First published 2015
This debut English-language poetry collection follows Ní Ghríofa through visceral encounters with birth, love, and historical violence. The poet moves between intimate spaces of creation and destruction, from hospital rooms where new life emerges to the infamous boys' home at Letterfrack where children suffered abuse. Her verses map the physical reality of motherhood alongside Ireland's buried traumas. The collection divides into three movements that grip, split apart, and tighten again like contractions or clasped hands. Ní Ghríofa writes what she calls "A History in Hearts," charting how bodies carry both tenderness and terror. At Letterfrack, she observes how "The earth holds small skulls like seeds," connecting institutional cruelty to cycles of growth and loss. The poems navigate between celebration and anxiety, finding beauty and horror intertwined in the most fundamental human experiences.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, poetry, biography-memoir
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief
Setting: Ireland, Letterfrack
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
75 pages · Paperback · Dedalus Press
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse