Aisling Walsh

Guatemala City—At the center of Guatemala City's Central Square, under a billowing blue and white national flag, stands a little ring of iron crosses. The improvised altar of 41 crosses, one for each of the girls who lost their lives in a fire at the Hogar Virgen de la Asunción orphanage (“Virgin of the Assumption Safe Home,” or HSVA) 25 km to the south of Guatemala City in the municipality of San José Pinula, on March 8, 2017, International Women's Day.
The crosses are held in place by cheap...

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The Private and Public Shame of Cervical Cancer
By Aisling Walsh Last updated Oct 12, 2018
Does anyone remember Jade Goody? She, was the young, mouthy, English Big Brother star, who lived her time from diagnosis to death from cervical cancer on the small screen. Jade found out she had cervical cancer while on Big Brother India in August 2008, only days before my own mother passed away from the disease in Marymount Hospice, Cork. She died in March 2009 at 27.
I could ba...

There was a military structure that designed, planned and executed operations aimed at eradicating Guatemala’s indigenous peoples. Español

On Wednesday September 26, at about 7pm, in a courtroom filled to bursting point, the High Risk Court B declared, for the second time in five years, that genocide was committed in Guatemala.

Following more than two years of witness testimonies, forensic evidence and expert reports the court declared that they had sufficient evidence to prove that the Guate...

The future of one of the largest archives containing documents related to the 36 years of internal armed conflict in Guatemala and the dirty wars in Latin America is currently at risk. Español
The Historical Archive of the National Police in Guatemala (AHPN in Spanish), discovered in 2005, is a repository of up to 80 million police records dating as far back as the late 1800's. Many of these documents have served as vital evidence in cases relating to crimes committed during Guatemala's 36 ye...

Now almost 350 years old, Guatemala City has survived wars, earthquakes and civil unrest. This metropolitan hub proves a chaotic mixture of colonial arches, crumbling art deco facades and architectural leftovers dating back to the 1980s. Street sellers hawk everything from batteries to freshly squeezed goats milk, while every street corner features a different preacher, clown, painter, artisan or activist. It is a thriving city where people from all corners of the country mix and trade daily,...

Mayan women’s bodies, labour and knowledge have been exploited for centuries. This is an old story, with a neoliberal twist. Español.
The fruit seller, the tortilla maker, the domestic worker, the nanny. These are the Marías of Guatemala. Indigenous women, who continue to wear traditional Mayan dress. They are seemingly considered undeserving, of an identity or even a name of their own; valued only to the extent to which they serve others.
It doesn't matter if they are teachers, lawyers, acad...

Backstrap weaving with a hand loom tied at the waist (telar de cintura) is an art that has been passed down through Mayan communities for generations.

Blessed Is The Fruit Of Thy Womb, Or Why I Ran Out On My Moon Mother Workshop
Why did a workshop designed to make me feel comfortable with my body leave me feeling so gross?
I t was a long and winding road that led me to the basement of a 19th century stately house in Brussels for my initiation. Lined along a narrow stairwell leading down to the basement with 40 or so other women, all in bare feet, all waiting in silent awe for Miranda Gray to personally welcome us into the Moon Mother sister...

Aisling Walsh is a 31 year old Irish woman living and working in Guatemala since January 2014. She ‘fell in’ with Magdalenas Guatemala in April 2015 and they have gradually taken over her life. When she is not trying to transform the world with these wonderful women she is practicing as a doula and studying to be a midwife in the Galileo University of Guatemala. In her previous life she worked for an Irish NGO here in Guatemala and once upon a time she obtained a Masters of International Law ...

Living here teaches you about survival in the face of repression, struggle in the face of injustice and love in the face of suffering
Depending on who you are in Guatemala, June 30th is either a day to celebrate the victories of the national army or a day to remember the victims of Guatemala’s 36-year internal conflict: 45,000 disappeared, 200,000 murdered and more than a million displaced.
Standing beneath the national flag in the main square of the capital, Guatemala City, listening to the ...

As an Irish woman abroad I am delighted to witness the global spread of the campaign
Each year on March 8th and November 25th thousands of women take to the streets of Guatemala City to demand the realisation of women’s rights, gender equality and an end to violence against women. March is International Women’s Day and November 25th is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Since moving here in 2014 I have marched alongside Guatemalan women in four different demonstr...

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REPEAL From Abroad | An Ireland Worth Coming Home To
By Aisling Walsh Last updated May 30, 2018
On Friday the 25th of May I was sitting at my computer eating lunch in Guatemala with knots in my stomach as I followed the twitter alerts: 2 hours to go, 90 minutes, one hour, 15 minutes until polling closed. Then at 3.01 pm Guatemalan time and 10.01 pm Irish time the first exit poll predicted up to 69% in favour of repeal. The tears flowed for hours, for days in fact. Tear...

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A History of Modern Ireland in Four Referendums
By Aisling Walsh Last updated May 17, 2018
The 8th Amendment was enshrined in law only months before I was conceived to my 23 year old mother. I often wonder what possessed my young liberal, atheist Irish parents to start a family in that oppressive atmosphere of 1984. In the space of one year the 8th Amendment was passed, Ann Lovett died in a grotto and Joanne Hayes was publicly crucified in the Kerr...

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Tipping Point | Will 2018 Finally Be The Year For Repeal?
By Aisling Walsh Last updated Dec 19, 2017
I’m writing this while still giddy from the news that the Joint Committee on the 8th Amendment voted unequivocally to put a repeal referendum to the nation. The 8th amendment is now 34 years old. I just turned 33. It was voted in while I was just a twinkle in my mother’s eye.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s in Ireland, declaring you were pro-choice c...

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No Men Allowed | The Politics and Practice of Women’s Only Spaces
By Aisling Walsh Last updated Aug 8, 2017
From a women only screening of Wonder Woman to a women only music festival, public events that cater to an exclusively woman identified audience have gotten much attention of late. News of these events is usually accompanied by indignant cries of social exclusion, reverse discrimination and misandry from the angry hoards in cyberspace and sometimes actual threats...