Discover the MythCloud

Eoin Cantwell's thesis on Hipster Republicanism and the Rebranding of Sinn Féin examines Ireland's changing relationship with republican identity and how traditional political mythologies adapt to contemporary cultural, aesthetic and digital contexts.

By analysing Sinn Féin's transformation from a political pariah associated with paramilitary violence to a mainstream political force, Cantwell illuminates how political movements respond to changing social and political circumstances by selectively reframing historical narratives while maintaining narrative continuity with established traditions.

Cantwell examines how a reemergence of young Irish republicanism offers a compelling case study in the evolution of political mythology through cultural and political adaptation. By blending modern sensibilities with romanticised notions of Irish republicanism, Sinn Féin has created visual and narrative frameworks that appeal to younger demographics while maintaining connection to historical political traditions. This strategic repositioning exemplifies how political movements navigate the tension between historical authenticity and contemporary relevance.

Parallels with broader cultural phenomena illustrate how political mythologies operate across multiple domains simultaneously. Two patterns emerge: first, a resurgence of traditional Irish culture embraced by younger generations as relevant and authentic; second, the mainstreaming of previously polarizing Republican bands like the Wolfe Tones. These cultural expressions reveal national narratives as contested sites rather than neutral historical accounts. Contemporary political identities thus form through ongoing reinterpretation of shared historical references, not rigid ideological positions. Meanwhile, newer folk acts like Lankum and The Mary Wallopers adopt more apolitical stances while still drawing on and reinventing more traditional forms.

Sinn Féin's sophisticated digital strategy—leveraging memes, merchandise, and social media—demonstrates how traditional political narratives adapt to new media environments. By creating simplified, commodified versions of complex historical narratives, these approaches make political mythologies accessible to audiences without detailed historical knowledge. This strategic simplification exemplifies how contemporary political movements navigate tensions between historical complexity and the need for accessible messaging, often prioritising emotional resonance over historical nuance. The broader cultural moment shaped by Brexit, changing demographics, and evolving national identities creates context in which these reimagined republican symbols acquire new significance while maintaining connections to established political traditions.

The remarkable cultural resonance of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl exemplifies how popular music can generate contemporary mythologies that address fundamental human concerns while responding to specific historical circumstances. Released in 1987, this unconventional Christmas song has transcended its origins to become a seasonal touchstone that offers a complex meditation on disillusionment, loss, and enduring human connection despite its ostensibly bleak narrative.

The song's unusual power derives partly from its engagement with the immigrant experience, particularly the Irish diaspora in America. By narrativising the tension between aspiration and reality in the immigrant journey, it connects personal disappointment to broader historical patterns of migration and adaptation. The mythological resonance of New York City itself—as both "city upon a hill" and site of potential disillusionment—provides a setting where personal struggles acquire broader symbolic significance.

The song's dialogue structure, alternating between male and female perspectives, creates a dynamic narrative that resists simplistic resolution. This formal approach exemplifies how contemporary mythology often embraces complexity and contradiction rather than offering straightforward moral lessons, reflecting modern understanding of human experience as inherently multifaceted and ambiguous. The juxtaposition of Christmas imagery with themes of addiction, conflict, and failed dreams creates productive tension that challenges the sanitised sentimentality of conventional holiday narratives.

The enduring popularity of this song—despite controversy over some of its lyrics—demonstrates how contemporary cultural forms continue to generate mythological frameworks that provide meaningful ways of understanding complex human experiences. Like traditional seasonal rituals that acknowledge darkness within celebration, Fairytale of New York offers a framework for recognising both joy and sorrow as essential components of human experience. Its cultural significance transcends mere entertainment, functioning as a modern seasonal myth that addresses universal themes through specific cultural references and individual narratives.

Dublin-based folk group Lankum exemplifies how traditional narratives evolve in contemporary contexts. Emerging in the 2010s, the quartet—Ian Lynch, Daragh Lynch, Radie Peat, and Cormac MacDiarmada—transforms traditional Irish music by blending folk melodies with experimental contemporary influences, creating immersive soundscapes that reimagine cultural heritage.

Their work draws from traditional ballads, work songs, and laments, yet ventures into experimental territories with drones and layered harmonies that push folk genre boundaries. This approach creates a dialogue between past and present, demonstrating how shared narratives adapt to new contexts while maintaining their cultural significance.

