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In their films depicting Irish history, culture and mythology, animation studio Cartoon Saloon have approached their stories with a respect for the past, both fact and fiction. By evoking the artwork, legends and real history of Ireland's past and combining it with their own fresh, unique visual style, Cartoon Saloon brings some much needed authenticity and vibrancy to the depiction of Ireland in mainstream culture. Absent are the twee figures of backwards island folk or the commercialised idolatry of a St. Patrick's Day parade. What we get instead is something more personal, recognisable on the surface to every child and adult who learned about Fionn, the Fianna and fairy circles in primary school and with nuggets of information and visual cues for explorers of Ireland's broader history.

"I can't tell you which parts of this story are true and which parts are shrouded by the mists." - The Secret of Kells and the line between history and mythology

Set roughly in the 9th century AD The Secret of Kells is the earliest depiction of Irish culture in the trilogy, a period which saw the continued integration of Christianity into the country alongside traditional pagan practices and festivals, a relatively soft conversion compared to later events. Although the main character, Brendan, comes from a Christian monastery and carries those beliefs, The Secret of Kells does well to capture this balance between a new religion and old beliefs with the inclusion of Aisling and Crom Cruach, who live alongside the monastery and influence the story as much as Brendan and the brothers do and whenever Brendan is punished by Abbot Ceallach it is for disobedience not a lack of faith.

"It is with the strength of our walls that they will come to trust the strength of our faith." Abbot Ceallach's fierce desire to build a wall around the monastery is fueled mostly by the threat of Viking raids, but it is his hope as well that the protection they offer will encourage the faith of the natives and draw them behind those walls. Abbot Ceallach finds comfort and safety in his monastery and danger and violence outside of its walls, so, not only does the wall protect them from invaders but it also cuts them off from the forest beyond - the domain of shape-shifters, wild animals and pagan temples, a world which Brendan can only glimpse through a crack in the wall. A staple of the entire trilogy is this depiction of wilderness in some form and its association with Ireland's symbolic wilderness and pagan ancestry. What sets it apart from the threat of Vikings is that, in spite of its wildness, it poses no threat to their way of life. When Brendan enters the forest for the first time it is dark and frightening until Aisling, an ethereal Sídhe figure who can shape-shift into a wolf, shows him how to navigate it and suddenly the forest grows bright and beautfiul, Brendan's fear is eliminated and Aisling becomes his friend.

Hidden throughout Brendan's trek in the forest are old, moss covered ogham stones and stone circles, allusions to native practices, but deeper in, the colour palette changes from bright greens and natural browns to a wash of dark greys and black when Brendan stumbles across a temple to Crom Cruach (a deity who, in Irish mythology, is eventually destroyed by St. Patrick). Aisling tries to warn him away, "It is the cave of the Dark One," but Brendan dismisses her worries, "The abbot says that's all pagan nonsense, there's no such thing as Crom Cruach." At the sounding of the deity's name, black tendrils emit from the cave and pull on Aisling as she stops them reaching Brendan. Later, Brendan returns to the cave to steal Crom's eye - a magnifying crystal that will help Brendan and Brother Aidan with their illumination. In a beautifully animated sequence Brendan battles Crom Cruach in his cave by trapping him in a chalk circle and stealing his eye. Crom Cruach is depicted as a never-ending snake (in a geometric pattern similar to both pre-Christian art and the knotwork of Christian manuscripts) possibly in reference to the 'snakes' banished from Ireland by St. Patrick. What's most fascinating about this sequence is that Brendan experiences it at all. Although the experience is supernatural it is never implied as anything other than real. Brendan is a committed monk in training who will spend his life in service to the monastery; even after meeting Aisling and battling Crom Cruach he never questions his faith or his elders and when he returns to the monastery with the eye no one disputes the story of how he came by it, "You entered one of the Dark One's caves?" At this time, at the edge of a growing monastery and with a direct reference to the abbot's desire to convert the natives, there is still space for pagan ideas to exist. Similarly, Aisling using Pangur Bán's spirit to free Brendan has an effect on the real world. There's an argument to be made that this is a film and anything can happen, but for problems to be solved by magic, the way Aisling frees Brendan, firm world-building rules must be established and in this world, 9th century Ireland, spaces exist in which otherworldly figures reside and actions beyond the mortal realm occur, and these spaces exist alongside the film's version of civilisation.

