The Mermaid and her House

Publication Instance Details #799

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 Genocide
War / Genocide Referenced	Genocide: Holocaust
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Irish Language/Culture Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	An Mhurúch is a Tigh
Original Author	Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This sequence of poems, 'Na Murúcha a Thriomaigh', 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. In this poem, the speaker describes the tyrannical household reign of a mermaid-mother. There is an explicit reference to the mother's physical abuse of her children. One of her mottos on the wall, 'Arbeit Macht Frei', is a direct reference to the Holocaust and to the motto emblazoned frequently above the entrance to concentration camps. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss are understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems, although other contexts can also be imagined.