‘How has my particular Irish Catholic heritage and identity affected my life?’

Treasa O’Driscoll has taken the oral, literary, musical and spiritual traditions of her Irish heritage and woven them into a living fabric that is uniquely feminine, transformative and contemporary.

I first heard of her legendary beauty, warmth and poetic musical embodiment as early as 1983, when poet and cultural historian William Irwin Thompson (of the Lindisfarne Association) spoke to me about her as well as the anthology Celtic Consciousness edited by her late husband Robert O’Driscoll (1981).

In those days many a special soul moved through Lindisfarne ranks, but hearing an unsolicited rhapsody on someone who was not at the podium was impressive. I remembered it vividly. What a joy it is now, close to 30 years later, to turn the pages of this memoir.

Anyone who reads these pages has the opportunity to journey through multiple stages of the human making curriculum, tracing an indelible elegance through each corridor of the female journey. O’Driscoll is a wordsmith of rare nuance, rhythm and cadence; because this lyricism is brought to the issues of our day, the book is a rare gift.

This memoir is reflective and intimate, substantive and insightful. Each of the 15 chapters in this truly Irish peregrination fractures time.

The author is at home with all three currents of past, present and future. In her hands, memory, poetry, song, dream, quest, prayer and vision rise up in joy, lament, pensive searching, warmth, humour and gracious creativity.

She writes of friendships both chaotic and sublime. A legion of great personalities and individuals appear on these pages, all of whom she knew or knows intimately.

However, unlike a current culture of disclosure, she speaks to us about these people and experiences in a sapiential gesture– only for the precious gifts discovered or co-created, whether conferred through loss or boon.

Through each stage of discovery or loss, the art of conversation is as important to her as is the art of reading. Both are transformative.

In a unique contribution to our times, O’Driscoll addresses crucial themes of male-female intimacy with courage and candor, and continues in the same manner, serving themes relating to individual spirituality and the individuation process.

She is at home on the margins and ledges that can only be walked solo however beautifully they may be later shared.

This is not the kind of memoir that can be written early in life, but only later, in the coherence embodied when we are capable of integrating both success and failure into our narrative.
This is one person who maintains close contact with soul. She does not lose the thread. She asks herself to reflect and grapple with the great questions of destiny, and her own destiny: How has my particular Irish Catholic heritage and identity affected my life?

How has voice, speech, poetry, the written, spoken and sung word shaped my own journey?

How has being an artist shaped the ways in which I have been single, married, wife, mother, widow, lover, friend, singer, poet, actress? Woman of spirit? Woman of song?

What of the Irish Diaspora in general, and what of my own individual crisscrossing of continents?

What role do the great leave-takings and transitions in relationship, home and institutional faith identities play on individuation? Freedom? Humility? Joy?

How do loving, risking, truth-telling, solitude and community co-mingle and emerge as a single radiance shining throughout life’s poetic journey?

I am convinced that if you read Treasa O’Driscoll, an artist of rare depth and coherence, you will most assuredly find out.