Searching for Tír na nÓg: Translating Myth, Memory and Feminist Narratives as Elements of Architectural Resilience

Abstract

This thesis reveals traces of myth at the intersections between female heroism, sacrifice, and spatial histories within the Shannon watershed of Ireland. Through deep mapping of mythic, cultural, and institutional histories of control over women, this thesis proposes a sequence of four architectonic interventions along Ireland’s River Shannon that reframe the myth of the river’s origin, the story of Shannon, through a feminist lens.The pilgrimage begins at the river’s origin and concludes in release embodied by a counter-archive positioned in Limerick at the convergence of historic corridors of institutional authority and control. By establishing architectonic spaces for storytelling, archive, and play, this thesis argues that architecture can be used as feminist historiography, collecting and retelling embedded knowledge to renegotiate societal relationships to water as a living archive, myth, and women as sacred bodies of knowledge.