Irish name 1st female leprechaun

For 54 years as the band has blared the “Victory March” and the storied magic of Notre Dame football has played out, a leprechaun has wielded a shillelagh — leading cheers, pumping up the blue and gold with a legendary superstition the spirited elf brings magical powers and good luck to the team.

Known only as the Notre Dame leprechaun, he has always been a male.

Lynnette Wukie is not. And this season, she will be the first woman to don the green suit and Irish persona of glee for Notre Dame.

“Who says the Fighting Irish can’t fight like a girl?” Wukie, a sophomore from Ohio, said in her video application. “My rector told me, ‘Little girls are going to want to be you,’ so to be that role model for young women is really special.”

Wukie, along with two other leprechauns (Samuel Jackson and Conal Fagan), were announced by the university’s cheerleading program Tuesday for the 2019-20 school year.

In the university’s announcement of the three leprechauns, Wukie, who is majoring in film, television and theater with minors in business economics and musical theater, said she believed earning the spot was her “destiny.”

JEFF MYERS/FIGHTING IRISH MEDIA Lynnette Wukie is the first female leprechaun, and third African American, for Notre Dame. She said, “I think I hadn’t (yet) found that thing, like I wasn’t fulfilling my true purpose here to be that face and that role model, so when this opportunity came about I thought it was destiny. This is what I’m meant to be doing.”