of women’s voices in the past. Published in 2007, “Hannah, Grandmother,” re-envisions an experience Meehan had as an adolescent girl. Beside the confessional and before a figure of the Virgin Mary, her grandmother warned, “Tell them priests nothing … Keep your sins to yourself.” The poem challenges the status of clergy and brings to light an unrealized perspective on their institutional abuse of power. “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill”, published in the 1990 collection Pharaoh’s Daughter, offers a tribute to a distant great aunt for specifically her nonconformance and resonates with the tradition of the female lament. Both poets draw attention to and record instances of female ancestral resistance in history – Meehan examining her grandmother and Ní Dhomhnaill her great aunt. While “Hannah, Grandmother” is a direct response to clerical sex abuse scandals, joining the poem in conversation with “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill” begets overarching issues with institutional abuse of power. These poems intervene in discourse and challenge perceived ideas in regards to the Church and social justice. Through the re-envisioning of a past experience, Meehan transforms the memory of “Hannah, Grandmother” by bringing to light previously unrealized perspectives on abuse by clergy members. While the past isn’t undone or changed through the poem, the shift of perspective catalyzes the recovery of an alternative history in which women criticize injustice. The memorialization of resistance that Meehan enforces in “Hannah, Grandmother,” invites an alternative reading of “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill” by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill: initially understood as a modern lament, Meehan helps bring to light a pattern of memorializing female ancestors actively resisting the institutional church.
The story in “Hannah, Grandmother” is narrated via a series of images that both unite and contrast to illustrate an overarching message of solidarity. Setting the scene, the poem begins: “Coldest day yet of November / her voice close in my ear – ” (1-2). The reader inhabits Meehan’s memory on a gloomy day at the beginning of winter, anticipating the chills associated with a feeling of hot breath near their ear. Usage of the pronoun “her” indicates that Hannah, the author’s grandmother, is being referenced. Hannah is given a voice when she warns, “tell them priests nothing” (3), thus indicating mistrust in the clergy. Hannah’s voice is interrupted by a questioning speaker, “Was I twelve? Thirteen?” (4), attempting to specifically recall her age at the time of the memory and situating the author with the subject of the poem. Hannah’s complaints and commands resume, “Filthy minded. / Keep your sins to yourself. / Don’t be giving them a thrill. / Dirty oul feckers” (5-8). Through this series of statements, Hannah conveys to her young granddaughter that priests are inclined to participate in perverse sexual habits and abuse of their power, particularly within reference to the sacrament of reconciliation and absolution of sin. Therefore, the message is to act with of extreme caution when dealing with clergy. The beginning of the poem positions a specific personal memory into a broader conversation about clerical abuse through the introduction of a previously unrealized perspective on the tendency of clergy to perform atrocious acts.
The speaker continues to narrate the memory, providing imagery of Mary to contrast the clergy members prone to immoral acts. The line “As close as she came to the birds and the bees” (9), insinuates that this exchange of advice was the most that Hannah ever explained to the speaker regarding acceptable behaviors in courtship and sexual relationships. The euphemism “the birds and the bees” is down to earth and facilitates the flow from one line to the next: “on her knees in front of the Madonna” (10). The rhyme of “bees” and “knees” connects the lines as Grandmother Hannah is situated directly in front of an idol of the Virgin Mary. Continuing, the phrase “Our Lady of the Facts of Life,” (11) connects to the previous line’s “Madonna” but shifts the traditional image of Mary from visionary and separate in spirituality to gritty and in-tune with the every day. References to “bees” and “the Facts of Life” enforce the notion of a quotidian Mary: close to all of humanity. This paragraph furthers the exploration of an unrealized perspective through providing insight on Mary’s solidarity with all things terrestrial.
The poem then shifts imagery to a confessional, deepening themes and implications of clerical abuse. Physical location is used to align a contrast between the earthly Madonna and her place “beside the confessional – /oak door closing like a coffin lid” (12-13). The confessional, the place where priests listen to and absolve sins, is framed as related to death and morbidity. Further detail is ascribed to the confessional and its status as “neatly carpentered / waxed and buffed” (14-15) depicts a seemingly pleasant, orderly, and well-crafted chamber. Yet through a parallel with a coffin, the wooden space of the confessional is transformed into a powerful symbol of morbidity and oppression. The comfortable and ordered descriptive words for the coffin imitate the idea that the common person would have in regards to priests. The poem suggests the same for priests and the confessional described: while inviting on the outside, they are not to be trusted. The bleak imagery reiterates Hannah’s warnings from the earlier lines of the poem. The deeper association between confessionals and death illustrate that abuse by priests is sobering and oppressive. The word “closing” further indicates that Hannah’s voice is stifled by a specifically religious and patriarchal structure and ominously anticipates the next line of the poem. Here, the poems function of criticizing the agreeable and comforting nature of priests furthers the exploration of an unrealized perspective on clergy.
