Super Gairdín is a new video work by artists Cóilín O’Connell and Michelle Doyle about divine spirits, landscape, language and nature. Taking cues from the folk horror tradition, the film is set in a desolate garden centre, a space where landscape is held indefinitely. A figure wanders the aisles of saplings, chancing upon a long forgotten rock deity; the Cailleach. The Cailleach is capable of great forces, summoning nature at will and throwing rocks from her apron. She contemplates the various narratives that surround her existence in lore and the difficulty of translating her powers into Béarla. She views mankind with hatred and will soon enact her revenge. The film explores art making through Irish and is the first bilingual piece by O’Connell and Doyle. In the Irish government’s 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language (2010-2030) policy, they define administration, education and technology as being areas of action, yet do not discuss support for arts and culture. The Irish government fails to outline support of visual art or music through the medium of Irish in their move towards a bilingual society. Super Gairdín posits Irish as a perfect language for cultural production and artistic experimentation. Recently the video piece was selected for next year’s junior cert syllabus for Irish.

The film combines original and found footage with DIY animations, all soundtracked by a blood curdling composition by Jennnifer Moore. The Cailleach’s monologues borrow from sources including 7th century laments, the writings of Irish revolutionary poet Padraig Pearse all combined with common expressions from genre film. In Irish culture the Cailleach has been used as a stand in for for the landscape and even the nation of Ireland itself, in a contemporary Irish context industrial agriculture has made made Ireland one of the least biodiverse territories in Europe and the Irish language has declined in popular use under the watch of an indifferent nation state. After generations of ill treatment the Cailleach of Super Gairdin is dismissive of her conflation with Ireland and is vexed with her ill treatment, she seeks retribution on an ignorant victim.