Irish sister act Heathers have leant their support to the Trinity College Mental Health Week and will play the Grand Social on Thursday 25th of October to close the week. Ellie and Louise McNamara have teamed up with See Change and Trinity Students' Union on this project to use live music to spark discussion and open minds around mental health and end stigma.
Those familiar with Heathers' recent release Kingdom, and its hit single 'Forget Me Knots', will know that the song's chorus espouses a message of "it's alright not to feel okay", a line which resonates with the message behind Trinity's Mental Health Week.
Heathers duo Ellie and Louise McNamara said; "We are absolutely delighted to be putting our names behind the campaign to reduce the stigma attached to mental health issues in Ireland and further afield. This is something that has touched us in our own lives and those of some of our closest friends, and the lyric in 'Forget Me Knots' is intended to get the message out that it’s perfectly normal to feel down from time to time and we should all feel comfortable talking to friends and family about it. The worst thing possible would be to keep it all internalised"
Underscoring the need for open discussion of mental health problems on college campuses is research undertaken by See Change in 2011 that shows that 69% of third level students would not want anyone to know if they were experiencing a mental health problem.
