Module 6
Power and Authority
Power and Authority
“The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.”
~ James Larkin
This module explores one of the deepest and most complex themes in Irish life: our relationship to power and authority. James Larkin’s words capture a centuries-long struggle in Ireland between submission and resistance, reverence and rebellion, silence and voice.
Before colonization, Ireland had its own distinctive systems of law, leadership, and collective responsibility. The Brehon laws and clan-based structures expressed a form of authority embedded in kinship and community. With colonization came a foreign model of power - centralized, hierarchical, and patriarchal - imposed through violence and dispossession. The Catholic Church added another layer, shaping generations through both protection and control, especially around morality, sexuality, and education. Government, family life, and class structures carried the imprint of these systems, reinforcing both loyalty and constraint.
This history left the Irish people with a complex inheritance: a capacity for fierce rebellion and resistance, alongside a deep mistrust or ambivalence toward authority. In this module, we will explore how these legacies live on in our bodies, families, communities, and collective psyche, and how reimagining authority might allow us to stand and rise together.
In this module, you’re invited to explore how patterns of power and authority live in your own body, family, and lineage. Reflect on moments of submission, resistance, or rebellion; notice your body’s response to authority; and consider how echoes of colonization, church, and social structures shape these dynamics. In dialogue or journaling, envision how authority might be reimagined — rooted in dignity, agency, and mutual respect.
Power and Authority with Simon Courtney
Simon Courtney
Simon Courtney is a psychotherapist and facilitator working at the intersections of trauma, ancestry, and cultural identity. Growing up between cultures shaped his awareness of the complexities of Irish belonging across borders and histories. His integrative approach combines developmental insight, embodied practice, and collective trauma principles to support healing and renewal. Through the Initiative for Irish Integration & Emergence and its flagship program Beyond the Irish Question, Simon creates spaces where inherited wounds can be met with care, and new possibilities for connection and belonging can emerge.
“At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.”
~ Seamus Heaney