"I have lived through all the ages, through the eyes of salmon, deer and wolf." As an animated feature, there is a lot the film can tell us through visuals alone, and The Secret of Kells does a wonderful job capturing an Ireland in transition. The prologue opens with a close-up image of the Eye of Crom with abstract shapes swimming around it, followed by a glimpse of Aisling hiding in a tree as she narrates over these images in an eery whisper. Following these we see a salmon, deer and wolf, three animals important to Irish mythology, identity and history; the salmon, related to The Salmon of Knowledge, represents mythology, the deer is the national animal of Ireland, and wolves (in the world of Cartoon Saloon) represent its wildernes and history (the elimination of the wolf population became more active in Ireland during times of English occupancy, a theme that is explored more deeply in Wolfwalkers). Even the waves crashing around Iona as Brother Aidan escapes morph into wolves, futhering their symbolism as something wild and dangerous, but natural and not actively destructive like the Viking raiders. The monastery is littered with Iron Age motifs existing alongside Early Christian imagery. Spiral motifs occur in trees and plants, in the ropes that bind the wall's scaffolding together, and circular, semi-circular and zig-zag shapes continue to appear with knot-work patterns and religious figures - even the snowflakes falling during the raid are strands of knot-work. The monastery itself is accurate to the period with its round tower, beehive shaped structures (called clochán) and the town growing around it, while outside its walls Brendan crosses a stone circle. We even see a game of hurling, the ultimate unifying bridge between pagan and modern Ireland. The walls of the abbot's cell are covered in his own drawings of plans for the monastery's construction. These are exquisitely detailed and clearly a plan for the future but drawn in a style that cannot escape the past. Zig-zags, spirals, circles, semi-circles, dots, triangles, sun and star motifs and something that looks like an alignment chart - the style is evocative of Neolithic and Bronze Age art and the insular La Tène style that preceded the arrival of the monks in Ireland, all styles that combined the abstract and geometric, seemingly random, but clearly symbolising something greater.

"You must bring the book to the people." In their last interaction as children Aisling helps Brendan recover the pages of his manuscript as he flees the Vikings. In this gesture Aisling aids Brendan on his religious journey - during the montage later on she even guides him home. Faith never comes between these two - it doesn't need to since Aisling's existence and her convictions are as real and strong as Brendan's. Their relationship is one of mutual curiosity and sharing their differences. In Irish mythology, female figures (particularly shape-shifting ones) are often symbolic of Ireland itself and to have the support of these figures is, for kings and heroes, a mark of validation. At this time, these two worlds still live alongside each other and Aisling is allowed to support Brendan's work as a monk while maintaining her own natural way of life, while Brendan can learn about pagan concepts from Aisling without wavering from his faith or trying to mould her to his. Although Brendan's final journey home shows the spread of Christianity across the country we get one final image of Aisling, changed to her human form in a flash of lightning, that shows us while she might be hiding she hasn't disappeared just yet, while Brendan, now an adult, returns to Kells, committed to continuing Abbot Ceallach's work.

"This wild land must be civilised" - Wolfwalkers and the taming of Ireland

Set in 1650, Wolfwalkers occurs roughly 800 years after The Secret of Kells and presents a vastly different universe. The monks' Christianisation of the natives was a far more gentle affair and one founded in a desire to educate and adapt. Ireland under the Lord Ruler (a stand-in for Oliver Cromwell) is a world of service, punishment and fear. By chopping down trees and employing hunters to cull the wolf population the Lord Ruler is attempting to tame the countryside and, most importantly, the people themselves. References to "the old king" and "revolt in the south" place us, historically and politically, in the Cromwellian Conquest, when Cromwell was sent to Ireland to quell uprisings against the newly established English Commonwealth. Heavy stuff and this is a simplification of a period of major conflict in Ireland but Wolfwalkers successfully impresses on us the feeling of living under the thumb of an active oppressor on a personal scale. The Lord Ruler wants the people of Kilkenny afraid and complacent so that they support his efforts to cull the wolves and cut down their forests. Unlike Abbot Ceallach who fears a real threat in the Vikings, the Lord Ruler fabricates a threat in the wilderness beyond the city walls in order to bend people to his will, "Oh, lass. Lord Protector has strict rules." Although the wolves pose no threat to the city, people have been made to fear them, resulting in the loss of their connection to the forest outside the town walls. One character even says that the wolves are attacking them because they've been chopping trees down, because they've been going against their ancient pacts: "

