This land of ours, more than any other in the wide world can tell of fairy stories, we can point out “Fairy Thorn Bushes” to this day we can point out Fairy Thorns like the one at Hannastown in the picture left , “Fairy Hills” still exist in every townland. For Ireland besides being the Land of Saints and Scholars is the home of “The Good People”, The Fairies, Leprechauns...The Little People, and if you don’t believe in Leprechauns then I question your Irishness!
The fairy hill of my childhood lay where Springhill housing estate is built today, between, the then, Westrock Bungalows and Ballymurphy. The site of the actual hill I could pin point to this day, right below the altar of Corpus Christie Chapel and even though the chapel has been rebuilt, the altar still is where the hill roughly stood. Sure we know the fairies don’t take lightly to humans building on their hills or removing the fairy thorn, but they caused no fuss for they didn’t mind a chapel being built on it, after all they are Irish and couldn’t refuse a chapel of the National Faith.
At McCrory Park , nearby on the Whiterock Road, there too was a fairy hill until in the early 1970’s the British army built one of their temporary barracks there, well now, the fairies did not take that lightly at all, much to the annoyance of the foreign military garrison The barrack was surrounded by a huge tin fence and every now and then the whole fence would be tossed through the air as though by a hurricane, the wireless aerial would be violently bent and twisted as though a whirlwind had passed through the military base...all this when not even a gentle breeze was blowing. Before long even the military, that comes from a land where little knowledge of the little people exists even had to admit the possibility that they had indeed angered the little people by building; on the site of their hill and henceforth they skirted around the fairy hill and the mishaps ceased immediately. Now then, look me straight in the eyes and tell me that you don’t believe in fairies or leprechauns.
Whilst a child in the early 1950’s I often went with other children to try and catch a glimpse of the fairies at the Fairy hill at Ballymurphy. Before approaching the hill we would all lie flat on the grass and creep slowly and carefully towards the hill, for we were aware of how delicate these little creatures were and didn’t want to crush them under foot. The fairies we knew
were tiny and delicate, one could stand on a dew drop without bursting it. As we crept forward, our eyes level with the gentle swaying grass of the summer evening, we scanned the ground in front for signs of dancing fairies and
and listened carefully for their merry music. “Shh Shh”, each child would whisper now and then, the moonlight bright enough to show the children’s keen and anxious faces, for we were well versed in what to watch out for. We knew to expect to see a whole group of fairies dancing and singing, for anyone knows that fairies do not live on their own or in pairs, but In whole communities. We also knew there were good fairies and evil fairies, for what are fairies but angels who God put out of heaven for being mischievous. Some worse than others.. there were the evil fairies who God would never let back into heaven, well, the others were just like children who were bold and the gates of heaven would open to them when they learned to behave themselves, like a child sent to his bedroom and not allowed down until he learned the folly of his ways.
Every Irish person has seen the fairies in their lifetime, but sadly most often they are too young to remember, whenever you see a wee baby smiling in its sleep, you know it is being visited by the good fairies, any grandmother will tell you this, grandmothers have a way of knowing these things.
Leprechauns on the other hand are rarely seen and much less touched by humans, for everyone knows that if ever you could catch hold of a leprechaun, he’s duty bound to hand over his crock of gold to his captor, and so he is often a tricky wee character with special powers, he can even take the form of a human being when the need arises. For instance, when a mere mortal needs to be put in his place, like in the case of John Ferrin, a County Antrim man who of late was showing much greed and indifference to his poor neighbours and their children.. but let’s start at the beginning.
Many years ago in a village outside Belfast John Ferrin ran a public house, the only one for miles around and needless to say he had a captured market in the men of the area. The men, on their part couldn’t be gotten out of the pub, spending more time and much too much of their meagre wages on drink, resulting in dire poverty in their homes and, of course, when the wives remonstrated it brought anger from the drunken husbands. When the men would speak of this in the pub, the bold John would just laugh and encourage more drinking by even keeping his pub open past the legal opening hours. Whilst he was getting fatter and richer, the men’s poor families sunk lower in despair, but John turned a blind eye.
One night a stranger, a well-dressed man, entered the pub and produced a wad of banknotes that would choke a donkey and ordered drinks all round, for everyone in the pub, he did this all night. John’s greedy eyes were beaming, yet none of the men could get to spend their money, the stranger insisted that eyes lit up, for he had just paid and had delivered a huge stock of drink that same morning, he had spent every penny he had on the big delivery.
Anyway, the hours slipped by and the men poured the free drink down their throats and the free drinks kept coming, with the stranger passing handfuls of banknotes over to a delighted John who, in turn, stashed them in the till. Closing time came, John Ignored the legality and invited the men to stay for ‘after hours’ drink and the stranger kept paying. By 7.00 am there was not a drink left in the house and John’s till was full of money. “Now”, said the stranger, “John, check the money in your till”. Curious, John did so and was amazed to find dead leaves instead of paper money. The men were all suddenly stone sober, even though they had drank John out of stock and were surprised to find they still had their money in their pockets, and left to bring home their money to their wives and the stranger merely disappeared. Greedy John had no more drink, no money to buy more and went out of business and the villagers prospered.
Who was the stranger? sure well you know it was Sean the king of the Leprechauns, he had the taken the form of a human to undertake one of God’s little chores, so beware of greed and indifference, for he might visit YOU!