So far, Michelle's Love has helped 228 with rent or mortgage payments, meals and cleaning their houses to focus on healing and being with their loved ones,
Where were my women on May 3, 1921? Did they dance on the streets and wave flags when Northern Ireland was born? Were their struggles any different when they woke up the next day?
The women in my family were ordinary Protestants from Belfast and Newry. Their stories have not been overly preserved. I have suitcases of clippings on war heroes and handed-down tales of notable men. But I have fewer tools to discern how my women experienced their lives 100 years ago. I ve used official records, newspaper archives and fragments of family memories to piece together their lives.
I wanted to see what could be learned by excavating the truly ordinary. None of my women did anything famous, or infamous. But they glued their own worlds together. And sometimes they fell apart. Imagining their lives during partition is my small tribute to them. As well as an exploration of Protestant women s lives at this time.