I was here, singing to a child while scrubbing ild shit from a stranger's toilet. Where was she?
-- Narrator (a female text)

Importance: Ní Ghríofa enacts this moment in the text to bolster her thematic inspection of identity. As the narrator cleans her rented flat and cares for her children she feels divorced from her teenage self. As an adolescent, Doireann unabashedly followed her sexual desires and academic ambitions. She was brazen in a manner that Doireann is not in her adult life. Through sacrifice to her family, Doireann loses her personal sense of self and the ability to fulfill her own needs.

How swiftly the academic gaze places her in a masculine shadow, as though she could only be of interest as a satellite to male lives.
-- Narrator (an unscientific mishmash)

Importance: When Doireann is reading translations of Eibhlín Dubh’s poem, she observes that the biographical introductions describe her as a wife and a sister. Eibhl...