Description

The Story of the Children of Lir Fine Art Print Set

30 years in the making I have been creating artworks based around the epic tale of the Children of Lir for decades. One of Ireland’s treasures this story has captured the imagination of every Irish person and beyond for at least hundreds of years.

Now I present to you The Children of Lir Story like you have never seen before.

What is in the set?

There are two size options A4 8″x11″ and A3 16″x11″. Each set includes the six fine art prints of The Children of Lir Story and a print with a brief explanation of the origin of the story.

Special Limited Editions!

Get a Limited Edition Hand-Enhanced print of The Childrern of Lir Swans (the second image) in addition to the seven prints in the standard set.

Each size, A4 and A3, is Limited to an Edition of just 25 Hand-Enhanced silver prints which are signed by the artist Jim FitzPatrick and embossed for authenticity.

This is the text which appears on each print.

01. THE CHILDREN OF LIR. THE ENCHANTMENT.

Bhi rí in Éireann fadó darbh anam Lir…..There was a king of Ireland long ago in the time of the mystical Tuatha Dé Danann by the name of Lir. When his first beloved wife died he took a new wife, the sorceress Aoife. Aoife was jealous of the great affection of the king for his children and one day she took the four children to Lake Derravaragh to swim and then, in a flash of blinding light, cast a terrible spell on them, changing them all into swans and condemning them to roam Ireland for nine hundred years in this form.

02. KING LIR SPEAKS TO THE SWANS.

When his children did not return with Aoife, King Lir, fearing the worst, rode out to look for them beside the lake. He and his men searched the whole area but all they saw were these four beautiful swans and then, to his amazement, one of the swans, Fionnuala, the eldest of the children, called out to the king and told him what their stepmother, Aoife, had done to them.

03. LIR HURRIES TO ROYAL SHÍ FIANNACHTA.

With his four children turned into swans by his jealous wife, Aoife, now filled with anger and rage King Lir and his charioteer return to the royal dwelling at Shí Fiannachta as the snow begins to fall, to confront the children’s wicked and sorcerous stepmother Aoife, and beg her to reverse her evil spell and to return his four beautiful children from swan to human form once more.

04. LIR TURNS AOIFE INTO A DRAGON OF THE AIR.

When Lir returned to his palace he begged Aoife to reverse her wicked spell and return his children to him in human form after Aoife had turned all four of them into swans. She mocked him and swore he would never see them again as human, only as swans. He realized her curse would last nine hundred years so in his rage he summoned the old gods and turned Aoife into a dragon, a creature of the air, and cursed her to live like that for all eternity.

05. THE KING PLAYS FOR THE SWANS.

For the rest of his life Lir, king of the Tuatha Dé Danann and High King of all the island of Éireann, went to the lake where his children as swans were cursed to live for three hundred of the nine hundred years. There, on the lakeside, he played his harp and sang his lament to them until the end of his days.

06. THE SINGING SWANS.

For over the nine hundred years the children of Lir, in swan shape, traveled the seas, lakes, and rivers of Éireann. By this time the Tuatha Dé Danann had faded into legend and the Milesians, the race of Mil, held sway over the land but they too honoured the Tuatha Dé and sent a harpist to wherever the swans were seen until, nine hundred years later, in the time of the Christian gods, the holy monk Cathbad baptized them all and with a rush of the wind they took back their human form and turned to ash before him.
So it was that Lir and his four children were finally reunited in the heaven of a strange new loving god and faded from history to legend where we remember them in Ireland to this very day.

All Hand-enhanced prints are personally verified for perfection by Elroy the Cat. (As seen in pictures)