BERNADETTE’S IMAGES AND WORDS INSPIRE
AT ONE STAGE in her life, Bernadette Morrison Martin mapped careers with her words and deeds of encouragement at Scoil Ui Mhuiri in Dunleer.
Last week came the chance for those influenced by the Togher woman (by way of Killadoon, Westport, Co Mayo and Zimbabwe) to once again sit and listen to her ideals, which if governments really took on board, might lead to a new Ireland in every shape and sense.
Michael O’Dowd, who worked with Bernadette on the Boicetown dump issue some years ago, delivered a pretty apt quote from one of Bernadette’s 2004 election posters (she stood for the Green Party) when she said some politicians promise a lot of things, ‘ but left Jessie James in charge of the banks’.
‘ They should have listened to her back then!,’ Michael exclaimed.
Bernadette was in the Market House in Dunleer to launch her book, Footfall, and a selection of images, many featured in the publication.
The book is a personal journey in many respects, and formed from years of living, from a young mother with a family living in a time of revolution in the former Rhodesia to helping a community unite and turn an asbestos dump in Togher into a living natural habitat.
An art teacher by profession who joined the team at Scoil Ui Mhuiri in 1980, she works in mixed media and her work is in collections in Ireland and abroad.
Images of Dunany and her home area in Togher abound and give a great sense of place.
Footfall is a sublime publication and copies can be obtained from Opening Minds’, Educational Bookshop, Laurence Centre, Drogheda, or Bernadette at bernadettemartin@eircom.net.