The Essay series on BBC Radio 3 this week is about Another Northern Ireland. Female, queer, outsider and gently radical voices, burrowing in to the cultural underground of this place. I found listening to these stories moving. A little healing. It’s a privilege to be in their company.
While red faced politicians continue to shout from the hamster wheel, the rest of us are re-wilding ourselves. The north is alive with steely, beautiful resistance to our broken politics.
My own small resistance, over the last year or two, has come in the form of chalk. I started to scribble 1798 on walls and trees and stones. I gave chalk to my friends and they added their own marks.
When you do a mad thing, should you try to explain it, or just let it be? I’m not sure. My own essay, Chalk on the Wall, gives explaining a go.
