Dowra folklore mural transforms St Hugh's NS shelter

Children returning to St Hugh’s National School in Dowra after the summer holidays found their Junior Yard transformed into an immersive world of mountains and water, ancient figures, magical creatures and stories drawn from the landscape surrounding their school.

The folklore mural, Painting Stories Back Into the Landscape, was created over approximately six summer days by local artist MyfanwyNia and commissioned by the school’s Board of Management. The artwork covers roughly 13 metres of wall and continues across the ceiling of the covered Junior Yard shelter.

Dowra is the first village on the River Shannon, straddling the Cavan-Leitrim border, with Lough Allen, Sliabh an Iarainn and the Arigna mountains forming part of the surrounding landscape. The mural brings that geography together with stories connected to the Shannon Pot, Inishmagrath Island, the Black Pig’s Dyke and Sliabh an Iarainn.

The starting point came from school principal Pádraig Kenny, who shared a collection of local stories and folklore with the artist to research. MyfanwyNia said the relationship between the stories and the physical landscape quickly became central to the design.

“The more I researched the stories, the more I realised they were not simply stories from this area. They belonged to particular waters, islands, mountains and pieces of ground,” she said.

Rather than presenting the stories as a row of separate illustrations, the mural places them within one continuous mystical night landscape. The lake, mountains and river were positioned directionally in relation to the real places outside the school, creating what the artist describes as a loose story-map wrapping around the children inside the shelter.

Among the figures is Sionann, associated with the story of the birth of the River Shannon. Her blue hair transforms into the river as it moves across the wall. The Black Pig’s Dyke is represented through local folklore as a gigantic black boar charging through the landscape, while the pale apparition of Saint Hugh appears over Inishmagrath Island with his healing bell glowing beside him.

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Sliabh an Iarainn also provided the setting for Gobán Saor, the legendary master craftsman. Local Leitrim folklore recorded in the Dúchas Schools’ Collection describes Gobán Saor coming to the mountain and making use of the iron found there. In the mural, his forge is set into the mountainside, with sparks flying from his work.

Overhead, the Tuatha Dé Danann arrive through the mist above Sliabh an Iarainn. MyfanwyNia chose to interpret them as glowing tall ships sailing through the night, surrounded by magical energy and accompanied by small fairies. Stars, ships and celestial details continue upwards towards the ceiling.

The night setting was also shaped by the shelter itself. Entering from the bright playground into the darker covered space creates a shift from day outside to night within the mural, something MyfanwyNia imagined becoming part of the children’s play and storytelling.

The commission had an additional personal connection for the artist. “St Hugh’s is our local school and both my sons have attended it,” she said. “I loved those quiet summer days working there when the yard was empty, knowing exactly what the space would become again in September: noisy, busy and full of children.”

For MyfanwyNia, the finished mural ultimately became as much about Dowra itself as the individual legends depicted within it.

“When I finally finished, I was looking at the same local landscape I had been painting all week. The real hills were outside the shelter. The young Shannon was moving through the village. Lough Allen was just beyond it. The stories were never somewhere far away. They were already here.”

She added: “When the children came back after the summer, all of those old stories were there waiting for them.”