Set in 1650, Wolfwalkers occurs roughly 800 years after The Secret of Kells and presents a vastly different universe. The monks' Christianisation of the natives was a far more gentle affair and one founded in a desire to educate and adapt. Ireland under the Lord Ruler (a stand-in for Oliver Cromwell) is a world of service, punishment and fear. By chopping down trees and employing hunters to cull the wolf population the Lord Ruler is attempting to tame the countryside and, most importantly, the people themselves. References to "the old king" and "revolt in the south" place us, historically and politically, in the Cromwellian Conquest, when Cromwell was sent to Ireland to quell uprisings against the newly established English Commonwealth. Heavy stuff and this is a simplification of a period of major conflict in Ireland but Wolfwalkers successfully impresses on us the feeling of living under the thumb of an active oppressor on a personal scale. The Lord Ruler wants the people of Kilkenny afraid and complacent so that they support his efforts to cull the wolves and cut down their forests. Unlike Abbot Ceallach who fears a real threat in the Vikings, the Lord Ruler fabricates a threat in the wilderness beyond the city walls in order to bend people to his will, "Oh, lass. Lord Protector has strict rules." Although the wolves pose no threat to the city, people have been made to fear them, resulting in the loss of their connection to the forest outside the town walls. One character even says that the wolves are attacking them because they've been chopping trees down, because they've been going against their ancient pacts: "Everyone knows you can't be cutting down their woods. If you do, they'll get you. Sure, that's the deal...Saint Patrick made it with the old pagans and you're breaking it, you eejits!" Of course, any reference to a world ouside of the current mode of conduct is cause for immediate punishment and suppression and the wood cutter is quickly quieted. Even Bill and Robyn, loyal English citizens, are punished. Robyn is forced to work as a maid in the castle when she begins to speak of wolves and Wolfwalkers and when Bill fails to cull the wolf population (and control his own daughter) he is stripped of his rank as hunter and forced into the role of soldier, robbed of the little freedom he had.

"This once wild creature is now tamed, obedient, a mere faithful servant." Although this line is spoken in reference to Moll, held captive in a cage in her wolf form, it is the human characters who suffer the most from this ideology - even the nameless background characters are confined to the walls of the city in fear of punishment, "Lord Protector put my father in chains for nothing." What comes to mind when hearing of tamed creatures is not Moll in her cage, who exudes strength and power even behind bars, but Robyn in her maid's uniform, once lively and imaginative, now returning home with lines under her eyes after a long day of hard, monotonous work, and Bill, quieting his daughter's eagerness in fear for what will happen to her, then later shackled at the neck and forced to march behind the Lord Ruler's horse when he disobeys, "We must do what the Lord Ruler commands". Although Moll is held captive too, it is in the form of a humongous wolf; she is locked away in the Long Hall for fear of the danger she represents. The Lord Ruler is aware of how poweful she is and so he must keep her locked up to show the people of Kilkenny just how much control he can wield, quelling any potential notions of power they might have held in themselves. And in the case of Moll, Robyn and Bill, each time they are held captive by the Lord Ruler, their captured bodies submit to the wolf form to escape, drawing on a deep-rooted strength and wildness within themselves to escape the confines of the Lord Ruler's rigid society.

"What cannot be tamed, must be destroyed." The ending of Wolfwalkers is bittersweet; Robyn, Médb and their parents are safe after defeating the Lord Ruler and his soldiers, but they are still forced to leave their forest home. "All is well," Bill and Robyn tell each other, and the family appear content, but, before now, leaving the forest was not on the agenda; leaving the forest meant retreating from a threat and this is still the case. Médb wanted to save the forest, but, after everything that's happened, the family are no longer safe on the borders of the town. Robyn, Médb, Bill and Moll might have saved each other but they can't save their home and the people still living behind the city walls - the Lord Ruler may have been killed but that doesn't mean the end of his conquest. Historically, this period saw Ireland amalgamated into the Commonwealth and Irish Catholic landowners ousted by English colonists, the diminishing of Irish customs and traditions, and a high level of deforestation and the elimination of the wolf population. The family's departure from Kilkenny allows viewers a safe, happy, narratively satisfying ending, without erasing the changing social tides that occurred at the time or ignoring the history that followed.

