Síle Simpson  

I was instrumental in starting a feminist theatre group

I see that everything that happened in my life up until 1993

I was a little girl growing up in Ireland

I’d come home from school one day and the hydro had cut down these two magnificent trees

And I miss those trees.  

I, it’s like they were a part of my psyche they were a part of my unconscious and they were cut down.

I went camping one night

and I was doing a creative writing class in Nanaimo

and I spent the night at the beach

I talk about the mystery of the place the beauty of the place

and I think it’s because it’s still intact the land

And when I went there in 1987 to camp on the beach at night

I was so amazed by the beauty of this place  

when I came back to Nanaimo

I was writing a story for my creative writing class

I was sitting in front of the computer  

I was trying to formulate a story in my head

I didn’t know that in 1991 I would be living practically on that beach

And that I would get so involved in the struggle to safe the trees

I feel that Ireland has been a matriarchal society and that women are strong

I think there is an attitude to the land in Ireland  

I see the biggest attitude of threat to that as greed, pure unadulterated greed.  

I tried to write a story contrasting my life growing up  

I was just starting out my life  

I guess when they came here.  

I have a hard time with the loggers  

I find them incredibly arrogant.

Citation

Moore, Niamh, “Oral history interview with Síle Simpson (audio recording and transcript),” Clayoquot Lives: An Ecofeminist Story Web, accessed April 25, 2023, https://clayoquotlives.sps.ed.ac.uk/items/show/58