Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Blasket Islands
The Secret of Roan Inish is loosely based on the evacuation of the Blasket Island, which are 6 islands that are visible on the shore of Ireland. In the movie at the begining they are at their mother's funeral, and then soon after the island of Roan Inish is evacuated. This is very similar to what happened on the Blasket Islands. Life on the islands was hard because they can only get to the mainland on less than half of the days in a year due to inclimate weather. In 1946 right before Christmas Sean O Cearna was out getting a sheep for their Christmas feast when his 24 year-old son, Seainin collapsed. He became more ill over the next few days. They had no telephone and there was no doctor and to make things worse no boat could cross to the mainland. The people were stranded and could do nothing for the poor young man as he died due to meningitis. The death of this young mand broke the will of the islanders forever. Some left after that and by the time the government forced those still on the island to relocate to the mainland there were only about 22 left to relocate. The island was fully evacuated in 1953 and the government provided some of the islanders with cottages by the sea so they can still see the Blasket Islands and remember their time on the island.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tickets!
Tickets are available at The State Theatre box office
or online at http://www.thestatetheatre.org/For Roan Inish Only: Kids under 12 are free.
After The Movie
After the film The Secret of Roan Inish, there will be childrens activities. Come listen to Irish music, color and enter your picture into our coloring contest of Celtic animals and win prizes. Also see dancers performing from the Penn State Irish Society and learn how to dance.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Secret of Roan Inish Synopsis
In The Secret of Roan Inish there is a young Irish girl, Fionna, who used to live with her family on the island of Roan Inish. When her younger brother, Jamie, was just a baby the family evacuated the island, but as they were leaving the tide took away her baby brother in his boat-like cradle.
After realizing that their new home is not the place for a young girl to live, Fionna's father sends her to live with her grandparents, Hugh and Tess, and her cousin, Eamon in an Irish fishing town near Roan Inish. She hears tales of the Selkie, seals that can take off their skin and become human, and she finds out that according to some she is the decendent of a Selkie. She visits the island of Roan Inish often when her grandfather and cousin go out on the boat. They drop her off and pick her up when they are done. On her first visit back to the island it seems as if someone is living in their old cottage. The next time she returns to the island and falls asleep in their old cottage, and when she wakes up she goes out to the fields and sees a small boy picking flowers, she knew right away that it was Jamie. She calls out to him and he turns to see who it is and then runs away from her.
Why did he run? Will her grandparents believe that after so long Jamie is still alive? But most importantly how can she get him to stay with her and not run away? To find out the answer, come to the Irish Film and Cultural Festival at the State Theatre at 1pm on March 26th to watch The Secret of Roan Inish.
After realizing that their new home is not the place for a young girl to live, Fionna's father sends her to live with her grandparents, Hugh and Tess, and her cousin, Eamon in an Irish fishing town near Roan Inish. She hears tales of the Selkie, seals that can take off their skin and become human, and she finds out that according to some she is the decendent of a Selkie. She visits the island of Roan Inish often when her grandfather and cousin go out on the boat. They drop her off and pick her up when they are done. On her first visit back to the island it seems as if someone is living in their old cottage. The next time she returns to the island and falls asleep in their old cottage, and when she wakes up she goes out to the fields and sees a small boy picking flowers, she knew right away that it was Jamie. She calls out to him and he turns to see who it is and then runs away from her.
Why did he run? Will her grandparents believe that after so long Jamie is still alive? But most importantly how can she get him to stay with her and not run away? To find out the answer, come to the Irish Film and Cultural Festival at the State Theatre at 1pm on March 26th to watch The Secret of Roan Inish.
Background History and Information
The Secret of Roan Inish is a perfect example of traditional Irish legend. Surrounded by such a large body of water and separate from the rest of Europe, Ireland has a plethora of legends that have arisen involving the sea. The misty landscape of coastal Ireland is the perfect place for magical and even supernatural things to happen, so it is no surprise that a story such as that of the selkie has evolved into an Irish legend. The selkie myth is not one that is hugely known to those outside of Ireland, but is certainly interesting to hear
According to legend a selkie is a seal that can shed its skin and transform into a human. The human is typically shown as a beautiful but wild dark haired woman. If she goes ashore and a man captures her seal skin, she is bound to him, and usually becomes a very devoted wife. However, her heart belongs to the sea and she will always long to put her seal skin back on and return to where she is from. Her husband hides the skin for this reason, but if she ever finds it there is no stopping her from diving back into the sea and never returning to her husband and children.
There are several variations on this story, including ones where a male selkie has children with a human woman and then returns with the children to the sea. Many of the selkie legends have a similar structure, but they all involve romance and children to a certain degree, and end with the selkie recovering his or her skin and returning to the sea, since that is where their heart and soul belong. They can never be truly happy in their human form, since they are always wistful and longing to return to the sea, leaving their human partners broken-hearted. The selkie legend is a beautiful one but never has a happy ending.
In the Secret of Roan Inish this tale is told, and the main characters are descendants of a selkie woman and her husband. Because of this unique ancestry, some of her descendants exhibit traits of a selkie such as an obsession and familiarity with the sea, as well as having a similar physical appearance (dark hair and eyes), which is construed as a little queer by the people of Roan Inish. The movie itself was written and directed independently by John Sayles, and was released in 1994. Despite being set and filmed in Ireland, it is actually an American film (hence why the actors speak mostly English). The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry, is the name of the novel that the Secret of Roan Inish is originally drawn from. The novel was published in 1959 in New York but is little known for the most part.
According to legend a selkie is a seal that can shed its skin and transform into a human. The human is typically shown as a beautiful but wild dark haired woman. If she goes ashore and a man captures her seal skin, she is bound to him, and usually becomes a very devoted wife. However, her heart belongs to the sea and she will always long to put her seal skin back on and return to where she is from. Her husband hides the skin for this reason, but if she ever finds it there is no stopping her from diving back into the sea and never returning to her husband and children.
There are several variations on this story, including ones where a male selkie has children with a human woman and then returns with the children to the sea. Many of the selkie legends have a similar structure, but they all involve romance and children to a certain degree, and end with the selkie recovering his or her skin and returning to the sea, since that is where their heart and soul belong. They can never be truly happy in their human form, since they are always wistful and longing to return to the sea, leaving their human partners broken-hearted. The selkie legend is a beautiful one but never has a happy ending.
In the Secret of Roan Inish this tale is told, and the main characters are descendants of a selkie woman and her husband. Because of this unique ancestry, some of her descendants exhibit traits of a selkie such as an obsession and familiarity with the sea, as well as having a similar physical appearance (dark hair and eyes), which is construed as a little queer by the people of Roan Inish. The movie itself was written and directed independently by John Sayles, and was released in 1994. Despite being set and filmed in Ireland, it is actually an American film (hence why the actors speak mostly English). The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry, is the name of the novel that the Secret of Roan Inish is originally drawn from. The novel was published in 1959 in New York but is little known for the most part.
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