Socially, Lankum occupies a distinctive position in Ireland's cultural landscape, capturing nostalgia while addressing present concerns of migration, hardship, and resilience. Their commitment to authenticity—reviving lesser-known songs and reinterpreting classics with raw emotional intensity—shows how traditional narratives can be revitalised rather than preserved as static artefacts.

Culturally significant for bridging generations, their work resonates with traditionalists and younger audiences drawn to their experimental approach. In doing so, Lankum challenges stereotypes of folk music as static or overly sentimental, demonstrating the enduring relevance of shared narratives in a rapidly changing world.

Bluiríní Béaloidis is a podcast from the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin. It explores the rich landscape of Irish and European folk traditions. Each episode journeys through diverse cultural narratives, revealing how understanding our traditional heritage can illuminate our present and guide our future. By uncovering the stories, beliefs, and practices embedded in folklore, the podcast invites listeners to discover the depth and complexity of our shared cultural inheritance.

Samhain (Halloween)
The festival of Samhain has long been regarded as a pivotal moment in the Irish ritual calendar, marking the transition from light to darkness and the threshold of winter. This ancient Celtic observance, occurring on the eve of 31st October, represents one of the most significant seasonal boundaries in the traditional Irish worldview.

Samhain is characterised by traditions of heightened supernatural activity, the return of ancestral spirits, and practices of divination and disguise. It embodies a liminal period when normal rules and behaviours are temporarily suspended, allowing mischief, mystery, and ritual to take centre stage in community life. This suspension of ordinary constraints reflects a broader pattern found in festival traditions worldwide, where established social orders are temporarily inverted or relaxed.

In this edition of Blúiríní Béaloidis, produced by Ireland's National Folklore Collection, Jonny Dillon is joined by special guest Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn, a folklorist, archaeologist, author, and lecturer known for his expertise on Irish ritual and tradition. Dr. Mag Fhloinn has contributed to international productions by the BBC, PBS, and National Geographic Channel, and his 2016 book, Blood Rite: The Feast of St. Martin in Ireland, explores another key festival in Irish folklore.

Together, they delve into the rich lore surrounding Samhain, discussing its enduring significance in Irish cultural memory and the ways it continues to resonate in both historical and contemporary contexts. The programme examines how this ancient festival, with its emphasis on the thinning of boundaries between worlds, provides insight into traditional Irish conceptions of time, space, and the relationship between the living and the dead.

Bluiríní Béaloidis is a podcast from the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin. It explores the rich landscape of Irish and European folk traditions. Each episode journeys through diverse cultural narratives, revealing how understanding our traditional heritage can illuminate our present and guide our future. By uncovering the stories, beliefs, and practices embedded in folklore, the podcast invites listeners to discover the depth and complexity of our shared cultural inheritance.

St. Patrick
The 17th of March is celebrated worldwide as Saint Patrick's Day, a time of parades and revelry honouring Ireland's patron saint. Beyond the festivities, however, lies a complex figure whose historical reality and mythological dimensions have become thoroughly intertwined over fifteen centuries of cultural transmission.

In this episode of Blúiríní Béaloidis, hosts Claire Doohan and Jonny Dillon from the National Folklore Collection of Ireland examine the multifaceted figure of St. Patrick, exploring both the historical person and his evolution in folk tradition. They consider the fascinating intersection between Patrick's Christian mission and the pre-Christian, Pagan traditions he is said to have confronted and transformed.

The programme examines the numerous pilgrimages still conducted in Patrick's name across Ireland, from Skerries in the east to Croagh Patrick in the west, and from Duhallow in the south to Lough Derg in the north. These devotional practices reflect Patrick's enduring influence not only in Ireland but throughout Europe, demonstrating how mythologised historical figures can become focal points for cultural and religious practices that span centuries.

This exploration reveals how the historical Patrick—a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary—has been transformed through layers of hagiography, folk belief, and national mythology into a multivalent symbol that extends far beyond historical reality. The narratives surrounding Patrick, including famous episodes like banishing snakes from Ireland or using the shamrock to explain the Trinity, illustrate how historical figures become mythologised through processes of cultural adaptation and reinterpretation.

Through examining the continuing veneration of Patrick, the programme illuminates how mythological processes remain active in contemporary culture, blending historical, religious, and folkloric elements into narratives that continue to evolve and resonate.

