Mad King Sweeney, Irish myth on the edge of surveillance capitalism

Buile Shuibhne is a medieval Irish myth, roughly pronounced as ‘Bwill-eh Whiv-neh’ and means ‘The Frenzy of Sweeney’. Suibhne Mac Colmáin (Sweeney Mac Col-mawn) was a king cursed by a Christian saint whom he had violently disrespected. Sweeney became half-man, half-bird. Stripped of his worldly wealth, he suffered the harrowing loneliness of a life on the fringes of society.

Sweeney survived on watercress, drank from freezing rivers and slept in the wind-torn branches of yew trees and thorn bushes. His mind was unhinged as he flitted between treetops, lamenting his suffering. He watched as friends, family, and society moved on and changed. Sweeney took comfort in reciting poems inspired by nature’s beauty. He defiantly refused to come into the fold until his dying moment.

This artwork is the latest episode on my journey with ‘Mad Sweeney’. We met when I was a teenager, reading Flann O’Brien’s novel ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’, reconnected in Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’, later in Seamus Heaney’s ‘Sweeney Astray’ and recently, in Sean Hewitt’s poetry.

What’s the connection between Mad Sweeney and surveillance capitalism?

My drawings join the dots between my interests and experience. They are unplanned journeys. This one started on a threshold: the edge of the Australian bushland and the suburbs of Sydney’s Upper North Shore.

One morning, I watched the sunrise edge along sandstone valley walls over tangled treetops, highlighting the houses with the best vista on the opposite side of the gorge where I stood. My eyes followed wandering gulleys to the distant horizon. All of this is just a few steps from the street.

You can be utterly lost, within reach of a phone

Amid this wilderness, you could grab your phone and drop a pin on your location in Google Maps. Thinking I’d share the experience, I composed a photo. Framing the scene with this little slab of technology, I visualised;

• a ping to a silently watching satellite
• a datum registered by an algorhitmn
• running on a machine
• sitting in a humming data warehouse
• who-knows-where?

These fragments of ‘me’ are catalogued and shared with whomever in the ether;

• my picture
• my camera settings (not that I know them)
• my location and time of day
• my turn of phrase on social media
• my friends

Enter Mad King Sweeney

“Not this time,” I thought, pocketing my phone. I settled back to staring into the trees, letting my mind wander. Noticing whatever I noticed.

In the following days, an image of King Sweeney surfaced in my sketchbook. I like to divide a page into postage-stamp-sized grids and then draw whatever comes to mind. Sometimes an idea or theme emerges that takes on a life of its own. Channels open. Ideas flow.

My first encounter with Mad Sweeney: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien

At Swim-Two-Birds is a work of metafiction – a story about writing stories. At least three storylines all play out at once. The book’s structure and long tracts of ‘found text’ from seemingly unrelated sources make it a disorienting read that’s difficult to describe.

The book satirises the ‘Irish Revival’, a literary movement that came to the fore in the early 1900s. The Revival was a response to English colonialisation. It celebrated Ireland’s literary heritage, which had been actively undermined and overwritten with colonial values.

At Swim-Two-Birds: a chaotic comic story

A student of Irish literature pens a novel that includes the character of the mad King Sweeney. Matters spiral out of control when the student becomes distracted by the temptations of Dublin’s pub life. He doesn’t notice that the main character of his story (Trellis, also an authour) gets overthrown by characters from his novel. Chaos ensues.

Sweeney, the eccentric hero

Flann O’Brien reproduced passages from the medieval text of The Frenzy of Sweeney. Sweeney holds forth like an eccentric uncle. The other characters invite him into their conversations, only to roll their eyes whenever he launches into lengthy soliloquies.

Looking back on looking back

At Swim-Two-Birds satirises the ‘Irish revival’, also known as the Celtic Twilight. The Irish Revival was a literary movement that celebrated Irish folklore and mythology in the literary pantheon. It was a response to the colonial devaluation of Irish culture.

Ireland experienced the First World War, The 1916 Rising and War of Independence, the formation of The Republic and a divisive Civil War in quick succession not long before this book was written. At Swim-Two-Birds exudes confidence in form and deft use of language. There’s also tension between people wanting to move into the modern world while tying up the loose threads of the past.

Repelled and intrigued by the fallen king

Much of this nuance went over my teenage head. At the same time, the character of this raving bird-man, this fallen king who lived in the treetops, somehow made sense. Years later, Sweeney holds my lasting attention.

Sweeney reappears in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

‘What happens to the forgotten gods of the people who migrated to America?’ The answer is that they live in shadows, at the edges of perception. They fit in by pretending to be regular people while remaining otherworldly.