"Remember me in your stories and in your songs" - Song of the Sea and loss:

If Wolfwalkers is the taming of Ireland then Song of the Sea is Ireland tamed. Set roughly in the 1980s it is the closest depiction of a modern Ireland in Cartoon Saloon's ouevre. In contrast to The Secret of Kells and Wolfwalkers, which represented Ireland's native identity in the forest, here it takes the form of (drumroll) the sea, but while those other films depicted the battle between the wilderness and civilisation Song of the Sea depicts its defeat. The last of the Sídhe live in hiding in a rath disguised as the centre of a roundabout and use a sewage system to get around. In their diminshed forms, Lug, Mossy and Spud also resemble more closely what we might think of as 'fairies' in Ireland today, not the imposing figures of power the Sídhe really are in mythology. Still, Lug, Spud and Mossy wear torcs, brooches and earrings of gold - symbols of wealth and status - and strewn about their home are ogham stones and hurls; in a nice marriage of modern and ancient tradition, they play the bodhrán, fiddle and banjo, singing a version of the Irish language song 'Dúlamán'. Only in this one pocket in the middle of the city do different aspects of traditional Irish culture survive.

All throughout Song of the Sea we see iconography of modern Ireland. Conor drinks a pint of Guinness (unlabelled but unmistakable), the front of the pub he sits in is decorated in proto-typical Irish pub fashion. On the wall in Granny's house sits proudly a picture of Jesus with the Sacred Heart lamp as she warbles along to the classic Irish children's song, 'Báidín Fheilimí'. Ben and Saoirse take refuge in a shrine to a holy well with a rag tree outside that is bursting with religious iconography as well as a toy sheep - symbols that are as much a part of the national identity as those pre-historic and mythological ones. There are also references to the assimilation of pop culture outside of Ireland in a Lyle's Golden Syrup tin, the Rolling Stones poster on Conor's old bedroom door and Ben's 3-D glasses and cape, an emulation of a superhero costume. These images are, ultimately, harmless but have overtaken their native counterparts. Although we see statues of the Sídhe in the background, these are not shrines but detritus, and they lie forgotten, covered in plants and moss, in the company of bags of rubbish and old televisions. The diminishing of one era of Ireland's history to make way for a newer more powerful and modern identity is just one kind of loss that is portrayed in Song of the Sea, but each character experiences their own version throughout. The loss of Bronach that has affected Ben and Conor; the potential loss of Saoirse as she grows sicker; the loss of Mac Lir that drove Macha to such despair she literally bottled her emotions and those of others until they turned to stone. All of this comes to a climax at the end of the film when these tragedies are laid bare. As in Wolfwalkers the greater connotations of this theme are presented on a smaller scale: Ben and Conor's pain by the loss of Bronach.

Ben and Conor are representative of the human world and so suffer her absence more visibly than Saoirse who approaches her mother's world with curiosity and ease. In contrast, Ben, although he misses Bronach, rejects the sea (her home and symbolic identity) and his sister, a physical as well as spiritual reminder of what's been taken away from him. He turns his back on his past as much as he mourns its loss. We see it less obviously in Conor who wallows in his own memories and grief and tunes out Ben's references to his mother "It's as though I've been asleep all these years. I'm so sorry." Ben's grief is more expressive compared to the inwardly focused Conor and even towards the end of the film when Ben is trying to help Saoirse, Conor brushes over his insistence that only her selkie coat can save her. It's only when Saoirse is finally wearing the coat and wakes up from her sickness that he finally engages with Ben on the subject of Bronach, "She's a selkie, isn't she? Like Mam." "Yeah." (Which looks like a weak conversation written down but it's the happy smile on his face and the emotion in his voice that give the single word weight). "Please don't take her from us." During the film's final sequence, when Saoirse sings her song and wakens the sleeping Sídhe, Bronach returns but only to take Saoirse away. With tears in her eyes she begins to lead Saoirse along until Ben and Conor stop her, not forcefully but pleadingly, "she's all we have." All they have is Saoirse, all they have is a thread connecting them to Bronach's world and their memories of her.

