The Children of Lir is a well-known Irish myth about four children who are transformed into swans and cursed for 900 years. In my adaptation I go down the path of myth and psyche, myth and metaphor, psychoanalysing the characters and the metaphors. Below are some short videos and more text explaining further.
For anyone who doesn’t know the story of The Children of Lir about a man called Lir who has four children. His wife dies giving birth to the last two who are twins. Lir remarries his wife’s sister, Aoife. Aoife becomes jealous because she thinks Lir loves the children more than he loves her. Through her magic she transforms the children into swans and curses them for 900 years. The are doomed to roam three bodies of water around Ireland, one lake and two seas and they can’t touch land.
I read this story as a child. I came across it again in 2015 when I was doing a play about Finn Macoole, a hero from Irish mythology. I wanted to refresh my memory about Irish mythology. I bought a book which had a compilation of Irish myths and within this was the Children of Lir. The part of the story that captivated me was ‘Fionnuala’s Lament’. During the 900 years of the curse there was a storm on Sruth na Maoile, this is the part of ocean between Northern Ireland and Scotland. This storm separated the four children. Fionnuala was on her own and she thought her brothers were dead. She starts to lament or grieve the loss of her brothers, the loss of her homeland and the transformation of her body into a swan. This is a well know part of the story. Poems and songs have been written about it. For example, “Silent O Moyle” by Thomas Moore. I wrote my own ‘Fionnuala’s Lament’. I looked at this as a metaphor: Lost and alone in a dark, cold, unforgiving ocean. Loss of identity. Separation from family. The interpretation I took here was depression. I wrote Fionnuala’s lament through my own experience with depression.
Below is a page in my book from Fionnuala’s Lament
I broke down each character and saw everything they experience, everything that’s around them and everything about them as a metaphor and from this metaphor I formed my interpretation.