Neil Gaiman’s Mad Sweeney is a leprechaun with a very sharp edge. In the book, he was once the guardian of a sacred stone. In the TV adaptation, a fallen king. He’s not ‘the same’ Sweeney, although he has fallen and condemned to wander the world.

Colonialism targets culture

Colonisation subverts and overwrites culture as a means of control. Christianity over-wrote pagan Irish myths and folk tales to incorporate Christian themes and values. Buile Sweeney is an example; Sweeney repents and confesses to a Christian cleric at the end of his life, accepting Christian norms after a lifetime of loneliness and misery, wandering the pagan wilderness.

American Gods is set against the backdrop of a different kind of colonialism, wherein the gods that have travelled to America fight against subversion by the New American Gods. These new gods are manifestations of technologies, such as TV, the Internet and other media that have become the focus of worship. The new gods overwrite the old.

I didn’t relate to this version of Sweeney, possibly because the leprechaun is a well-worn trope. However, American Gods is a fulfilling read: an adventure and a mystery that asks critical questions.

Sweeney Astray by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney’s book is a translation of the Medieval manuscript. It describes the impulsive moment that caused Saint Ronan to curse Sweeney, his life and the moment of his death and conversion to Christianity. At one point, his friend Lynchseachan tricks Sweeney into coming down from his treetop sanctuary. Sweeney is briefly rehabilitated into society until his paranoia triggers another flight into the wilderness, where he speaks through poetry.

I love the ancient ivy tree,
the pale-leaded sallow.
the birch’s whispered melody,
the solemn yew.

And you, Lynchseachan, can try
disguise, deceit;
come in the mask and shawl of night,
I won’t be caught.

Sweeney Astray, Seamus Heaney

Sweeney knows he’s driven to a life of hardship, away from society’s comforts. His defiance paints him as a liminal character, caught between human society – during a time of change from pagan to Christian societal norms – and the natural world. He lives torn between the need for friends, family and even foes, attracted and repelled by a deceitful promise of an easy life that he cannot accept.

Suibhne is Wounded and Confesses, by Sean Hewitt

Seán Hewitt’s poem captures a moment when close to his death and in the company of humans, Sweeney looks back on his life. It captures both his loneliness and his appreciation of the natural beauty he experienced.

There was a time when
I preferred the blackbird and the boom
of a stag belling in a storm.

Sweeney is Wounded and Confessess, Sean Hewitt

Mad Sweeney, a tragic mythical hero for our times

Sweeney’s not as accessible or attractive as Fionn MacCumhaill, the Tuatha De Dannan and other such warrior-gods, not at first reading. Aside from his ability to move quickly through forest and fen, he doesn’t possess the superhuman qualities that enable the likes of Fionn MacCumhaill or Cuchalainn to perform their heroic deeds. He is disturbed by the noise of battle.

His story of enduring loneliness is heavy going. His monologues can be monotonous (he lived alone in the woods, so that’s fair). Give Sweeney a little time, get to know him and be open. Let his worldview question yours.

Sweeney: regal sceptic at the edges of surveillance culture

He peers from his perch (in a Scribbly Gum). He’s regal in his crown of twigs, watched by millions of tiny little cameras that grow from the surrounding branches (not a yew but a Scribbly Gum). Sweeney lives at the edges of a society where convenient online shopping, instant gratification and easy novelty are (often) deceitfully provided in exchange for constant surveillance, data harvesting and commoditisation of the person.

Suggest a title, win an original drawing (entries closed)

‘Mad Sweeney’ is the working title but it doesn’t seem fitting. A drawing without a title is unfinished. However, it’s the best I’ve come up with so far. So, I’m reaching out to you for inspiration. Perhaps you can suggest a title?

If I use the title you come up with or as inspiration for a more fitting one, I’ll send you a free original drawing. What drawing? I don’t know. There’s only one way to find out.

Rules (as few as possible)

• Make as many suggestions as you like. There’s no limit.
• Entries are now closed.
• If I use your suggestion directly or as inspiration, I’ll give you an original drawing from my sketchbook. 
• If I use ideas from multiple people, then each person gets a drawing.
• I’ll send the original drawing to you – no cost to you.
• To enter, all you have to do is post your idea as a comment at the end of this page.

Some prompts to help you out:

• What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you looked at the drawing?
• How does the drawing make you feel?
• Does it remind you of a song, a poem or a story?
• You can ask ‘Mad Sweeney’ anything you like. What’s your question?

Over to you and thanks for your help.

This giveaway has closed

Comments are always welcome. However, the date for your comment to be considered for a free drawing has now passed.

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