The title of this blog is a play on that song's famous lyrics, "Boston, you're my home," because for many years, Boston was my home and even when it wasn't, I was never far away.
Nine and a half years ago, I moved to Dublin at the age of 35. I had no job and practically no savings. I didn't know a single person in Dublin my age other than my husband. For the first few months, I wandered around town trying to familiarise myself with Dublin streets. I spent a lot of time online waiting for my friends and family in America to wake up and get online so I'd have someone to talk to.
A couple of months in, I started going to this 'autonomous social centre' that was being set up called Seomra Spraoi. I had been in some anarchist spaces in the Boston area -- not many -- but I knew that if I wanted to find out about the interesting stuff happening, I'd need to find the punks, even though I myself had never identified as such. I helped a little with the construction of the space and helped cook for the vegan café nights that happened once or twice a week. I started to meet people here and there, but I felt like I had OUTSIDER tattooed on my forehead. Still, I kept going back.
Mark brought home a magazine called 'The Rag' by an anarcha-feminist group called Revolutionary Anarcha-feminist Group (aka RAG). I learned that the magazine wasn't just something you could submit work to -- you had to be part of the collective, which met monthly and worked collaboratively on the annual magazine. So I joined. And that's where my journey home began.
In that group, I found the most wonderful and inspiring women. I was able to use my writing and editing skills and learn new skills like layout in InDesign. But I mostly learned how to listen. I learned how to think about the connection of oppressions and powers. I learned to be honest with myself and others about my privilege. I learned how to question the judgements and criticisms I had made throughout my very middle class, white-dominated life. I learned how to work in a collective. I learned how to organise and how to support other people in the collective.
When RAG decided to have an open meeting back in July 2012 to talk to pro-choice people about how we could start a campaign to legalise abortion, I had no idea what was ahead of me, but I hopped on the rollercoaster with great enthusiasm because I'd had a taste of what it was like to be part of a collective working towards a goal, and I wanted more of that feeling. At that meeting, we found a huge appetite not just for change, but for action. We formed a network of pro-choice groups. We had our first March for Choice. Then we turned the network into a campaign: The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC).
I was the first Secretary of ARC, but I'll be honest and say that I had to give it up before my term ended to focus on my fashion business, which I was then just starting. But I tried to keep active, never being able to stay away for long and threw myself into various projects whenever I could manage them. ARC was where the action was. Some exciting development was always happening, and we made small wins over the next five or so years as our marches got bigger and bigger. By then I was on the Board of Directors, though I admit that I tended to shy away from leadership positions because I was afraid of having to quit partway through again.
Finally, in November of 2016, I had a steady job and was in a new home and I had no excuse not to run for Co-convener. At the last second we convinced media and design powerhouse Caoimhe Doyle to run with me. When we were voted in, I made two promises to myself: 1) I would not quit and 2) I would do the absolute best job that I could. I wanted to look back and feel proud of myself and to feel like I really gave it my all. And you know what? As I sit here, I can say that I really kept those promises. Was I the best Co-convener that ever was? Heck, no! But was I the best Co-convener that I could be? Yes. During that year, my father-in-law was very, very ill. It was hard to be working full time, going to as many ARC meetings as I could humanly go to, and supporting my husband in caring for my father-in-law and himself.
But it was full of so many amazing moments, I couldn't possibly summarise. But I think the highlight was being onstage with so many other dedicated pro-choice activists, standing in front of a crowd of 40,000 people, and finding the courage to speak passionately about legalising abortion in Ireland. My American friends and family will probably never know how important that day was in Irish history: it was the biggest pro-choice march the country had ever seen, and I got to be part of making that happen! This middle-aged lady from New Hampshire! Sharing a stage with absolute legends!
During that year, I was probably a better Co-convener than I was wife and daughter-in-law. I made that choice, and I am at peace with it. My father-in-law died just before the clock struck midnight on the day that the new Co-conveners would be elected. My year was up and I thought I was ready for a break.
But I should have known better. I didn't really want to take a break with so much still going on. We got our referendum! We needed to make sure that ARC got a place at the table in whatever referendum campaign came together. I wasn't able to take as much time off to work on Together for Yes as I wanted to, but I took a week off to work in HQ and I took every Wednesday off to work on the campaign for six weeks, trying to do bits and pieces whenever I could. I couldn't believe how many hundreds -- thousands -- of people were giving it their ALL. So many dedicated people giving up their time, putting blood, sweat, and tears into the campaign. And not just people who were already active. People I never even knew were pro-choice were canvassing every night!
And that was the amazing thing. I used to refer to the Abortion Rights Campaign as 'red-headed step-children' (pardon the American phrase) of the pro-choice movement. We weren't an NGO. We had new people in leadership positions all the time. We had non-hierarchical, anarchist-leaning ways of organising. We had the word Abortion in our name. We often felt like we had to fight tooth and nail for respect and recognition. But here we were, in the middle of this campaign that SO MANY people came out of the woodwork to support. We learned that we had been supported all along, since the beginning, even if the supporters didn't always make themselves known. Our work had paid off. The Together for Yes campaign used most of the ARC infrastructure built over the past five+ years and it just exploded in a burst of enthusiasm and energy.
But still, we weren't sure of winning. Right to the end, we weren't sure. Which is why, on Friday the 25th of May when the exit poll results were announced and we learned that we would win by a landslide, there were thousands of sobbing activists around Ireland and indeed the world.
I never worked for something so long and so hard in my entire life. And I have never felt part of something so big and so important. I know that anyone who played any part in the Yes campaign probably feels the same. Because we all did it, as the name says, together.
But when it came down to the end of the timeline leading up to referendum day, I decided that I'd do the fun stuff and I planned a party for the night of the results. I reserved a huge bar in city centre. I had no idea if anyone would come, but I made it open to everyone who had worked on any group in the campaign. And I was so happy because people came! And there was a great buzz about the place, though everyone was absolutely exhausted. It was a funny energy -- a mixture of happiness, relief, fatigue, surreal disbelief that it was over and we'd been victorious.
Then something magical happened. Dr. Groove fired up his laptop, we turned the volume up, and he started to play his DJ set. The next thing I knew, this room full of people who had, moments before, looked limp and fading, got up onto the dance floor and started dancing like nobody's business.
And that's when I started to cry. I realised that these were my people. I'll always love my friends and family back in America, but the people I've come to know here in Dublin are my found family. They accept me, they lift me up, they laugh at my terrible jokes, and they let me be part of this amazing movement. As I watched everyone dance I thought, "I can never leave here. This is where I am happy. This is my home."
After my father passed away, I felt like I would never feel real joy again. Grief is like that. But grief, I've realised, is what has motivated me to live a life that means something to me, that gives back to my community, that will serve the greater good, that brings me more joy than I thought possible and that I can look back on when it's my time to leave and say, I did some very cool things with some very nice people who loved me as much as I loved them.
Nine and a half years ago, I moved to Dublin at the age of 35. I had no job and practically no savings. I didn't know a single person in Dublin my age other than my husband. For the first few months, I wandered around town trying to familiarise myself with Dublin streets. I spent a lot of time online waiting for my friends and family in America to wake up and get online so I'd have someone to talk to.
A couple of months in, I started going to this 'autonomous social centre' that was being set up called Seomra Spraoi. I had been in some anarchist spaces in the Boston area -- not many -- but I knew that if I wanted to find out about the interesting stuff happening, I'd need to find the punks, even though I myself had never identified as such. I helped a little with the construction of the space and helped cook for the vegan café nights that happened once or twice a week. I started to meet people here and there, but I felt like I had OUTSIDER tattooed on my forehead. Still, I kept going back.
Mark brought home a magazine called 'The Rag' by an anarcha-feminist group called Revolutionary Anarcha-feminist Group (aka RAG). I learned that the magazine wasn't just something you could submit work to -- you had to be part of the collective, which met monthly and worked collaboratively on the annual magazine. So I joined. And that's where my journey home began.
In that group, I found the most wonderful and inspiring women. I was able to use my writing and editing skills and learn new skills like layout in InDesign. But I mostly learned how to listen. I learned how to think about the connection of oppressions and powers. I learned to be honest with myself and others about my privilege. I learned how to question the judgements and criticisms I had made throughout my very middle class, white-dominated life. I learned how to work in a collective. I learned how to organise and how to support other people in the collective.
When RAG decided to have an open meeting back in July 2012 to talk to pro-choice people about how we could start a campaign to legalise abortion, I had no idea what was ahead of me, but I hopped on the rollercoaster with great enthusiasm because I'd had a taste of what it was like to be part of a collective working towards a goal, and I wanted more of that feeling. At that meeting, we found a huge appetite not just for change, but for action. We formed a network of pro-choice groups. We had our first March for Choice. Then we turned the network into a campaign: The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC).
I was the first Secretary of ARC, but I'll be honest and say that I had to give it up before my term ended to focus on my fashion business, which I was then just starting. But I tried to keep active, never being able to stay away for long and threw myself into various projects whenever I could manage them. ARC was where the action was. Some exciting development was always happening, and we made small wins over the next five or so years as our marches got bigger and bigger. By then I was on the Board of Directors, though I admit that I tended to shy away from leadership positions because I was afraid of having to quit partway through again.