The subject, Hannah, is powerfully brought back into focus through the depiction of the direct effect of clerical abuse on her. It continues, “In the well made box of this poem / her voice dies” (16-17). This suggests that the formally constructed poem fails to fully memorialize and express Hannah’s power and experience. While Hannah’s words and actions shape the poem, her sentiment cannot be completely realized in writing. Here, the summation of imagery associated with priests, coffins, and confessionals comes to a peak with the explicit reference to death. Furthermore, Hannah is positioned at the convergence of this vivid injustice. The poem’s self-described “well made” attributes are peculiar because the poem as is lacks what is first expected of “well-made” poetry: patterned construction, explicit meter, and ornamental language. The occasional rhymes or near rhymes dotted throughout the work are echoes of well made poetry but function specifically to aid in the movement of the poem. This contrast between what is actually written and the self-proclaimed “well made” functions to invert the expected once again and powerfully illustrate that little is necessary for successful resistance to injustice. Further, the poem demands that small acts to counter injustice are significant: through the example of the memory of Hannah but also in the “well made” twenty-one lined poem by Meehan.
The poem concludes in a manner that negates previous perspectives on clergy and concludes the alternative view of the Virgin Mary. Somewhat melodically in rhyme with “dies” (17), the line “she closes her eyes” (18) follows and brings in visual imagery of perhaps what occurs in death. The poem continues “and lowers her brow to her joined hands. Prays hard:” (19-20). This depicts Hannah becoming reverent in a prayer position in veneration of Mary. The closing of eyes and death imagery is shifted to one of solemn devotion, indicating a re-arrangement of prayer into everyday life and not a rejection of the faith. The poem concludes powerfully that Hannah’s prayer to Mary is “woman to woman” (21), evoking the sense that Hannah’s prayer is a candid, honest, and open conversation. Additionally, the “woman to woman” image shifts the image of absolver from male priest to female Mary. Throughout the poem, Mary has a deliberate solidarity with the visceral. The Madonna is brought down from idyllic spirituality and engaged within ordinary life, resulting in an alternative practice of faith grounded in human experience. In the poem, Mary does not deliver a message from an external authority which further cements her as more human than an apparition. Mary is relocated more fully into everyday life. The words, “prays hard,” suggest that Hannah is the one who invoked this alternative Mary figure, important particularly because she also sits next to a confessional that symbolizes institutional abuse of power. On one side is “Our Lady of the Facts of Life,” deliberately aligned with the marginalized and oppressed. On the other is a confessional, meant to symbolize abuse of power. These ideas connect through Hannah and result in an image of Mary as the center of the marginalized and expressed and free from patriarchal religious structure. This powerful new understanding is revealed throughout the poem as the speaker reflects on a distant memory.
“Hannah, Grandmother” transforms a memory bringing to light a previously unrealized perspective on clergy, but more broadly is a record of an alterative history through resistant female ancestor. The present tense of the poem suggests that the speaker re-experiences this local memory in response to a current scandal. Meehan serves as a fresh witness from a public and politically engaged vantage point. While the poem does not offer a solution to the problem, the mode of reflection provides the ability to gain insight into current events and trace the beginnings of resistance to injustice. In order to do so, Meehan demonstrates the need to both remember and re-imagine past experiences. Her grandmother’s advice and devotion to Mary are remembered, but “Our Lady of the Facts of Life” and the neat confessional are re-imagined simultaneously to gain deeper awareness on abuses by clergy. Hannah is singled out as a model of resistance and verbal protest against the institutional Church. The past experience is not changed, but the emotional impact and perspective is: the advice is remarkably relevant to recent revelations about abuse. Furthermore, the act of recovering and recording the insurgency of Hannah can bring liberation and healing to readers. While the narrative is individual, there is a deliberately emphasized communal significance. As she states in her poetry reading, Meehan “just heard [her] grandmother’s voice” while listening to the radio news on the Ryan Report into clerical sex abuse (). “Hannah, Grandmother” taps into the shared experience of a community bound by the revelations of scandal and emphasizes a communal vision in its meaning. “Woman to woman” further enhances the community sentiment and addresses the inclusive (and notably female) we. In writing this poem, Meehan occupies this space of alternative history telling in Irish poetry – out of everything that could have been written, the poem celebrates Hannah for her recalcitrance.
