Mary Kennedy & Deirdre Ní Chinnéide: time to return to our roots
Mary Kennedy and Deirdre Ní Chinnéide: tapping into memory and tradition in their new book
For Mary Kennedy and her sister Deirdre Ní Chinnéide, their new book is very much a labour of love. It certainly was a labour for Kennedy. The former Nationwide presenter is candid that she found it very difficult to start working on the project, which was conceived early in 2021, in the midst of the country’s third lockdown.
“I found the third lockdown very, very difficult,” says Kennedy, “I enjoyed the first one, the second one was okay, I suppose, because we were coming towards Christmas. Then, after Christmas, it’s a pretty grim time of the year anyway. I found it difficult to actually get going on it and Deirdre was very helpful.”
The book is based about the four Celtic seasons. We’re currently at the start of Samhain, or winter, the first season of the Celtic year. Kennedy describes the book as a mix of Celtic lore and actuality — the dark days of the pandemic — and also a guide to how our Celtic traditions and ancestry can inform the way we navigate difficult times.
In the book, the sisters look at such universal themes as love and loss, resilience, courage, hope. “We weave in and out our own experience,” says Ní Chinnéide, “and draw on this idea of going to the well. So that during this time of pandemic, rather than completely panic and fall apart, we drew on what it was that makes us feel well and we shared that from a personal perspective.
“We also drew on the tradition of people who travelled to the well to be healed, to be refreshed and to be nourished.” Ní Chinnéide, who is a composer, singer and director of Slí Aonghusa retreat centre on the Aran Islands, is interested to see if the book can help people to make sense of what they’ve experienced.
“To know that in the way the seasons are, there’s a dark time and a bright time. This was a dark time and we’re hopefully moving towards a brighter time now.” “What I’m conscious of having brought to the book is vulnerability,” says Kennedy, “because I found it very, very difficult. There were times that I found it hard to get beyond the brain fog. And I was quite low in myself, but that’s in there.”
Kennedy, a mother of four and grandmother of two, hopes that readers will get a sense of ‘yeah, me too’ when reading about their experiences. “I think it will be an eye-opener, and Deirdre is very knowledgeable about the Celtic traditions and habits.”
Celtic spirituality is a key focus in Ní Chinnéide’s work and a long-held area of interest for Kennedy.
For Ní Chinnéide, the attraction of the Celtic tradition is that there is a feeling of home in it.
The lure is similar for Kennedy. “I’m very acutely aware that we have a rich heritage, a rich language and a rich culture and a connection to the earth, but also to each other. I do feel that a book like this might, hopefully, open people’s minds and hearts to the fact that we are the accumulation of the strong qualities and attributes of our Celtic ancestry.”
Kennedy and Ní Chinnéide grew up on St Brigid’s Road, in Dublin’s Clondalkin, and around the corner from their home was a holy well, a place that signalled family, community and divinity.
The sisters grew up reciting the rosary as a family. Theirs was a close-knit family, says Ní Chinnéide. The siblings shared a room growing up, but the six-year age difference meant that they were at different stages of life. “I was the eldest,” says Kennedy, “and I was very quiet and studious.”
“And I wasn’t,” interjects Ní Chinnéide. “If I heard the television downstairs,” says Kennedy, “I’d be banging on the ceiling for them to turn it down.”
Kennedy actually taught her sister when she went back to do the HDip in her old school and Ní Chinnéide was in her honours Irish class. “I used to ask questions at home,” says Ní Chinnéide, “and she’d say ’I’ve already discussed that this morning’.”
Ní Chinnéide also trained as a teacher before becoming principal of a gaelscoil. Later, she studied psychotherapy and then worked in Bosnia and Kosovo helping victims of the brutal conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
“When I came back from those journeys, I would go to the Aran Islands and I found a great sense of peace there. I have a retreat centre there where I invite people to come and experience what it brought to me. It’s a place where Mary and the rest of the family come and enjoy, getting the boat across the water into at times what feels like another world.”
Kennedy, already a best-selling writer, is enjoying her work after Nationwide. “I love the collaborations, we did a few before the pandemic as well, myself and Deirdre, in a retreat centre and it does bring you into yourself and into breathing and enjoying the moment.” She also is becoming known for something other than her work on that RTÉ flagship programme.
“Normally, people used to say ‘you’re from Nationwide, aren’t you?’. Now it’s all ‘oh, you’re Dermot Kennedy’s aunt’. And it’s lovely to celebrate that success.” Ní Chinnéide knows that feeling only too well, having been asked for years if she is Mary Kennedy’s sister. She loves that the book is a product of the sisters’ stage of life.
“Mary has retired from Nationwide and I’m a long time retired from being principal of a school, but I don’t think I’ll ever retire, there’s nothing to retire from. I think it’s a message for anybody — it’s never, ever too late to create something.” As for what’s next for the dynamic duo, Kennedy suggests that “we might fly solo across the Atlantic.”
“It’ll definitely be solo,” says Ní Chinnéide, “because I won’t be with you.”
- Journey to the Well (Hachette Ireland) by Mary Kennedy and Deirdre Ní Chinnéide is out now.
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