Unsung Heroes



About
Through my relationship with Mo and Northern Ireland I found TWN in Belfast over 5 years ago. It was through TWN’s work in the community that I found a home, amongst many more inspirational women who were doing what I had always been shown by Mo to be the ‘most important work’. This network of support is invaluable to so many women and they in turn became invaluable to me. I felt somehow reconnected with the women I had grown up seeing at my kitchen table, confiding in Mo.

I was reminded of my younger self who had truly believed in the power and strength of the women around me. I’d assumed somewhat naively that this power and fortitude would be recognised by modern society in my future world.

TWN understands that training women in the skills they need to realise their potential provides them with the invaluable tools to be able to escape the confines of societal chains and free themselves from unsafe environments. It creates a sense of purpose and independence that so many women are never given access to. It has been inspirational and an enormous privilege to listen to and compile this archive of stories and portraits.

In doing so, I have travelled up and down the island of Ireland to meet with a very small selection of women from a very large pool of female changemakers, and heard first hand their stories at their kitchen tables, from the grassroots up, to the political halls of power.

I have realised, women have always been changing the world, that this is not something new. I believe our great grandmothers were affecting change within their homes, their communities and via their impact on the men in their lives (who were allowed to hold the positions of leadership and power in society). Through this influence, they have been affecting change much higher up the ladder of society than they have ever been given credit for.

Women listen, women share and women are united across divides because they are women and they are subjugated whatever their beliefs, wherever they live and however equal they are perceived to be. Mo knew this, she knew that unless the women were behind peace it would never come to Northern Ireland. Mo used to assure me that; ‘it’ll be the women who persuade the men to put down their guns and talk’. It is this that has always remained with me.

I hope now, that through my work, and through sharing stories of just a few of these women, we can celebrate the many unsung heroines of both our past that got us here and also our present and those who are working tirelessly towards everyone’s better futures.

Hen Norton

All portraits, except Mo and Inge, were photographed by Dan Dennison
With support from: