An Cailleach Bhéarra

Interpretation of an ancient myth associated with the Beara peninsula, County Cork. In his ‘Book of the Cailleach’ Gearóid O’ Crualaoich collected Irish stories featuring the Cailleach or old hag, otherworld female, mother earth, sovereignty queen or witch. This film joins together two fragments of such stories; one where the Cailleach faces down the Christian church (which eventually undermined and erased her), the other where her struggle to maintain the cycle of nature becomes increasingly difficult.