Celtic Myths in Cartoon Saloon's The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014): A Critique of Irish Postcolonial Animation

My study grows out of a desire to make sense of the attraction to Celtic myths as exemplified in The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014) since an academic breadth for the visual Celtic orientalism is still not fully achieved. To expand the scope of the Irish studies, the present paper is an attempt to construct the Irish criticism in the twenty-first century within the motion picture paradigm as manifested in the productions of the indigenous Irish studio, Cartoon Saloon, established in 1999 in Southeast Ireland. I argue for the equal significance of animation which has not been yet theorized in a comprehensive critical media discourse to emphasize Ireland's exceptional perception of itself as extraordinary. The premise of the study is to establish The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014) as Irish postcolonial animation to examine the tenor of the Celtic postcoloniality that has been shaped by energies of the past. The two animated films interrogate fanciful spatial practices undertaken by fictional child protagonists, Brendan, Ben and Saoirse to tackle fantasy as a genre to explore national symbols worthy of investigation within the postcolonial criticism, thereby, fantasy and animation are woven gorgeously to act as a critique. The child protagonists' epic journeys are remediated in animation to signify a metaphantasmagoric, metamedial enterprise to ardently explore Celtic myths. The two animated films depict Celtic myths in transmedia reflecting postmodern strategies of make-believing metafantasy critique to transgress the confines of the oral literature towards visual, acoustic, tactile, kinetic and digital new media regimes of representation. Cartoon Saloon is not in favor of computer imagery and instead it advocates the hand-drawn techniques which render animation its sleekness, round and curved lines to depict the exotic parallel worlds inhabited by mythic faeries. Finally, The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea embody the features of performance forms in terms of dynamic visuals, distinctive Irish music and Celtic songs. Irish postcolonial animation maintains a medieval/timeless sense of immediacy within dream-like territories deploying 2D graphical design to draw the postmodern viewer into realms of Celtic myths and fantastical mise-en-scène.