Episode 3
Maggie’s Doll by Dee Mulrooney | S6 Ep3
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OUR STORY
Dee Mulrooney tells an original story based on her own mother’s childhood in Dublin in the late 1940s.
OUR GUEST
Based in Berlin, Dee Mulrooney weaves a rich tapestry of experiences, emotions, and insights into her creative practice. Rooted in the complexities of inhabiting a female body, her work emerges from the profound influences of her upbringing as a working-class Irish woman in the patriarchal, misogynistic landscape of 1970s Catholic Ireland. Her background profoundly shapes her identity and informs her artistic journey, where she fluidly navigates drawing, painting, writing, performing, filmmaking, and music.
Through her alter ego, Growler—a vibrant, full-body vulva costume—she channels the voices of women past, transforming pain into powerful storytelling and performance. A nod to her ancestors. Growler embodies the spirit of resilience, connecting generations and facilitating healing.
With over two decades of experience as an educator, Dee champions community and empowerment, drawing inspiration from celebrated artists and the potent power of women's narratives.
OUR CONVERSATION
- A story about childhood based on a true story that speaks to all of us.
- Dee is the granddaughter of two midwives who also served as “death doulas.” Dee’s own art continues to explore these themes.
- Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until 1993, and it would have been notable and even dangerous for “Uncle Billy” to come home from London with his partner in the 1940s.
- The pressure to have so many children “for Ireland” in de Valera’s Ireland in the midst of so much abuse and secrets. At the same time, women were coping with Infant mortality and the spectre of the Mother and Baby homes.
- This culture was captured in Small Things Like These, the book by Claire Keegan and the film with Cillian Murphy.
- Ownership and belonging in the sacred sense rather than the materialist sense
- Beginning in the 1930, the Irish social welfare system guaranteed a home - security of tenure - for all people, which would have transformed people’s lives, particularly for working class women. This changed within a generation, and the current housing crisis in Ireland is the worst it has ever been. Dee’s family lost their home in Dublin and she and her family emigrated to Berlin where collective housing arrangements are part of the culture. Issues of housing are connected to ancestral trauma, particularly the famine and evictions.
- Accepting and working with the grief that’s part of the experience diaspora. Time seems to stand still after you leave a place and the diaspora plays a vital role in preserving culture.
- We recorded this conversation on Nollaig na mBán, “women’s Christmas” which Dee celebrated by making a drawing for her mother-in-law based on a 1913 photograph of a young Galway woman who put on traditional garb for the picture.
- Something Dee brings through with her Growler work: “No one on this planet can claim ‘clean ancestry.’” We’re here to stand on the shoulders of ancestors, including the murderers and the genocidal maniacs.
Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
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