Fierce, feisty, and female: Writer salutes courageous Celtic women who blazed a trail around the world still followed today
From poets and protesters to pirates and political activists, they are the Celtic warrior women who blazed a trail still being followed by girls today.
Now the feisty and f i e rc e women of Scotland, Ireland and Wales are being celebrated in a new “her-story” of Scotland. Mairi Kidd, the Gaelic- speaking head of literature, languages and publishing at Creative Scotland, is rewriting the past and settling old scores. She is shining a light on the often u n k n ow n but extraordinary Celtic women who have, over the centuries and against all odds, made their mark on the world. They are from Scotland, Ireland and Wales but all, according to Mairi, are “feisty and fiery and fierce badass women to live your life by” – women, she hopes, that will inspire today’s young girls. Edinburgh- based Mairi told The Sunday Post: “A lot of these women have become invisible for a very long time. There is that alarming fact we have more statues in Edinburgh of named animals than we do of women. We don’t memorialise women. Part of the aim of the book is to name them and talk about them in my ‘herstories’. “I would want young women to take from this book self-confidence. It is a tough time to be a young woman. Young girls and women today navigate all sorts of worlds my generation didn’t have to. We didn’t have to navigate a digital world, we only had to navigate a physical one. “Social media has resulted in a world in which there is tremendous pressure on young women. I would hope they would take some strength from the fact women have always had it tough, but that lots of women have really changed the world and have fought their way through. I hope it helps inspire some of the readers to feel they can make change.”
Mairi, whose mum Moira is a history teacher and whose dad Jim is a historian, said: “Growing up, my mum’s mission was that children in Scotland should be taught Scottish history because, prior to that, there was a lot of history that taught the Tudors and not the Stuarts. Mum was a feminist from the 1960s and she was passionate about telling women’s stories. My granny was in service and my dad’s mother was a jute spinner in Dundee, so they grew up in an era that was hard for women. I grew up knowing about those challenges.”
The book features 39 women. Among the most notable for the author is 16th Century African-scot Elen More. Thought to have been a slave, she went on to become a ladyin-waiting in the Stuart court, a role held by members of the elite.
Mairi said: “The whole point is that our history has been much more mixed ethnically, and for such a long time. Elen is invisible because Scotland doesn’t tell the story of its African history. And she is also invisible because the broader story of black people in the UK in these eras has been told about England.”
But the author reckons women haven’t always been missing from the picture. There is evidence to suggest that, in pre- history, they had some power, and that success was measured by community survival and wellbeing. Then, she says: “Prehistory gave way to history”, with militarisation and male strength becoming the key to success linked to conquest and expansion.
“Since history is written by men for men, and by victors for victors, the history of the British Isles has tended to favour the story of the males of England,” she writes in the book. “The end result is that most citizens of Ireland, Scotland and Wales know each other’s histories less well than they know the history of their larger neighbour in the middle.
“This book aims to right that wrong in a small way.”