Myth in Real Time

In this audio essay, available to listen to on the fifth floor of the museum, writer Ian Maleney probes how different media and narrative industries have told the story of the final years of peat harvesting in the Irish midlands. Prompted by conversations with a film-maker, a theater maker and a journalist – each in their own way grappling with the subject – Maleney asks how their approaches reflect or influence popular understanding of the past, present, and future of the area and its people.

This commission is part of MoLI’s Unthinkable project, a series of literature commissions inspired by the climate and biodiversity crisis. Unthinkable is funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon. This audio production was co-commissioned by the UCD Humanities Institute Post-Extractivist Legacies & Landscapes project, with funding from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation through the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes. MoLI’s digital programming is supported by Ebow, The Digital Agency.