The Matrix in Wonderland
QUESTION Do the Matrix films contain hidden references to Alice In Wonderland?
LANA and Lilly Wachowski, directors of The Matrix trilogy, starring Keanu Reeves as the computer hacker Neo, are fans of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, the surreal fantasy written by Lewis Carroll and published in 1865.
The Matrix films’ structure is clearly based on it.
At the beginning of Carroll’s book, young Alice follows a white rabbit into a deep hole. She leaves the real world behind and enters a strange new place where the usual laws of physics don’t apply. In this new world, the size of her body changes from abnormally big to small. After a series of adventures, her task is revealed: to end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.
In The Matrix, Reeves plays a young computer hacker called Neo. Like Alice, he is encouraged to enter a strange world, The Matrix, where he, too, can bend the rules of reality.
A series of clues lead him to discover a terrible truth. In the film a mirror, rather than a rabbit hole, marks the portal from one world to the next.
Early on in the film, Neo is encouraged to follow a white rabbit, this being the tattoo on the arm of a nightclubber. Via this path he meets the enigmatic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) in an empty room in an abandoned building in the Matrix.
Morpheus gives him a choice: ‘You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.’ The blue pill will let Neo keep control over his story, but his story will have no basis in truth.
The red pill will throw Neo headlong into an alternate world he will struggle to comprehend. Neo takes the red pill, setting the trilogy in motion.
Simon Etherton, Leeds.
QUESTION Are there any metal-detecting clubs in Ireland? In the UK, every county has at least one. Am I correct thinking that metal detectors can be used here, but not within 500 metres of an archaeological site?
IN the UK, metal detecting clubs are widespread and very popular, but that’s not the case in Ireland, where the laws on metal detecting are so strict that enthusiasts claim that they make the hobby almost impossible to pursue.
Organisations in the UK, such as the National Council for Metal Detectors, are organised on a regional basis. The Federation of Independent Detectorists lists a huge number of metal detector clubs across Britain. In the north of Ireland, there’s the Northern Ireland Metal Detectors’ Club and a number of local clubs. Enthusiasts
say that metal detecting in the UK is well organised and comparatively easy, facilitated by cooperation with such official bodies as the British Museum, but that here in Ireland, the situation is totally different. During the 1970s and 1980s, a huge amount of damage was done by professional treasure hunters scouring the countryside in Ireland for old artefacts, everything from prehistoric bones to ancient coins. As a result of that rampage, very strict laws were brought in, completely banning the use of metal detectors anywhere near, or on, an protected historic site.
Since this part of Ireland has more than 130,000 registered historical sites, this makes the use of metal detectors virtually impossible.
If people use metal detectors on private land, the owner’s permission has to be given, otherwise, trespass is being committed. And even if people do get permission to search private land, it is still illegal to search for antiquities.
The laws and the penalties are drastic. Unless someone has a licence from the Departments of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, headed by Culture Minister Heather Humphreys, it’s an offence to look for archaeological objects, even without a metal detector. The penalty for this offence is up to €126,972 and/ or up to 12 months in prison.
It’s also a penalty to use a metal detector at the site of anywhere subject to a preservation order or on the register of Historic Monuments. It’s also forbidden to use a metal detector to look for archaeological objects anywhere in the State or in its territorial seas. The penalty for these offences is up to €63,486 and/ or up to three months imprisonment.
It’s also illegal to promote the sale or use of metal detectors to look for archaeological objects, with the penalty being a fine of up to €1,000.
If anyone does find an archaeological object, it must be reported within 96 hours to the National Museum of Ireland, a designated local museum or to the nearest Garda station. The penalty for not doing this is a fine of up to €111,100 and/ or five years in prison. But if someone does find an archaeological object legitimately and reports it to the National Museum, a financial reward is paid.
So stringent are the rules on using metal detectors here that some enthusiasts claim that the only way to get round all the restrictions is to use metal detectors on beaches, rather than on dry land. All the restrictions on using these machines are so severe, with such an abundance of historical sites that are often hard to find or define, that metal detector enthusiasts say that the hobby is impossible to follow here.
David Power, Dublin.