Article

Where She Stands: Conversations with Nóirín Ní Riain

Sarah Fons

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 7 (2021)

Pages: 82-88 | Published Online: April 2021

https://doi.org/10.64208/DWNC3839

Abstract

In the face of stark gender divisions in the Catholic Church and a male-dominated Irish music industry, Nóirín Ní Riain has forged a space to sing and pray. For decades she has been collecting and performing musics, from Irish sean-nós to Gregorian chant to Indian ragas, aspiring to understand and share sacred experience. Through a number of interviews, I explore the propulsive force that is Nóirín Ní Riain’s spirituality, the indispensable role of music therein, and her life-long struggle to reconcile a deep love for the Catholic ritual and Irish song of her upbringing with conspicuous gender inequality within the Church. Music has been a refuge for Ní Riain; birthing shared moments of presence and genderlessness within ephemeral sound. Nóirín’s is a story of the struggle and power of living between–between faiths, cultures, sometimes even genders–creating space for her own spiritual, musical experience.

Keywords: Spirituality, gender inequality, Catholicism, sean-nós, ministry

Author: Sarah Fons