This lens of viewing Irish poems as means of articulating an alternative history of resistant women calls for the revisiting Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s work “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill.” Reminiscent of the female lament tradition, the poem acts as a tribute to Elly, presumably a great aunt, memorializing her denial of potential and resistance to social norms. Elly Ní Dhomhnaill is irreverent about church customs of calling out dues paying members:
“To her it was all wrong
that dues were read out aloud
in the middle of Mass.
She saw right well with the cheek –
imposing on the poor
to pay the Church beyond their means
and leave their children hungry.
On that account, she’d sit
satisfied in her own pew,
hand on her blackthorn,
hat on her head,
awaiting the call from the altar,
‘Elly Ní Dhomhnaill – nothing.’” (Ní Dhomhnaill, ln 16-28)
Establishing anti-clerical sentiment, the speaker describes Elly’s personal protest of the injustices of social norms, particularly the Church policy of public tax collection. The subject also criticizes more general abuses achieved by the institution, specifically ill treatment of the poor. The result is a subject that forcefully denounces the expectations of others. Breaking from poetic tradition in which a subject is praised for their generosity, “In Memoriam” praises a subject for the opposite. Elly is admired for her refusal to pay and willingness to be shamed publicly by the Church, an institution that insists on collecting from the poor whose children went hungry. Like “Hannah, Grandmother,” Ní Dhomhnaill inverts the expected to demonstrate primarily a need for criticism and to question injustice, but also that not much time or effort is required in order to do so. “In Memoriam” can be read as an example of recording and memorializing a female voice in resistance to the institutional Church.
Both “Hannah, Grandmother” and “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill” recover and celebrate instances of resistance to the institutional church. Without romanticizing and avoiding flowery and overtly poetic language, these poems simply memorialize and record. Elly sits “satisfied” (Ní Dhomhnaill, 24) in her pew and Hannah “prays hard: / woman to woman” (Meehan, 21-22). These adjectives evoke the simplicity and grit necessary for recalcitrance. Further, the poems neglect to demand a specific femininity. Both subjects exhibit characteristics like stubborn, condescending, judgmental, bold, progressive, and moral. Here, what it means to be female is not confined to standards of physical beauty or relegated to specific words and/or actions. This choice functions to demonstrate an inclusive call to stand up to injustice – one specific type of “woman” is not better equipped in resisting social norms than another. Additionally, memorialization in these poems goes hand in hand with the inversion of the expected. Meehan illustrates that priests are not as they seem through Hannah’s warnings and the image of the orderly but not to be trusted confessional while Ní Dhomhnaill praises her subject for something traditionally viewed as bitterly parsimonious. The shifts the poets make and the simple language used to shatter social constructs of femininity result in that poems celebrate the way in which their subjects actively resist injustice in Church practice.
These women are memorialized specifically for their agency in resisting religious norms and the poems can consequently be read as critiques of indifference and the status quo of acceptance. The subjects were women without privilege through their status as female and their upbringing in marginal places (Elly and Hannah in rural Ireland and in poor inner city Dublin, respectively). Hannah was also most likely uneducated. They are not necessarily women that would have been listened to publically. Both works reveal a common quality of abuse of power and troublingly suggest that people knew that priests were not to be trusted. If the marginalized subjects here knew about abuse of power, logically other community members must have known as well. Through the memorialization of these seemingly powerless and unimportant women insisting on justice, the poems criticize those who had more power but failed to stand up to or question the injustice around them.
While these poems offer praise to Irish female ideology through a poetic recollection of an anticlerical sentiment, they also create and enforce the underlying message that women create women. As examples of poetry inspired by female relatives, the works are strong reflections on an inheritance of questioning social constructs and shining a light on injustice. The poets and their subjects were connected via their families, however the image of heritage illustrates that all in the community are connected and all have a role to play in a the “fight” that began long ago. Through the memorialization of instances of female recalcitrance, the poetry challenges readers to continue to actively resist injustice and communicates a shared calling.
“Hannah, Grandmother” and “In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill” are poems that recover and record female voices, demonstrate the significance of their message in the past, and in Meehan’s case remodel that significance to explain a recent scandal. The poems challenge the status of clergy and bring to light an unrealized perspective on their institutional abuse of power. Through the act of recording instances of female ancestral resistance in history, these poems intervene in discourse and challenge perceived ideas in regards to the Church and social justice. They give strong voice to lowly women and criticize others for failing to speak out. Both utilize a shift of perspective to recover an alternative history in which women criticize injustice without a specific femininity. The result is an alternative history of clerical abuses defined through female inheritance. While no solutions are offered by the poems, women pass along key moral values in a generations-old fight and play active and critical roles in resistance. They insist on a communal call to fighting injustice and suggest that women play a key role in criticism.