Irish (and other) cultural stories frequently get used in advertising campaigns – particularly where the base story can be linked to an ‘Irish’-related product. A lot of the time however, those advertisements can be misrepresentative or simply get things wrong.
Take this Guinness campaign for the Guinness-sponsored All-Ireland Hurling Championship, for example. If you look closely, you’ll see that one of the three Cú Chulainn images in the advertising campaign got its sources mixed up. Can you tell which one it was?
Photo A (The Bull)
(b) Photo B (The Giant)
Photo C (The Hound)
If you can’t work it out, you’ll find the answer in the original post HERE.
I came across an interesting book – Deirdre Unforgiven – by Eamon Carr during my recent visit home. Sitting in a friend’s bookshelf, I found myself drawn to it by the bleak cover image from Irish artist John Devlin.
A brief flip through it revealed the book was a clever conflation of the ancient Irish tragedy with more contemporary ‘troubles’ in the north of Ireland covered by Eamon Carr during his time as a journalist. As a result, it’s quite powerful and evocative but it’s certainly not light reading.
Certainly interesting for those with a link to/or interest in Northern Ireland and a familiarity with the raw narrative of the original tale, it can be ordered through the usual outlets.
The site of Cú Chulainn’s supposed settlement at Dún Dealgan (which actually means ‘the Dún of Dalga’) was, in far more recent times, anglicized to Dundalk. When the town opened its first museum in 1901, therefore, it’s no surprise that they harkened back to the town’s imagined history rather than its real history – which involved colonisation, land grabbing, subjugation, and was a lot less appealing – to celebrate its opening.
That opening was marked with a huge outdoor pageant with numerous people dressed up in authentic fantasy costumes of the period. To celebrate the occasion four postcards were also produced.
Outdoor pageants of this type were very popular at the time but, obviously, come 1916, people had a lot more on their mind and they fell out of fashion.
Interestingly enough, go to any ‘mythology’-related event in Ireland and it seems to have become more popular again.
This is a tagline I was using recently for ‘The Great Wild’ – an unintended spin on the iconic ‘Alien’ feature film tagline (“In space, no-one one can hear you scream”). I only realised that a day or two after coming up with it.
That said, at the time, I felt my tagline worked in terms of capturing the ‘isolation’ concept of the Great Wild, as well as the callous nature of some of its inhabitants. The ‘Alien’ tagline, however, was exceptionally clever in that it also captured the whole nature of space (the vacuum meaning that you can’t, of course, physically scream).
I don’t really feel this kind of ‘market writing’ is my forte but I guess, you just do what you can and look at other talented people for inspiration.
‘Liath Luachra: The Great Wild’ is currently running at a reduced price ($2:00 instead of $4.99) but I’ll probably be going back to the original price in a few weeks.
There was one morning when the world dissolved, obliterated in a downpour that melted the distant islands, then the immediate surroundings as well.
Preceded by a cluster of unusually threatening, blue-bruised clouds, the incoming deluge had given plenty of warning. As a result, the girl was comfortably settled under a solitary oak at the tip of the inlet outcrop, cloak tugged tight around her shoulders as she waited to watch the clouds to unload their burden.
The downpour rattled the lake’s surface with a startling intensity that she’d never seen before, a ferocious hail that scattered white-foamed eruptions across the water around her. Mirrored by countless ripples on that shuddering surface, the resulting kaleidoscope of movement was giddyingly, but terrifyingly, beautiful.
Tethered to the island by nothing but a thin strip of rock, the girl felt a swell of panic when even that link disappeared, and her existence reduced to the tree above and three paces of the rocky outcrop. Conscious that there was nothing beyond the fusillade of rain, she was struck by a sudden, shocking sense of absence.
Terrified at the prospect of being cut adrift, she peered desperately through the deluge for any hint of physical substance, for any trace of natural solidness, for … anything.
To her trembling relief, the downpour eased soon after, and although it seemed to take far too long a time, the outline of the island took substance through the rain. Whole and expansive, the Great Mother’s bulk emerged from the surrounding murk. Slowly, ponderously, it reached across the thin strip of stone, embraced the girl in her fulsome whole and, soothingly, reassuringly, brought her home.
[Excerpt from ‘Liath Luachra: The Great Wild’, released 2023]
I was quietly amused this week when I came across an article on Clare TD Cathal Crowe who apparently submitted a parliamentary question demanding that the Tánaiste work with the Irish Ambassador to the Holy See to ensure the (ahem) legendary crown of Brian Ború was returned.
Crowe, it seems, is a supporter of one the nuttier conspiracy theories about how Brian Ború’s ‘crown’has been hidden away in a Vatican vault – Indiana Jones style – for almost a thousand years.
According to Crowe, his request was prompted as a result of contact with a direct descendant of Brian Ború. To be honets, given the number of people supposedly descended from Brian Ború, that could have been anyone.
The thought that a rí like Brian Ború would actually bother with a crown (a Continental and British concept, never an ancient Irish one) is also quite amusing and tends to follow the fantastical thinking associated with other supposed Brian Ború relics like the Brian Ború Harp (supposedly owned by Brian Ború but not actually manufactured until 300-400 years later).
If you’re interested, you can find a link to the parliamentary question (and its response) in the comments below.
One tale about Cliona – the female figure from Irish literary and oral tradition – tells how she ended up landing on the beach of Trá Théite (close to modern day Glandore) after fleeing from Tír Tairngire with her lover Ciabhán.
