15-05-2025
Síomha's trip to the Otherworld - using folklore to explore grief
In the heart of Donegal, Síomha's ready for their biggest protest yet. No one's building a hotel. Especially over Aunty Deirdre's fairy fort. This will end in agóid not tragóid...
Theatremaker Em Ó Ceallaigh introduces their new play Síomha and the Otherworld, a new Immersive work for young audiences, touring venues this June.
How do we remember people who have died? How do we accept and keep living with grief? How do we fight for what matters? And what do fairy forts, racing maggots and millipedes, and Sinéad O'Connor have anything to do with this?
Síomha and the Otherworld is an immersive, new play for audiences aged 9+ years by Sian Ní Mhuirí and me. Meet 11-year-old Síomha, who - a thiarcais! - is shocked to see us. Síomha's staging a protest to save a beloved fairy fort that holds memories with their late auntie Deirdre. No way is Mr Big Smoke building a hotel on top of it!
We wanted to explore the complicated emotions that come with grief. Sian and I are drawn to work with humour and heart that takes young people's curiosity and intelligence seriously. Artists often draw on fairy tales to create work, but Irish fairies are not your bog-standard cutesy fairies. They're mischievous, bold, not to be crossed - qualities that Síomha admires.
Síomha is a love song to people who love us fiercely. People who understand solidarity. People who see justice and joy as the best dance partners.
Donegal's rich folklore lives in the bones of our story. There are different theories about who fairies are. Maybe the old gods, the Tuatha Dé Dannan, who, having lost their adoration and power, live in the otherworld, passing through fairy forts. Another theory is that fairies are fallen angels. Not good enough to be saved, not evil enough to be banished to hell.
This show isn't an attempt to just retell fairy stories. It's a modern story full of magic about a young person navigating a big conflict with a best friend, and their first major loss. The show explores finding magic in the world during hardship, and embracing the magic of being different. Of being a little weirdo.
My own nana died this year. She was someone who, like aunties, mentors, friends, loved me uncomplicatedly as a young (and older!) person when I was scared, or felt too weird for this world. Síomha is a love song to people who love us fiercely. People who understand solidarity. People who see justice and joy as the best dance partners.
The show is set in the Donegal Gaeltacht and is peppered with Gaeilge Uladh. It has cultural references that Síomha shares fondly with their auntie (shout out to late greats, Sinéad O'Connor and Nell McCafferty). Audience members will sit inside the fairy fort. You meet Síomha, played by the tender and hilarious Aoife Sweeney O'Connor. Our second character is the fort, who speaks through light, sound, and video, brought alive by a talented creative team. Through song, storytelling and the occupation of a fairy fort, audiences are in for a tender, sensory, one-of-a-kind experience.
It'll be wild craic altogether, aye.
