Interview with an Irishman
For context, I work several days a week as a hiking guide for a fitness resort. Guests come and stay for a minimum of one week and hike each morning. One week in particular, I had the chance to hike with a man who’d been born and raised in Ireland. For the sake of this interview, we’ll call him Conner. Conner was born to Irish parents and lived in Ireland up until his twentieth birthday, at which point he moved to The United States.
The most interesting part of my discussions with Conner was his beliefs concerning the Irish fairies. If you ask him outright, he says “The whole thing is a bunch of nonsense if ya ask me.” Yet, if you talk to him longer, there are hints of belief hidden throughout his words. I spent several hours with him discussing fairies and though most of his thoughts were skeptical, he still admitted that strange things sometimes happened.
For example, we got upon the topic of a fairy mound that used to be located on his grandfather’s land. Fairy mounds are supposed to be the places where fairies live and to tread upon one uninvited is to incur the fairies wrath. Conner’s grandfather didn’t believe this, and he wanted to use the space for his farmland. His grandfather’s son, Conner’s father, was invited along to help clear the land.
Me: So they decided to remove it, even though they knew it was an ancient fairy mound?
Conner: Yes, but they didn’t believe in all that. My grandfather simply wanted to make use of his land.
Me: That’s a shame, though, isn’t it. Even if the mound wasn’t used by fairies, someone had to have built it, right?
Conner: Of course, if I remember from my school years it’d of been the Celtic tribes. They built stuff all over the country, most of it underground. My grandfather likely didn’t know that though, there was little more than superstition surrounding the mounds back then.
Me: What happened to the mound? Did they find anything inside?
Conner: Well, my grandfather invited my father down and they gathered a bunch of shovels and went to work. They’d only just started when they heard the angry voice of an old woman from down the way. When they turned to see who it was, they didn’t recognize her. They found it strange since they were surrounded by farms and knew every soul for miles.
“What do you think you’re doing!” the woman shouted, “don’t you know what that is? You’re not supposed to mess with the fairy mounds you know, you’ll upset the little people.”
My grandfather wasn’t sure what to do at first. He wasn’t about to give up his land because some lady held onto old superstitions. He and my father tried to console her and send her on her way, but she would not be dissuaded. Finally, they decided to ignore her and get back to work. She went quiet for a minute or two, then yelled one last time.
“Ah, you devils! Ruining the sacred mounds! I curse you that from this day on your eldest son be pained all his days, and may he never recover!”
Me: That’s crazy! Who was the oldest son?
Conner: That would be my father, and it gets better too. When my father finished work, he went home and felt a sharp pain in his knee so bad he couldn’t stand. By morning, he could walk again, but that pain never did go away. I don’t believe much in the fairies, but there’s no denying that curse worked.
In the conversations that followed, I found several more instances where Conner denied the existence of fairies, yet still seemed to have an air of curiosity concerning the matter. I can’t say for certain, as my sample size is limited to only one Irish man, but I get the feeling that this is a common occurrence in modern Irish people much as it is here in The United States. We don’t often admit the existence of ghosts and demons, but many of us hold a silent curiosity of our own. It’s in moments of intriguing circumstances, like when a lady curses your oldest son, that our doubt fades and our belief grows.