This Baltic brass ring featuring serpent motifs exemplifies how mythological understanding was incorporated into everyday objects. Drawing inspiration from archaeological findings, the ring embodies ancient Baltic cosmological concepts through its symbolic imagery and circular form.

The serpent, a potent symbol in Baltic mythology as in many world traditions, carried multiple associations—justice, domestic happiness, and protection. This multivalent symbolism demonstrates how mythological figures often function simultaneously across several conceptual domains, collapsing distinctions between moral, emotional, and practical concerns. The serpent's ability to shed its skin made it a natural symbol of renewal and transformation across many cultures, while its movement between surface and underground realms positioned it as a mediator between worlds.

The ring form itself, with no beginning or end, provided a natural vehicle for expressing cyclical time—a fundamental concept in traditional Baltic worldviews governed by seasonal rhythms and astronomical cycles. By wearing such symbols on the body, individuals incorporated themselves into cosmic patterns while simultaneously marking cultural belonging through distinctive stylistic execution.

The craftmanship evident in such pieces reflects the sophisticated metalworking traditions of Baltic peoples, where technical skill itself was understood within a mythological framework. The transformation of raw materials into meaningful forms through the application of fire and specialized knowledge carried associations with creative and even magical processes. This ring thus demonstrates how material culture in traditional societies operated simultaneously across practical, aesthetic, and spiritual domains, embedding cosmic understanding in the most personal of objects.

This Baltic leather waistband adorned with brass decorations represents a sophisticated fusion of practical function and mythological expression. Archaeological findings of such items throughout the Baltic region reveal how everyday objects served as carriers of cultural identity and cosmic understanding in traditional societies.

The intricate brass fittings, featuring geometric patterns and solar symbols, transform a utilitarian item into a statement of both social status and spiritual alignment. The sun motif, recurring throughout Baltic decorative arts, connects the wearer to cycles of life, fertility, and temporal order—fundamental concepts in agricultural societies whose prosperity depended on cosmic regularity.

Beyond indicating social standing, such elaborately decorated belts likely served protective functions, with specific motifs believed to safeguard the wearer from various harms. This integration of practical, social, and apotropaic functions illustrates how pre-modern societies operated with more unified conceptual frameworks than modern compartmentalised thinking allows, seeing no contradiction between practical purpose and symbolic meaning.

The combination of leather and brass demonstrates not only technical skill but conceptual sophistication, bringing together animal-derived and earth-derived materials to create an object that mediates between different realms. This material hybridity mirrors the belt's function as a boundary marker on the human body, encircling the waist at the juncture of upper and lower body. Such items provide tangible evidence of how mythological thinking permeated everyday life in traditional Baltic societies, embedding cosmic understanding in the most practical aspects of material culture.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) houses Two Satyrs (Inventory No. 10558), a significant work by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the foremost Flemish Baroque painter whose influence extended throughout Europe during the 17th century and beyond.

This piece depicts two satyrs, mythological creatures from classical antiquity that embody the wild, untamed aspects of nature. In Greek and Roman mythology, satyrs were typically portrayed as part-human, part-goat beings, often associated with the god Dionysus (Bacchus) and his revelries. They represented unbridled sensuality, revelry, and the chaotic forces of the natural world that exist beyond human civilisation and control.

Rubens' portrayal of these mythological figures would likely reflect his characteristic approach to classical subjects, informed by his extensive knowledge of ancient art and literature as well as his direct study of classical sculpture during his years in Italy. His satyrs would likely combine anatomical precision with dynamic posture and expressive features, embodying the tension between human and animal natures that makes these creatures such compelling symbols.

Throughout his career, Rubens frequently drew upon mythological subjects, using them as vehicles for exploring themes of passion, power, and the relationship between civilisation and nature. His mythological works demonstrate his ability to infuse classical narratives with emotional intensity and sensual vitality, qualities that made his interpretations particularly influential for subsequent generations of European artists.

This work exemplifies the continuing resonance of classical mythology in Baroque art, revealing how ancient symbolic figures could be reinterpreted to address the aesthetic sensibilities and philosophical concerns of new cultural contexts. Rubens' satyrs bridge the ancient and the early modern, maintaining the essential symbolic power of these figures while adapting their representation to contemporary artistic conventions.