Kathleen A Crinion

Kathleen A Crinion

Kathleen's musical work  preceded her entry into narrative non-fiction. Her background as a singer/songwriter gave her a public profile and a platform, and she combines that creative side with her psychological training. Her role as a psychodynamic psychotherapist suggests deep interest in human behaviour, trauma, identity and recovery — themes which later resonate in her writing.

The impetus for Kathleen’s book Her Name Was Julia: Grave Number 339 comes from her family history story: in 1897, her great-great grandmotherJulia was committed to a mental asylum, her children were sent to the workhouse – “never to see her beautiful face again”. 
Over approximately forty years of research (initially by Kathleens’s mother), Crinion sought to uncover the truth, and challenge the silence and shame surrounding mental illness in Irish history. 

The book was launched in August 2025 in The Swift Cultural |Centre, Trim, Co Meath, Ireland, 
The book is notable for intertwining family legacy, historical injustice, mental-health stigma and the author’s personal journey:

• It reveals a story of institutionalisation, workhouse separation and long-buried family trauma. 
• It positions Kathleen not only as a storyteller but as a researcher, uncovering archival and oral histories.
• It ties into her psychotherapy practice and interest in reclaiming identity after silence.

Themes & Significance

• Memory & identity: Kathleen’s work emphasises the importance of naming, remembering and restoring dignity to people who were silenced by stigma.
• Mental-health history: The story gives insight into the way Irish institutions treated mothers and families in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
• Family legacy & healing: The very act of writing the book appears to have been both “joyful and painful” for Kathleen, as she says in an article in the Westmeath Examiner
• Creative integration: Her background in music and psychotherapy enriches her perspective as an author; she brings both artistic sensibility and therapeutic awareness to the narrative.