For The Love Of Mary

For The Love of Mary is a bilingual autobiographic mapping of a journey to find the Virgin Mary, a figure glorified as the epitome of female identity. It examines her lost humanity, rediscovered through stories shared by women living in Ireland, gathered around the kitchen table, often over a pot of tea.

The performance explores the atrocities committed against women, the institutionalisation of women, the Repeal and Decriminalise movements alongside acts of devotional faith and love. All layered against a backdrop of religious ideology and national identity.

Viewed through the lens of a woman from a Protestant/Unionist background, displaced by the troubles into a Nationalist area two years before the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The perfor­mance questions the cultural influence of her prescribed ideals of courage, endurance, hope, faith and confidante in parallel to the experiences of pregnancy, consent, agency, crisis and sexuality by Irish women.

"This event is part of Bounce Festival 2023 organised by University of Atypical for Arts and Disability. University of Atypical's main funder is The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland made possible by Lottery Players."