There, desperate for food, Ciabhán left her sleeping on the beach while he took the boat out and went further along the coast to catch some fish. While he was absent, a mysterious wave swept in and washed the sleeping Clíodhna away. Known as ‘Tonn Clíodhna’, this ‘wave’ is actually believed to have been some kind of waterline marker for the local shore.
Sadly, although Clíodhna has long been known to be a land goddess – a figurative representation of nature and the land – she continues to get misrepresented online, predominantly through recurring waves of a strange ‘Chinese Whispers’ style of misinformation, predominantly spread via English language ‘mythology’ sites.
Wikipedia, probably one of the major sites of such misinformation (its ‘Irish’ content is mostly entered by people who have a limited understanding of Irish language and culture) not only suggests that Clíodhna is ‘Cleena’ in English (it’s not – that sounds more like a cheap brand of manufactured tissues) but claims that she’s ‘Queen of the Banshees’.
Seriously?
A few years back, it was revealed that almost all of Wikipedia’s ‘Scottish’ language content had bene entered by an eighteen-year-old American who’d “read some books” on the subject. I think its probably safe to assume a similar standard of quality assurance has been applied for Irish cultural entries.
Cú Chulainn and Ferdia in combat at Áth Fhirdia (the Ford of Ferdia).
With the intial series of FIONN mac Cumhaill coming to a close next year, I’ve been giving some thought to doing a series based on the Ulster narratives.
To be honest, I’ve still not decided. Developing a workable narrative for Cú Chulainn is no easy task and would require some serious adaptation from An Táin to make it work (unless you go down the whole Celtic Fantasy which doesn’t really interest me and which, frankly, has had its day).
We’ll see. I’ll give an update in Vóg – (my newsletter – link available in the comment below) on my thoughts around that at the end of June.
On the work front, I’m fully occupied with an intense freelance project which means it’ll be a few more weeks before I can launch back into writing.
That’s a delay that’s always a bit frustrating but I’ve spent the few free hours I have, relaxing with a fun project I hope to bring to frution at some point in the future.
Attached is a cartoon/comic-book image of Liath Luachra associated with that.
I came across an interesting story last year about a British anthropologist (Professor Alfred C Haddon) and a researcher colleague (Andrew F Dixon). Both men were academics in anthropology and ethnology at Trinity College Dublin.
‘Craniometry’, the unscientific study of human skull size and shape to determine a person’s intelligence (a disproven belief) was very popular among colonial academics at the time and went on to create much of the basis of unscientific ‘race-based science’ in the 20th century, later used with such zeal by the Nazis and other groups. Surprisingly, for English academics, Irish islands had become very attractive at the time as they were believed to home some of the few ‘undiluted’ indigenous populations remaining within the British Isles.
Conveniently, the populations were also very poor and easily compelled.
It’s worth remembering, that in the late 1800s, Irish universities were predominantly utilised by English people or the offspring of English colonisers. Very few native Irish people could afford – or were allowed – to go to these institutions, which goes someway to explaining why the academics believed they could behave the way they did.
Following a visit to Inishboffin in 1890, Professor Haddon and a colleague (Andrew Dixon) stole thirteen skulls from the Island graveyard at St Colman’s Monastery and quickly smuggled them off the island. It took the islanders a day or two to realise the graves had been interfered with, but when they did, they were not happy.
Because they were, essentially, powerless however, there was little the islanders could actually do to reclaim the skulls of their family members. As a result, Haddon and his colleagues played ‘pretend science’ with his booty for a few years, wrote a few papers and then the skulls were disposed of in the anatomy museum of Trinity College where they languished for over a hundred years, .
It was only in February 2023 that Trinity College finally decided to return the skulls. In July 2023, the remains were placed in a specially designed coffin, returned to Inishboffin and reburied in the shadow of the church ruin from where they were originally stolen.
Living in New Zealand, I see many instances of different Māori tribes trying to recuperate the remains of their people (stolen by colonial scientists and ‘collectors’) from international museums. Such looting was pretty common practice on native Americans, indigenous Australians and other indigenous peoples under colonial regimes. Ireland was no different of course, but its still a bit of a shock to see its impact in practice.
The Irish banknotes are an interesting litmus test for the progression of Irish self-identity back home.
Prior to the late 1970s, Irish banknotes consisted almost exclusively of the ‘Lady Lavery issue’ banknotes (also known as the ‘A Series’) which had been printed by the Bank of England in London and circulated in Ireland since 1928. This was always an odd choice in that the’ Lady Lavery’ in question was actually an American painter, and the second wife of portrait artist Sir John Lavery.
Known for her good looks, she’d also been used as the model for the portrait of Kathleen ní Houlihan (a kind of anglicized mythical representation of Ireland invented by W.B. Yeats) which was subsequently adapted for the banknotes.
Eventually, the Central Bank of Ireland hired Servicon – an Irish design company – to design the new banknotes which became known as the ‘B Series’. This series had a bit more cultural authenticity than the ‘Lady Lavery Issue’ and the most common of these – the green One Pound note – included a portrait of Medb of Connacht with design features based on archaeological artefacts (bone slips) and a text excerpt from An Táin (from Lebor na hUidre).
The Series C Banknotes were introduced from 1992 (replacing the Series B banknotes) and featured a number of famous Irish historical figures such as Catherine McAuley, Daniell O’Connell, James Joyce and others over the different denominations. They remained in circulation until 2002 when the Euro became the national monetary currency.
Because it crosses so many different cultures, the Euro design is, by necessity, incredibly bland (mostly based on somewhat boring architectural features). You can get souvenir-style ‘diddly-dee’ euro notes representing various sites or events in Ireland (mostly made to sell to gullible tourists).
The downside? They have a monetary value of 0.00 Eu.
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