We may laugh at Healy-Rae... we won’t mess with the fairies
Even the National Roads Authority had to bow to the fairies in an area where you don’t cross the little ones
THIS week, a dip in a national road was blamed on the fairies by Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae.
And while that view didn’t find much support among his constituents, very few of them would admit to the Irish Mail on Sunday any desire to mess with a fairy fort.
The colourful independent TD suggested that the recurring dip in the N22 outside Killarney might be connected to the little people. He said: ‘There are numerous fairy forts in that area. Anyone that tampered with them back over the years paid a high price and had bad luck.’
The offhand remark raised eyebrows, but also distracted from a report on the same day that Mr Healy-Rae, along with his brother and fellow TD Michael, had earned €8.7m in State and county council contracts since 1999.
Danny Healy-Rae’s company, Healy-Rae Plant Hire, received more than €7m from Kerry County Council to provide machinery for roadworks and over €1.6m from Irish Water, the Irish Times reported. But his reference to fairies also drew on an ancient Irish superstition that still runs deep in many parts of the country – even people who don’t believe in fairies say they’d go out of their way to avoid disturbing a ring fort.
‘If you interfere with fairies in any way, bad luck, misfortune or death will befall you,’ said DB O’Connor a storyteller and operator of the Killarney Ghost Tour.
The list of fairy fort links to high-profile public life is long. The ill-fated DeLorean car factory was built on a fairy site.
Seán Quinn’s fall from grace is attributed, by some in Cavan, to his moving of a megalithic burial tomb to the grounds of his now former hotel, the Slieve Russell.
In Killarney, a local plastics company constructed its new factory around a ring fort, leaving it undisturbed.
O’Connor said: ‘The mother of the owners warned them never to build on the ring fort, so they built it around it.
‘These are very progressive modern people, they’re running a multinational European business and they’re very well-educated men – that ring fort is still there. And they’re highly successful.’
It has led O’Connor to be mindful when dealing with the unknown.
‘I don’t believe in them, but they’re there. I wouldn’t touch a ring fort for love or money. Definitely not.’
There are about 40,000 intact forts around the country but many more have been destroyed. They are said to be used as portals for fairies to enter our world. A fairy path is a straight line between two forts. ‘A lot of these stories were to do with things that we can now explain logically,’ said O’Connor.
‘The mythical origins of the fairies roughly correspond with the coming of the Iron Age and Bronze Age. The ring forts were originally built settlements.
‘But over time, people forgot what they were about and the fairies were a way of explaining them.’
Driving out of Killarney on the N22, it’s easy to miss the famed dip of about four by four meters. There is a yellow warning sign and the headlights of the cars on the other side dip down a bit.
The N22 was built in the 1980s and the dip has recurred several times, despite maintenance works.
The subsidence is likely due to underlying ground settlement, says Kerry County Council.
But the exact cause is still being investigated and maintenance works won’t begin until after the peak tourist season has ended.
Just off the road and up the hill is Kennedy Pet Farms. The place is abuzz with children playing with hens, goats and exploring the little fairy trail at the back of the farm.
Local girl Emily Savage, aged five, peered curiously at the little doors and houses while her father Conor looked on.
Jerry Kennedy, who runs it, said: ‘Danny Healy-Rae’s explanation was interesting. I suppose a lot of engineers couldn’t figure it out. If you can’t figure out something, you might as well put in the fairies.’
A fairy bush in a ring fort near Dromoland, Co. Clare, made the headlines back in 2000, when seanchaí Eddie Lenihan campaigned to have the planned Limerick-Galway motorway re-routed, so it wouldn’t pass through a fairy bush.
The ring fort is said to be where
‘I wouldn’t touch a ring fort for love or money’
fairies from Connacht meet before heading south to battle the fairies of Munster.
Lenihan recalled: ‘When I saw the builders with the yellow hats I talked to them about it. And I said: ‘If that bush is disturbed, there’s going to be trouble.’
He got in touch with the local papers and radio station.
However, it was when a correspondent from the New York Times reported the issue that the story became international.
Broadcasters and newspapers from all over the world talked about fairies getting in the way of motorway construction in Ireland.
The National Roads Authority had the gaze of the international media upon it and agreed to re-route.
‘They actually moved the entire motorway, which cost them millions,’ said O’Connor.
Ray O’Sullivan a local seanchaí from Killarney, said: ‘There are lots of fairy forts around there. And people of the land and the area wouldn’t ever dream of damaging or desecrating these places.
‘But the problem with building a new road is that if the engineer maybe is not from the area, they might go over a fairy fort or a through a fairy tree and the result is not good, unfortunately.’
‘If that bush is disturbed, there will be trouble’
He explained that many people had now lost the respect for the folklore and were unwittingly putting themselves in danger by disturbing fairy sites.
He is 100% in agreement with Danny Healy-Rae’s statement.
Lenihan said that his reaction to Healy-Rae’s statement was mixed:
‘You know when you hear a politician talking you think: “Is this a politician trying to get publicity?” Especially with the Healy-Raes.
‘But in the background of it, they are well-versed in their own constituency. They know it back to front. And they would know about these things.
‘I used to laugh at them, being a Kerry person myself – but I don’t laugh at them any more.’