Rosita Sweetman

2 weeks ago | independent.ie | Rosita Sweetman

The great estrangement – Eamon Dolan’s The Power of Parting leads fellow survivors of abuse to hard-fought freedomNon-fictionAs a child, Eamon Dolan was subjected to horrific abuse from his motherWhen Eamon Dolan’s mother died, he and his sister Gerry laughed “in angry joy”. You couldn’t blame them. By any metric, she was a monster.

1 month ago | irishexaminer.com | Rosita Sweetman

Unwittingly, the law did us all a favour when its officers arrested Máirín de Burca and chucked her into Mountjoy. It was while she was inside, she thought: I am out every week protesting for civil rights, an end to apartheid, an end to the war in Vietnam, what about rights for women? What indeed? Máirín’s punishable crime had been, along with others, smashing a bottle of animal blood on the steps of the American embassy. She also burned their flag in protest at the war in Vietnam.

1 month ago | irishexaminer.com | Rosita Sweetman

Constance Lloyd was the beautiful young daughter of Anglo Irish aristocrats when Oscar Wilde, fresh from America, ‘Walt Whitman’s kiss still on his lip’, met her. She fell instantly, and he, knowing a good thing when he saw it, proposed to his "grave, shy little Artemis with violet eyes". Even his staunchest supporters were surprised at the speed of the engagement. Many have tried valiantly since to portray it as a love match.

2 months ago | independent.ie | Rosita Sweetman

Non-fictionFor such an explosive subject, Abortion, A History is surprisingly mild. Strangely and infuriatingly, it stops short of the US supreme court’s overturn of Roe v Wade in 2022, which brought back draconian measures, and the right-wing administration now in the White House is threatening countrywide bans. Women’s access to abortion, as the author points out, has always been intrinsically tied to the patriarchy. All women have had to negotiate their rights “inside enemy territory”.

2 months ago | irishexaminer.com | Rosita Sweetman

I’m on an intense Edna O‘Brien buzz at the moment, re-reading her autobiography, and off for a second viewing of Sinead O’Shea’s documentary about her life, . My current favourite quote from the Edna oeuvre is from her wonderful creation Baba, in : "The vote I thought means nothing to women. We should be armed." At the time (late 1960s), I scoffed. Women? Armed? Are you joking?