The Mermaid Returns to Land-Under-Wave

Publication Instance Details #804

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
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Irish Language/Culture Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Filleadh na Murúiche ar an dTír-fó-Thoinn
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 earth. In this poem, the speaker of the poem appears as a more engaged, personalized character, who is engaging with the mermaid in a hospital. The mermaid, the reader is told, has returned to the 'Land Under Wave', at least in her own mind. This appears to be an allegory for dementia, since the mermaid appears to have forgotten much of her present-day life, and instead is back in a world to which no one can follow her. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss is understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems.