Female Chants from the Past: Celtic Myths in Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the Celtic myths, figures, and central themes of Tomm Moore’s animated movie Song of the Sea (2014), from a transmodern feminist perspective. While the movie offers a vivid portrayal of the dichotomy between the tranquil Irish countryside and the turbulent city of Dublin, its main theme revolves around a rural family’s lament for the loss of the mother who is a modern-day personification of the Celtic selkie (seal woman). This curious female figure embodies contradictory characteristics: she is semi-human and at the same time a mother and a wife who, in struggling with her in-between state, leaves her family and returns to her mythical roots. By focusing on several of the Celtic mythical figures and central themes of maternal loss, motherhood, gender relations, and family reconciliation, I attempt to show that the movie’s transmodern echoes and concerns suggest that alternative family formations and changed gender roles are possible in Irish society and in the world more generally.