National Leprechaun Museum

The Leprechaun

Tue, 18 May 2010 08:46:15 -0700

The word leprechaun comes from the Irish Lú Chorpain meaning small body.

What is a leprechaun?

The leprechaun is a character of Irish Mythology. He is about 2'6" (75cm) tall. He is very rich but extremely tricky and if you catch one don't take your eyes off him, or he will disappear! He is a very slick talker and loves a bit of fun.

Where does he live?

He lives in a secluded spot, usually a small hole in the ground, where he has a comfortable little home.

Where did the leprechaun come from?

Leprechauns came from a mythical land under the sea and when they arrived in Ireland decided to make their home here. The first recorded sighting of a leprechaun dates to the 8th century.

Are there any female leprechauns?

There are references to female leprechauns, but they are even harder to catch than the males.

What clothes does he wear?

Leprechauns like old style clothes and they have magic red hats which allow them to disappear and sometimes to travel great distances in the blink of an eye.

What does he do?

by trade the leprechaun is a shoemaker, and he provides the fairies with their dancing shoes. As the fairies love to dance, he is always busy.

How does he have so much gold?

He is well paid by the fairies and keeps nearly all the money he earns in a crock.

Where does he keep his gold?

He buries his gold in the ground in a secluded spot and if you catch him he is obliged to tell you where. If you follow a rainbow to the end you will find his treasure.

How do you catch a leprechaun?

The best time to see a leprechaun is early morning or at dusk. You can sometimes hear him tapping with his hammer. If you are lucky he will be so busy making his shoes that he will not hear you. When you catch him, keep a close eye on him - he is a very slippery customer!

Small and wizened but not always old, he usually appears alone, sometimes sitting on a toad-stool smoking his pipe and hammering a shoe. You can hear this hammering for some distance in the woodland.

Despite having short, thin legs, he is very agile, and moves very quickly through fields and woods; he climbs trees very well, and is a great swimmer. A slick speaker, and a great musician, you might see him resting or playing music on a toad-stool, rock, or on the branch of a tree. The best time to spot a Leprechaun is at daybreak or sunset.

Leprechauns live in a secluded spots – usually a hole in the ground covered by foliage, in which he has built a comfortable little home. His mother cooks for him and he especially fond of his ‘potatoes’ (i.e. pig-nuts). He dresses in old 18 century style and he is very rich, he hides his treasure in a crock of gold either in the earth or underwater. He has three coin purses in his jacket – one for copper , one for silver, and one for gold. He also carries a special purse that can never be emptied.

Tuatha Dé Danann

Sun, 16 May 2010 08:59:23 -0700

An atmosphere of magic and mystery surrounded the Tuatha Dé Danann. We read that they first came to Ireland in obscure clouds, landing on a mountain in the west of the country, and that they caused an eclipse of the sun which lasted for three days. They brought with them the Lia Fáil (Stone of Destiny) which cried out at Tara when touched by the rightful king, the great spear of Lugh which guaranteed victory to its wielder, the sword of Nuadhu from which no opponent escaped, and the cauldron of the Daghdha from which no company departed unsatisfied.

After their defeat by the Gaelic people, an agreement was reached whereby the Tuatha Dé left the upper half of the ground to the Gaelic people and they themselves went underground to live in the ancient barrows and cairns which dot the landscape. It was said that they ‘used to fight with men in bodily form, and used to show delights and mysteries to them, and people believed that they were immortal’.

The oldest and most venerable member of the Tuatha Dé was the Daghdha. Later his son Bodhbh Dearg became king of the Tuatha Dé, and the great phantom mariner Manannán divided the ten principal otherworld dwellings among their chiefs. Their dwellings within cairns and raths have beautiful halls and rooms, extremely bright and with golden and silver trappings and decorated with wonderful gems and jewels. They have great feasts there, with fine food and drink, and exquisite music of harp.

It was Manannán, too, who instituted the féth fiadha (‘cloak of concealment’), an obscure magical device which enabled the Tuatha Dé, when they so wished, to become invisible to the human world. He also arranged that they would have magical swine, which returned to life after being killed so that the warriors could again hunt them. As well as dwelling in cairns and raths and in wild parts of the Irish landscape, the Tuatha Dé sometimes went abroad to reside in idyllic overseas realms such as Magh Meall (‘the Delightful Plain’) or Eamhain Abhlach (‘the Region of Apples’), which is cognate with Avalon, which surfaced later in Arthurian romance.

