The Mermaid in the Hospital

Publication Instance Details #774

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Displacement/Forced Migration Health
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Irish Language/Culture Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	An Mhurúch san Ospidéal
Original Author	Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This sequence of poems, 'Na Murúcha a Thriomnaigh', makes use of the international folk tale of the mermaid to construct an allegorical world in which the merpeople have left the water and now live uneasily among humankind on land. The exact cause of their displacement is not specified in the series, although 'cineghlanadh' (ethnic cleansing) is mentioned in one poem. This poem shows the cultural and psychological displacement of the mermaids as being literally embodied in the mermaid: she wakes in a hospital to find herself with two legs, to which she has no connection. This poem may be read as an allegory for the painful assimilation undertaken by minority groups into a majority culture. Their cultural trauma is incarnate in the mermaid here, with no tail and two legs. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss is often understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems, although other contexts could also be imagined.