Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Kerri ní Dochartaigh (born 1983) is a Northern Irish nature writer, memoirist, and journalist. Her 2021 book Thin Places was shortlisted for the 2021 Wainwright Prize in UK Nature Writing. Quotes As for nature writing, we are in a really good place now because we are acknowledging more and more how unfair the publishing business has been in the past. There were really strong male voices at the forefront and now it seems like we are making room at the table for other people, and writers from places we never really allowed into the Literature literary scene. That incorporates race and gender and Identity (social science) identity, and class as well, so we are seeing people writing nature who we didn’t get to see before. We see mothers who just get an hour a day to write and they send off to a contest and they win and black writers and BIPOC writers who are writing and being recognized for their work. In the natural world we are all on the same level but that hasn’t happened in the publishing world. Seeing things change gives me such joy. as quoted by M. D. McIntyre in: Writing between Two Worlds: An Interview with Kerri ní Dochartaigh author of Thin Places Michigan Quarterly Review April 2022 https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2022/04/writing-between-two-worlds-an-interview-with-kerri-ni-dochartaigh-author-of-thin-places/ Thin Places (2021) In old Irish folklore, butterflies were the souls of the dead and it was unlucky to harm one. The Vanessa atalanta Red Admiral butterfly, however, was thought to be the devil and was persecuted. The idea of the butterfly as the embodiment of the soul implies their ability to cross into the Otherworld. My ancestors often saw no boundary at all between wild places and that Otherworld which we cannot see. Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home Milkweed Editions 2023 9781571317698 https://books.google.com/books?id=JrNjEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 21 (228 pages; 1st edition published in 2021 by Canongate Books) On the morning of my thirty-fifth birthday, I woke up to an The Irish Times Irish Times newspaper article entitled 'Mass extinction of species is happening in Ireland'. The article stated that a third of the species groups examined are threatened with extinction, predominantly due to Climate change global warming, Habitat destruction habitat loss, pollution and Exploitation of natural resources unsustainable use of resources. A number of species are, in fact, 'critically endangered', and without urgent action being taken immediately, they will simply disappear entirely from this island. That morning, I spent so many hours researching what we have already lost — what we risk losing any day — that I nearly wept with the sadness of it all. Some of those creatures in most danger are the Eurasian curlew curlew, the European eel, the Freshwater pearl mussel pearl mussel, the bumblebee, the Western barn owl barn owl, the Corn crake corncrake and the Marsh fritillary marsh fritillary butterfly. p. 42 Quotes about Kerri ní Dochartaigh ... Cacophony of Bone is a record of days, a meditation on the passing of time, and a deep noticing of the world around us—trees, moths, birds, water, and the comfort of animals. ...Cacophony of Bone revisits similar topics from ní Dochartaigh’s first memoir, Thin Places, but with a new perspective—of sobriety, finding a partner to share life with, a home she may stay at longer than any other place, and the new longing to become a mother. Emily Webber, Review: Cacophony of Bone: The Circle of a Year by Kerri ní Dochartaigh January 8, 2024 Hippocampus Magazine: Memorable Creative Nonfiction https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2024/01/review-cacophony-of-bone-the-circle-of-a-year-by-kerri-ni-dochartaigh/ External links Kerri ní Dochartaigh Milkweed Editions (milkweed.org) https://milkweed.org/author/kerri-ni-dochartaigh Category:1983 births Category:Living people Category:Non-fiction authors from Northern Ireland Category:Women authors from the United Kingdom Category:Women born in the 1980s Category:Women from Northern Ireland Category:Memoirists from Northern Ireland