"All of my kind must leave tonight…" As the Sídhe are wakened by Saoirse's song we watch them rise joyfully to form a glowing processional in the sky as they make the journey across the sea to their home. This scene is so beautifully animated and so filled with a sense of magic and wonder that we are charmed into believing this is a good thing. The Sídhe are returned to their noble forms and going to their home "across the sea"; they fill the sky with a warm, mystical light, but they are taking that light and their magic with them. As Bronach quotes in the film's prologue, "Come away, o human child, to the waters and the wild, with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." This is a world that can no longer bear the force of two identities. Unlike The Secret of Kells where Brendan and Aisling were allowed to live alongside each other without compromising their beliefs or ways of living, Bronach, a spiritual being, is forced to leave, while Ben and Conor have no choice but to stay and Saoirse, who walks both worlds, is made to choose between them. Although this is a happy ending it is still being depicted on a personal level. On a grander scale, the country has lost something that isn't coming back and this is depicted as a relief for the ones leaving it behind. On the other hand, Saoirse's decision to remain shows that, in small pockets of the country, the magic can remain.

It is fitting that Song of the Sea, as a representation of modern Ireland, draws on loss; Ireland has been experiencing loss on a grand scale for centuries. Although the march of progress is mostly positive, in some cases it has altered our respect and interest in the past. Today there is a nihilism attached to Irish heritage - the spirituality that's associated with airy fairy hippies dancing naked in a moonlit field; the language that is almost universally despised by every secondary student forced to grapple with the Tuiseal Ginideach; its disappearing and continually exploited ecological landscapes; the preservation of archaeological sites in frequent battle with the progress of industry. In the interest of leaving behind the worst of our past we are at risk of losing the best. The writer Manchán Mangan suggests that this desire to forget lies in the pain we feel when we consider our history. Some, like Conor, try to push all reference to this pain out of their lives, others, like Ben, divert their pain into misplaced anger. Mangan cites the Famine as a source of generational pain and its effect today on our use of the language, but really it can be attached to many events and periods of time, "English was the future; Irish would only bring suffering and death." This is a sentiment that carries through to this day; despite encouragement from schools, local councils and the government, Irish remains a least favourite subject for most people who dismiss it as unuseful for success in the wider world. By proxy, anything to do with the notion of "Irish", the language, history and culture, is old-fashioned (suffering and death) while success and the future lie outside of the country. Mangan goes on to suggest that only by confronting the pain of our past can we unlock an ability in ourselves to engage more fully with our identity, "We might stop blaming our failure to learn on teachers, or the education system, or Government policy, and realise that we have no difficulty learning any other subject…" Ben and Conor are given the opportunity to say goodbye to Bronach before she leaves, allowing them to carry on with their memories of her and the last strand of their connection to her as represented by Saoirse. More and more people today are looking to Ireland's past, ecology and language for whatever it is they need or want to find in life. It isn't necessary to convert to paganism and live on the shores of the Connemara coastline to achieve this connection, but actively disengaging from your past can only hurt more than it can help. In their respective stories Brendan does not compromise his beliefs but still builds a friendship with Aisling, while Robyn and Bill integrate fully into Médb and Moll's world. There is no right way to engage with this side of our history and identity, but in contrast to Ben and Conor, Brendan and Robyn have balanced and fulfilling relationships with their native counterparts. Ben and Conor were stuck in their pain over Bronach's loss and it is only after getting to see her one last time that helped them to move on and heal. Conor tells Bronach that he still loves her and he will carry that love and his memories of her througout his life as a source of joy rather than sadness; Ben lets Saoirse into his life and is able to move past his grief and fears of the sea. Here, the threat of loss and destruction comes from within and can only be treated by engaging with the past - its rich heritage and tragic history - and moving on with all of the wisdom and experience it provides. All three films in Cartoon Saloon's Irish mythology trilogy suggest that the integration of both worlds, an engagement on some level between the two, is not, perhaps, necessary to live, but is certainly recommended.