ON THE FAIRY TRAIL

Picture, if you will, a typical, greying, damp Irish afternoon; the light is dimly fading long before sunset.  Blurred by the drizzle and assiduous mist the rolling hills of a dozen shades of green and grey merge into one another on a smudged horizon.  The perpetual slate grey of afternoon twilight steadily turns to night through the soft steady mizzle. 

How your cheeks tingle with the welcome heat when you come inside, and the benign fuzziness that lingers at your temples after two or three pints.  The dulcet tones of the bodhrán or the fiddle, that ebb and flow to the percussion of the rain against the windows, the sweet, musky smell of freshly burnt peat, the melodious lilt of the tale-tellers and the genial grins of the gathered, glowing in anticipation of story and song.

Late into the evening magic and myth mingles as locals tell of enchantment and legend.  On a dank, dark night anything is possible, on this beautiful, beguiling isle and the lines blur and fade between fact and fiction, fable and folklore.

But, in the sober, clear light of day, just ask any Irish person and they’ll tell you frankly about the fairies that live nearby and how you can go about seeing them and where they live. 

Ireland is unique in the world, in that our fairies live happily amongst us.  This has been the case for millennia, and generations of Irish children have grown up used to the fact that fairies are never far away.

Fairies are notorious for their impish, mischievous and, sometimes, downright malicious behaviour.  Fortunately, over the centuries humans and fairies have formed an improved understanding of one another and nowadays live alongside one another without incident.

Or mostly without incident. 

In 2007 it was reported in a local newspaper in Sligo that fairies were responsible for problems with a number of electricity poles.  The electricity company was called to re-erect the fallen poles only for them to fall again a few days later.  Irish people have developed ways of tolerating bothersome fairy behaviour by mostly leaving fairies and their home alone.  Several motorway construction projects have been diverted, at considerable cost, so that fairy places can remain undisturbed.  Engineers and road planners that have ignored locals’ warnings and built roads over fairy forts and through well-known fairy territory have had terrible luck befall their projects, from breakdown of machinery to illness and accidents among workers.

Earlier this year (2017) if was reported by the national press that during a debate in The Dáil (Irish Parliament) on Public Works & Road's Maintenance, a well known politician from Kerry stated to the house that there was no point in repairing some of the potholes on Kerry's notoriously bad roads because the fairies would just dig them up again.

I kid you not.

Fairies, or ‘faery’, as they are sometimes called in Ireland to distinguish them from the benign fairies of fairy-tales that you may be more familiar with, are the descendants of an ancient tribe who lived in Ireland and were driven into hiding more than two thousand years ago by Mesolithic hunter gatherers who invaded Ireland from Iberia.

For centuries humans were fearful of fairies, particularly in rural areas where, presumably emboldened by their bucolic environment and sheer  numbers of their own kind, there are many more instances of fairies causing disruption to humans (and also to domestic livestock) than in built up areas.

Fairies are more at home in the country side, where they have adapted to their environment skilfully and have developed their concealment down to fine art, holding an enormous advantage over humans.  There are fewer instances of fairies in urban areas, although they have been known to live in people’s back gardens and along verges and in hedges.  The presence of sniffing dogs, curious cats and nosey children puts fairies off living in densely populated areas.

A better understanding and increased study of fairies in modern times has fortunately led to a decline in the harm caused by fairies towards humans.  For many years, and up until as recently as the turn of the twentieth century, Irish families were terrified of fairy ‘changelings’.  This is when an ailing or debilitated fairy is swapped with a human child.  The child’s family notice a sudden, and significant, change in their baby’s nature or health.  The fairy changeling, is often sickly and dies soon after it has been placed with stolen baby’s human family.  Fairies prefer to take boy babies as changelings, and years ago a custom began of dressing baby boys up as girls.  

There are a number of early photographs of Irish families in the nineteenth century depicting young boys with long hair, wearing girls’ clothes, and to all intents and purposes looking like daughters, in order to fool and confuse the fairies.  A well-known example can be seen in a photograph in of the O’Connell family at Derrynane House in Kerry(www.heritageireland.ie/en/derrynanehouse/), Daniel, who went on to play a high profile political role in the quest for Catholic Emancipation, is clearly dressed as a girl in a dress with flowing locks.

Fairies are still prolific in Kerry and a walking through Derrynane woods, if you look carefully, especially at the base of mature trees, you may catch glimpses of little fairy houses.  Locals keep the fairies happy by regularly placing coins and tiny edible treats next to the houses.

Although Irish people tend to leave fairies alone, as interference always comes at a price, making in-depth study into fairy anthropology tricky, it is clear that fairy communities have a complex cultural and social organisation, and, and that their houses are linked, country-wide, by a sophisticated network of underground tunnels, although few humans have had first-hand acquaintance with these elusive, yet meddlesome creatures.

As well as the Derrynane Woods on the Ring of Kerry, there are dozens of places all over Ireland where you can explore fairy trails.  Also in Kerry, there’s a fairy trail at the Parknasilla Resort near Sneem. Fairy houses have been seen in Rineen Woods, near Union Hall in West Cork, as well as Lough Rea in Galway, Corkagh Park andTyman Park in Dublin, Templemore Park in Tipperary and Wells House and Garden in Wexford which are just some of the better-known places where fairies tolerate human visitors.

Since the year 2000 and the Celtic Tiger there have been many fairy families made homeless by the increased development and urbanisation in Ireland.  A country-wide campaign has gathered pace in the past few years to rehome fairies.  People are being encouraged to build fairy houses in a quiet part of their garden which can be appropriated and dwelt in by fairies.  To help people construct their fairy houses the Irish Fairy Door Company supplies essential building materials for fairy houses (www.theirishfairydoorcompany.com). 

By all means get a little nearer to fairy land during your time in Ireland.  Although their houses are easily spotted, fairies themselves are often hard to see.  Animals and children are usually able to see them more easily.  Often your dog will bark for no apparent reason. More often than not it’s because he’s sensed or even seen a fairy nearby.  Surveys amongst those who have explored Ireland’s fairy trails show that there’s a much higher incidence of children making contact with fairies than adults.  The likelihood of seeing fairies seems to decrease with age and it would appear that children between the ages of two and five are the most adept at recognising fairies.

If you do come across fairies while you are in Ireland treat them with respect, elicit their favour by leaving small but useful gifts outside their houses, don’t incur the fairy fraternity’s displeasure by interfering with where they live or allowing your children or pets too close. 

Dismiss them at your peril.

For more information on how to find fairies have a look at www.awaywiththefairies.ie and www.irishfairytrails.com.