Boundaries

Publication Instance Details #800

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 Indigenous Rights (incl. culture & language)
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Irish Language/Culture Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Teoranna
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. This poem focuses on language and the larger questions of cultural understanding and cultural assimilation. The language of the merpeople created a very different view of individuals and concepts. Now, the mermaid has difficulty in noting the boundaries between individuals. The speaker of the poem ominously states that this failure to adapt led to all the trouble in the end. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss are understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems, however, other cultural and linguistic contexts could also be imagined.