Colm Fitzpatrick
Niamh Uí Bhriain 
Personal Profile
Colm Fitzpatrick speaks with a pro-life activist and campaigner
Although Niamh Uí Bhriain is known for her passionate and vocal activity in the pro-life movement, her initial zeal and enthusiasm for activism has much deeper roots, originating from the influence of her parents when she was growing up.
For them, it was important that their families were engaged in issues that mattered to society, and that if you believed in something, you should have passion and energy for it.
“I was lucky enough to be raised in a family where it was considered a good thing to care deeply about things and to care about what country you lived in, what kind of society you lived in,” Niamh explains.
In her family the most significant things in life were not how successful you were at your career or how much money you made, but how you ethically lived.
“In our house what was most important and what was considered most valuable was that you were a good person and that you were somebody who gave back, who gave back to your country and who gave back to your society,” she says.
With her parents being “doers”, as Niamh describes them, they instilled the belief in her that if a government injustice was being perpetrated or if a voice needed to be raised, you should do that yourself without having to wait on anybody else.
Divisive
She is currently a spokesperson for the pro-life campaign ‘Savethe8th’, which seeks to protect the Eighth Amendment that protects the right to life. Although these types of issues can be politically divisive, in Niamh’s experience of campaigning, she has found more unity than conflict.
“I don’t think I’ve lost important friendships or any relationships I’ve had with family members,” she says, adding that one of the great things about being involved in a movement that is so dynamic and so “fundamentally based on caring for people” is that you actually make friendships within it.
“I would say that the people I know in the pro-life movement are some of the best people in the world and they share a desire to do better,” she says.
“There is that common thread running through the pro-life movement, they are people who want to help other people.”
Even regardless of Niamh’s positive experience of holding pro-life views, she also believes that even when you might be frightened of speaking your mind, you should “never be afraid to say what is your in heart”, as everyone, especially your family, should be open to hearing what you have to say. It is through these types of conversations that real difference can be made.
“At the end of the day, the conversations that we have with people are very, very powerful and very, very important. Sometimes when I do life canvass training, I say to people, ‘you are more influential than Ryan Tubridy, you are more influential than Ray D’Arcy’ because you talk to people on a one-to-one level and you let them see that there is a better answer to abortion,” Niamh says.
The other positive aspect of having face-to-face conversations is the interpersonal element of it, by which conversation can be more honest, and more constructive. For Niamh, the online world can fail to convey the truth of the conversations that are really happening.
“Sometimes people are on forums like Twitter or other social media forums or just listening to mainstream media – that can have a chilling effect on people because it can feel as if there’s a lot of aggression or anger out there. There really isn’t to be honest. Most people respect your opinions and are happy to have a conversation about it,” she says.
Hostility
Niamh adds that at times she might get the “occasional blowback”, or situations where she wasn’t expecting a particular reaction or so much hostility, and that she usually ignores media sites which are disparaging her.
“I tend not to take note of those kinds of things – not because I’m not open to criticism – but because it’s not criticism, it’s just kind of vitriol. It can be kind of abusive,” she says, pointing out there are occasions when anonymous internet abusers sometimes “cross the line”.
When asked whether she ever doubts herself, or her political aspirations, Niamh says that the short is ‘no’, not because she has so much faith in herself and that she has an unshakeable belief that she is always right, but because she sees the good that can be done by the movement.
“To talk to families of babies who had life-limiting conditions, to meet people and to see that incredible love, just the beauty of that – I think it’s such a rewarding thing.
“The more you are involved in the movement, to meet such amazing, powerful, brave people who often raise their babies or have their babies in very difficult circumstances is a hugely rewarding and enriching thing for me as a person,” she says.
Niamh will be joining prominent pro-life voices of the country at an upcoming conference titled ‘Ireland – The Future is Pro-Life‘ in Dublin on 25th May, 2019. The conference is hosted by The Irish Catholic, and sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need – Ireland. You can book your tickets here.