Finally, in November of 2016, I had a steady job and was in a new home and I had no excuse not to run for Co-convener. At the last second we convinced media and design powerhouse Caoimhe Doyle to run with me. When we were voted in, I made two promises to myself: 1) I would not quit and 2) I would do the absolute best job that I could. I wanted to look back and feel proud of myself and to feel like I really gave it my all. And you know what? As I sit here, I can say that I really kept those promises. Was I the best Co-convener that ever was? Heck, no! But was I the best Co-convener that I could be? Yes. During that year, my father-in-law was very, very ill. It was hard to be working full time, going to as many ARC meetings as I could humanly go to, and supporting my husband in caring for my father-in-law and himself.
But it was full of so many amazing moments, I couldn't possibly summarise. But I think the highlight was being onstage with so many other dedicated pro-choice activists, standing in front of a crowd of 40,000 people, and finding the courage to speak passionately about legalising abortion in Ireland. My American friends and family will probably never know how important that day was in Irish history: it was the biggest pro-choice march the country had ever seen, and I got to be part of making that happen! This middle-aged lady from New Hampshire! Sharing a stage with absolute legends!
During that year, I was probably a better Co-convener than I was wife and daughter-in-law. I made that choice, and I am at peace with it. My father-in-law died just before the clock struck midnight on the day that the new Co-conveners would be elected. My year was up and I thought I was ready for a break.
But I should have known better. I didn't really want to take a break with so much still going on. We got our referendum! We needed to make sure that ARC got a place at the table in whatever referendum campaign came together. I wasn't able to take as much time off to work on Together for Yes as I wanted to, but I took a week off to work in HQ and I took every Wednesday off to work on the campaign for six weeks, trying to do bits and pieces whenever I could. I couldn't believe how many hundreds -- thousands -- of people were giving it their ALL. So many dedicated people giving up their time, putting blood, sweat, and tears into the campaign. And not just people who were already active. People I never even knew were pro-choice were canvassing every night!
And that was the amazing thing. I used to refer to the Abortion Rights Campaign as 'red-headed step-children' (pardon the American phrase) of the pro-choice movement. We weren't an NGO. We had new people in leadership positions all the time. We had non-hierarchical, anarchist-leaning ways of organising. We had the word Abortion in our name. We often felt like we had to fight tooth and nail for respect and recognition. But here we were, in the middle of this campaign that SO MANY people came out of the woodwork to support. We learned that we had been supported all along, since the beginning, even if the supporters didn't always make themselves known. Our work had paid off. The Together for Yes campaign used most of the ARC infrastructure built over the past five+ years and it just exploded in a burst of enthusiasm and energy.
But still, we weren't sure of winning. Right to the end, we weren't sure. Which is why, on Friday the 25th of May when the exit poll results were announced and we learned that we would win by a landslide, there were thousands of sobbing activists around Ireland and indeed the world.
I never worked for something so long and so hard in my entire life. And I have never felt part of something so big and so important. I know that anyone who played any part in the Yes campaign probably feels the same. Because we all did it, as the name says, together.
But when it came down to the end of the timeline leading up to referendum day, I decided that I'd do the fun stuff and I planned a party for the night of the results. I reserved a huge bar in city centre. I had no idea if anyone would come, but I made it open to everyone who had worked on any group in the campaign. And I was so happy because people came! And there was a great buzz about the place, though everyone was absolutely exhausted. It was a funny energy -- a mixture of happiness, relief, fatigue, surreal disbelief that it was over and we'd been victorious.
Then something magical happened. Dr. Groove fired up his laptop, we turned the volume up, and he started to play his DJ set. The next thing I knew, this room full of people who had, moments before, looked limp and fading, got up onto the dance floor and started dancing like nobody's business.
And that's when I started to cry. I realised that these were my people. I'll always love my friends and family back in America, but the people I've come to know here in Dublin are my found family. They accept me, they lift me up, they laugh at my terrible jokes, and they let me be part of this amazing movement. As I watched everyone dance I thought, "I can never leave here. This is where I am happy. This is my home."
After my father passed away, I felt like I would never feel real joy again. Grief is like that. But grief, I've realised, is what has motivated me to live a life that means something to me, that gives back to my community, that will serve the greater good, that brings me more joy than I thought possible and that I can look back on when it's my time to leave and say, I did some very cool things with some very nice people who loved me as much as I loved them.
