The crossing to Inis Oírr wasn’t smooth. It rarely is when the sea is involved in something sacred. As Síofra put it, “These things are like an initiation. How much do you want to cross?” And so, we crossed.
This conversation is not an interview in the ordinary sense. It’s an unfolding—a quiet stepping into a dialogue between soul, land, and lineage. Síofra, a Black and Nipmuc woman of Irish descent, came to Ireland not as a visitor, but as someone answering a deep ancestral call.
She speaks of Ireland as a “heart home, a spiritual home.” Her bloodline traces back to post-Famine emigrants; her soul-line draws her toward the Celtic wheel, toward Brigid, toward stone and fire and well.
“Brigid really in some ways is the war-ess… both of grief and of the mundane. And also the hospitable one, of the land.”
In her practice, Brigid is not a symbol. She is alive. A guide. A mantle. Síofra walked in her footsteps literally and ritually, beginning her pilgrimage in Kildare, laying in the forge, tending the fire. The journey continued through Tara, Kinvara, and ultimately Cork, where she returned the ashes of her friend to her maternal homeland.
This is reciprocity. Listening. A woman who carries her Black, Indigenous, and Irish lineages with reverence, doing the work in ceremony and with song.
“When I sing something, I’m not just like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to sing it because I can.’ I’m singing it because I’m allowed to. That understanding of allowance taps me into the lineage of people who sang it before me.”
Song, for Síofra, is not performance. It is dialogue. A way of letting the unseen move through the body. Her work with the Irish language came through our Sing in Irish course, but it resonates far beyond lessons.
“Language is embodiment. And song… is a way to communicate from a place of depth out to the world.”
One moment in the conversation stays with me: her reflection at the Glenwell, where cows walked her down the path like guardians. A song arose: milk, labor, water. Brigid again. Grief, and healing.
The voice is not decoration. It is transmission. And the land listens.
Watch the full conversation with Síofra above.
To begin your own journey into Irish song and language, explore our course:
🎶 Sing in Irish – A self-paced invitation into soulful Irish song.
Follow Síofra: @sister_sadada on Instagram
So glad to hear of your journey and your devotion to Bríd. I came to the site for Gaeilge. I have a wonderful teacher so I’m not currently taking a class but I have noticed an occasional spiritual bent. This interview is inspiring. She feels comfortable so I am assuming that the Bite Size Irish team is accepting if not practicing itself. I am primarily devoted to Manannán mac Lir but I do regularly speak to Bríd and others. Keep up the great work. Beannachtaí. Slán.
💚 Slán a chara.
Wow! Wonderful! Especially Siofra seeing Ireland, as ‘a heart home, a spiritual home.’ That touched something deep in me. I grew up in Altrincham, (Cheshire as it was then, now Greater Manchester) in the 1950s and 60s..I was raised in Irish Catholicism. Though the church forbade the learning of the Irish language, the culture was Irish. An Irish identity took deep root in my unconcious, in my spirit. Learning Irish is enriching that identity, especially in the songs I’m going through slowly but with joy. Thank you both for making this video. Go raibh maith agat le beannachtai.
Slan, Pól.
Haigh Paul, a chara. Thanks for sharing your experience of going up as you did, including the forbidding of Irish… I love that you’re connect with Gaeilge through song 💚