Mermaid Mairéad off to Junk Kouture final
ARMED with the mythical mermaid Lí Ban as inspiration and bits of old fishing net for her main working material, Mairéad Ní Dhubhaigh will head off next week to represent Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne in the regional finals of this year’s Junk Kouture competition at the Helix theatre in Dublin.
The contest, described as the world’s largest youth sustainable fashion competition, challenges secondary school students to create haute couture outfits from recycled materials and thus far Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne students have enjoyed exceptional success, most notably in 2019 when Maxim O’Sullivan won the national title with an outfit inspired by his family’s Phoenix Cinema in Dingle.
Drawing inspiration from Celtic mythology – and fishing trips with her grandfather Michael Dorgan - Mairéad and her fellow student designers, Claire Piras Ní Chiobháin and Ellie Nic Gearailt, have taken up the theme of Lí Ban, the daughter of King Eochaidh of Ulster who was left alone after her father’s lands were engulfed in a disastrous flood.
After enduring years of solitude, Lí Ban prayed to the goddess Danú to be turned into a salmon so that she might at least enjoy the company of fish. Her wish was half granted and she became a mermaid, swimming in the open waters for 300 years until a fisherman monk called Comgall caught her in his nets. He released her and she promised to return a year later, whereupon she was baptised as Muirgean.
Poor Lí Ban died shortly after, but Comgall vowed to keep her memory alive as The Mermaid Saint and the Pobascoil girls will help him keep his promise when they bring the mermaid’s story to a national audience in the Helix next week.
The trio have put a lot of work, and hand-stitching, into the outfit, which is made from a combination of old fishing nets, bed linen from the Skellig Hotel, and bridesmaid’s clothes that once adorned Mairéad’s mother, Marie.
Their mermaidenly creation has so far succeeded in making to the shortlist of 160 drawn from 1,200 nationwide entries and they are hoping for further success next week. “It’ll be nerve-racking, but I do Irish dancing and I’ve done some shows before so hopefully that’ll stand to me,” said Mairéad.