Doireann Ní Ghlacáin is a young Irish woman with a dizzying number of strings to her bow. The self-described “massive nerd” is a fiddle player, television presenter, storyteller, sean nós singer, podcaster, academic and meditator. On a video call from New York, where she is making a documentary about Irish women forced into political exile, the host of hit podcast How to Gael is talking about her new bilingual live show, Studies on the Cailleach. “I am first and foremost a traditional musician and sean nós singer, so the show is a way to explore that and go a little deeper into Irish folklore and history. I get really nerded out on these kinds of things.”

In the show, Ní Ghlacáin will guide audiences through an evening of reflection, ritual and traditional music using the Cailleach as a motif to explore ancient and contemporary Irish womanhood. For those not familiar, what does the Cailleach represent? “She’s the goddess, she’s the old hag, she’s the Mise Éire in Pearse’s famous poem. The earliest poem we have relating to her goes back to the ninth century. So to understand Ireland and the Irish psyche, I think you really need to understand the Cailleach. She’s the muse of all of our literature and the arts.”

As Ní Ghlacáin tells it, the Cailleach is one of the most resilient and powerful female characters in Irish culture. “If you are looking at Ireland a thousand years ago, she was a strong figure.