Real Women, Big Lives is a photographic project appreciating older women in the arts in Northern Ireland.
This is a photographic record of the lives of a small group of older women in the arts in Northern Ireland.
Women were photographed at home, in locations they love and at their work.
It started as a pilot project involving seven women, all over sixty. These include two singers, one storyteller, one playwright, one dancer, one poet, and myself, a photographer.
This project proposes that we show these significant lives to a broader audience.
Real Women…
“I could say I have had a musical journey. I’ve been singing all of my life. Even as a little girl I would have been singing in the concerts in the local hall. Our dad put the music into our hearts and music is a huge part of my life now.”
Anne Tracey Singer
“I remember as a young girl before going to Sunday school, I back combed my hair so it looked like Cilla Black’s hair! My mother gave me an awful telling off, but was able to say to the neighbours it was the image of Cilla Black. Creating things made me believe I could do anything. I never saw it as acting, my mother called it ‘showing off’. And it was many years later I joined a drama group at well over thirty years of age.”
Carol Doey Playwright
“You can never stop learning. Storytelling is not a competitive sport so I can learn from ordinary people I meet along the way. And it’s not about what people can’t do it’s about what people can do. I try to go for the positives in people. And know that they may not be able to do one thing but they can another.”
Liz Weir Storyteller
…Big Lives
“Other women are an inspiration. We don’t have a cutoff point. It’s not like when we reach fifty or sixty or something we sit in our box. And there still is a bit of that in society because people will say to me, ‘You’re not still dancing, are you?’.”
Mary McGuiggan Dancer
“I’m proudest of having my poems published. This is my day. I really am proud of that. I come from a rural village background and where women are not expected to produce books of poetry.”
Maura Johnston Poet
“I’ve only been singing semi-professionally for about ten years and really only been doing it more seriously over five years. And I often think what drives me is that it isn’t just about getting up and singing at a microphone. For me, as well, it is connecting with an audience.”
Ursula McHugh Singer
“The thing I love about other women is the way they keep going regardless. I love what they know and I love when they speak up about what they know. I love when they clear the decks and say, ‘This is what I know, move over and listen.’ I love the way they protect life and place and foster family networks. They are the original recyclers and environmentalists and experts at make do and mend.”
Sheila Fairon Photographer
