They never get it right the first time.
Sometimes it comes out like a question mark,
like they’re scared to try.
Other times, it’s mangled so badly I don’t recognise it as mine.
I used to laugh along,
small and polite—
as if being called something else would be easier
than the ache of always correcting.
But I am Saoirse. SEER-sha.
Not Sarah. Not Sore-sha.
And not sorry.
I was raised in bramble bushes and on stony beaches,
on wind-whipped cliffs where my curls danced freely,
and in hayfields where the cows blinked slow
like they had secrets they weren’t ready to share.
I grew up outdoors—
fingers deep in soil,
picking sweet peas with stained fingertips,
strawberries warmed by the sun,
and digging out crooked carrots that looked like they’d grown dancing.
And when the lawnmowers buzzed through the silence,
I knew winter had dozed off again.
That fresh-cut grass meant spring was rousing.
We ran wild there,
watching caterpillars,
racing snails with chalk-drawn finish lines,
building dams and catching eels in cool-running rivers.
Every year, we’d press our fingers into the mouths of newborn calves
and giggle when their rough tongues suckled the tips.
Those cows knew us.
We belonged.
There were summer birthdays with cousins
and open barbecues on the farm,
laughter echoing off the hills.
That togetherness—that Irish kind of closeness—
like everyone’s house is your house,
everyone’s story is somehow part of yours.
And now, older,
I walk the cliffs of Wicklow Town,
hands buried in the warm crooks of my coat pockets,
smiling down at Sammy,
the seal in the harbour that everyone knows.
I dive into freezing waves by the Black Castle,
even when it’s thunderstorming,
even when the world crackles with lightning.
The sea became my friend when no one else could reach me.
It held me when everything else was too loud.
In Inspired, I order Berry Bang smoothies,
icy and sharp on my tongue,
even in winter—because some rituals you don’t break.
And every time I walk through the door, I feel it:
a kind of quiet welcome.
A place where everyone knows someone
who knows someone
who knows you.
Sometimes I think about how lucky I am
to have known Glendalough’s waterfalls,
and the river trout that shimmer rainbows just out of reach—
until you stand waist-deep in hope,
and suddenly, you catch one.
Just one. But enough.
Ireland isn’t just where I’m from.
It is me.
And so is my name.
Saoirse.
It means freedom—
a name carved from wind,
in a language once fought over, banned.
It’s not meant to be shortened or softened.
It’s meant to be sung.
And when someone gets it right now,
when they pause, look up, and ask how to say it properly—
I tell them.
Not because I need them to understand me,
or my country’s language, or its history,
but because I finally understand myself.
Both soft and storm.
Both cliff edge and sea.
Both silence and song.
Saoirse.
Freedom.