Fairies

Tue, 18 May 2010 08:47:45 -0700

Fairies (in Irish, sí) are a spirit community, who inhabit the landscape side by side with humans. The word in modern Irish sí comes from the Old Irish sídh, which represents in fact two different words – one meaning a ‘tumulus’ and the other meaning ‘quiet’ or ‘peace’. From this, it is clear that this otherworld community were thought of in antiquity as inhabiting a quiet and secluded realm. Originally they seem to have been a fusion of different things – such as mythological personages, the cult of the dead, and legends explaining mysterious phenomena and extraordinary happenings.

The sí-people of folklore are usually of normal human height, but sometimes they are thought of as being somewhat smaller. They have magical power, and it is dangerous to mention their name (sí, or fairy), and so people used circumlocutions for them – such as na daoine maithe (‘the good people’), na daoine uaisle (‘the noble people’), na daoine beaga (‘the little people’), bunadh na gcnoc (‘the race of the hills’). They engage in the same types of activity as humans, but in their own unseen realm – work on their farms or in their houses, music, singing, courtship, sports, etc.

Different groups of fairies inhabit different localities, and they have kings and queens to rule over them. Groups of fairies can be hostile to each other, and sometimes noises at night are heard by people as two fairy armies clash. In the morning white liquid on the ground is understood to be fairy blood spillt in a battle. It is dangerous for a human to be out late at night when fairy armies are abroad. These are called an slua sí, known in English as a ‘fairy cavalcade’ or ‘the trooping fairies’ i.e. a group of fairies in war-like and hostile mood.

The main dwelling of a fairy group is in a large old earthenwork fort or ‘rath’. Inside such forts are the ‘palaces’ of the fairies, which serve as assembly-halls for them as well as the scenes of great feasts. In these forts throughout the countryside, music and entertainment can be heard at night by passers-by. Sometimes the fairies can be seen to dance on top of old moats, or to play hurling in a field beside a fort. At the feasts of May and November, each group of fairies move from their fort to another fort, because the fairies tend to have separate living quarters for summer and winter

Creatures of the otherworld

Tue, 18 May 2010 08:48:28 -0700

All over Ireland fairy hills and raths are still respected as homes of the other world people. The leprechaun lives with the other characters of this world. Tradition tells us that fairies (Sí) in Ireland live among us and can often take human form. Many stories are told of humas who met fairies and went to live with them never to return to their earthly lives. Even into recent times people have seen strange sights and shadows of this world.

There are many, many other world creatures in Irish folklore which you can learn about at the museum, including the Púca, Fear Dearg, the Taibhse and the Banshee.

The great tale of Moytirra

Tue, 25 May 2010 10:36:12 -0700

Ireland was ruled for thirty-seven years by the Fir Bolg, and they prospered. One night, however, their king Eochaidh Mac Eirc had a dream in which he saw a great flock of birds coming from the ocean, and his poet explained to him that this was a fleet of ships carrying a thousand magical heroes. Soon such a fleet arrived, and the warriors came ashore, burned their ships, and encamped on a mountain in Connacht. The Fir Bolg sent the greatest of their own warriors, called Sreang, to parley with them, and the strangers said that they were relatives of theirs, called Tuatha Dé Danann. They had come from the northern world, and their king was Nuadhu. They proposed that Ireland should be shared by the two peoples, but the assembly of the Fir Bolg at Tara refused this. The result was a great battle fought at Maigh Tuireadh (‘the plain of the pillars’) near Cong in County Mayo. King Eochaidh of the Fir Bolg was slain, but Sreang with a sword-stroke severed the right arm of Nuadhu. The tide of battle went against the Fir Bolg, and Nuadhu agreed a treaty with Sreang which allowed the west of Ireland to the Fir Bolg, while the Tuatha Dé took the rest.

The Tuatha Dé were a magnificent people, with skilled artists and tradesmen, and many wizards to plan their future for them. However, it was not long before they were troubled by a group of pirates called the Fomhóire, who commenced raiding the country. Since Nuadhu was blemished, it was considered unlucky for him to rule, and the Tuatha Dé sought to achieve harmony with the Fomhóire by appointing as their ruler Breas, a warrior whose father was of the Fomhóire and whose mother was of the Tuatha Dé. After seven years in power, Breas proved himself so selfish and high-handed that the people were alienated from him. Moreover, the Fomhóire began to impose heavy taxes and, groaning under the oppression, the Tuatha Dé decided to rebel. They deposed Breas, and in retaliation the Fomhóire sent a huge fleet of ships to attack Ireland, led by their fierce chief Balar, who had an evil eye in his forehead. This eye destroyed all on which it looked.

The great physician of the Tuatha Dé, Dian Céacht replaced Nuadhu’s severed limb with a mobile silver arm, and Nuadhu reassumed the kingship. He held a great assembly and banquet at Tara, at which preparations were made for the inevitable trial of strength with the Fomhóire. During the proceedings, a handsome young stranger arrived and demanded entry. This was Lugh, whose father Cian was of the Tuatha Dé but whose mother Eithne was a daughter of Balar. Lugh was admitted because he was the master of all arts and, impressed by his stupendous skills, Nuadhu decided to make him commander of the forces for thirteen days. Lugh then delegated functions to the warriors, and to all the various craftsmen and magicians. For his part, the old father-figure of the Tuatha Dé, called ‘the Daghdha’, enlisted the help of the magical mother-goddess, the Mór-Ríoghain, and then went to the Fomhóire camp to try to forestall hostilities, but he was mocked and humiliated there.

Again the battle-site was a place called Maigh Tuireadh, but this was the great rock-filled plain east of Lough Arrow in County Leitrim. The two strong armies advanced across the plain and met each other with a frightful shock. There was a great tumult of banging shields and of shouting men, and the slaughter was atrocious on both sides. In the hand-to-hand fighting, warriors were tripping over bodies and slipping and falling in the torrent of blood. Shoving aside his bodyguards, Lugh rushed to the forefront of the Tuatha Dé, and began to dance in a circle on one leg, while he chanted a magical spell. The special cover was being removed from the eye of Balar, and that tyrant was ready to turn his withering glance on the Tuatha Dé. Lugh immediately threw a stone from his sling and drove the eye to the back of Balar’s head, so that it was looking on the Fomhóire host. The Fomhóire were weakened, and they took to flight towards the sea.

The Daghdha recovered all the cattle which the Fomhóire had seized as tribute in Ireland, and the Mór-Ríoghain announced the great victory on hill-tops in all parts of the country.

Festivals

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:07:24 -0700

The structure of the ancient world revolved around seasonal quarters which divided the old Solar year and which are marked by the ‘Fire Festivals’. These fall on dates known as ‘Cross Quarter Days’ but assemblies also took place at the Solstices and Equinoxes.

The basic Celtic division of the year was into two parts, for which parts the term samonios (meaning ‘half’) was used.

The winter half was considered the beginning of the year, and the summer half the second part.

Thus the division in Ireland was held to be ‘from Samhain to Bealtaine, and form Bealtaine to Samhain’ – Samhain here meaning the beginning of November and Bealtaine meaning the beginning of May.

There were two further sub-divisions, beginning at Oímelg (1 February) and Lughnasa (1 August), so that the year was in effect divided into the standard four seasons.

At each of these four junctures, a festival was celebrated that involved an impressive amount of custom and lore. The festivals properly began at sunset on the day before the actual date, demonstrating the Celtic tendency to regard the night as preceding the day. This was in line with the dark half of the year preceding the bright half, and the whole complex of thought seems to have been a very ancient one, by which the living community showed the primacy of the dead ancestors (as represented by darkness) over the living community (represented by light).

There are many references to great gatherings of people at the Sacred Centres at the Fire Festivals and some are described as being massive events at which there were religious ceremonies, music, storytelling, poetry, and some sits were famous for match-making and the ‘marriages of a year and a day’.

These gatherings at the great assembly sites were mirrored by traditional festivals around the country when people hiked up the Holy Mountains, visited island sanctuaries on Sacred Lakes or gathered by certain Rivers or Holy Wells.

The great Festivals were regarded as high points of the seasonal year.