‘Moonlight around the thorn tree,
The little people play,
Men and women passing,
Turn their heads away,
But if your heart’s a child’s heart,
And if your eyes are clean,
You need never fear the thorn tree,
That grows beyond Clogheen.’
(Count John McCormack)

My favourite place has somewhat shifted down through the years. For example, when I was a teenager, my favourite place was my bedroom. It was a place of refuge, where law and order had no business being there.

As I got older, I sought new tenancy. This time my favourite place was a pub, any pub, as long as it offered reprieve from the Monday to Friday grind. In between all that, my other favourite places have included Copenhagen, (home to Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid) and Mary Grimley’s sweetshop.

These days, I have a new favourite place. It offers all of the above in one field, and it comes in the shape of a Fairy Tree. Fairy Trees defy law and order and are safeguarded against corruption.

There’s not a brown envelope in the Dáil cabinet big enough to pull these trees to ground. Even if planning permission were granted, no builder will uproot the tree for fear of its curse.

Oh scoff ye not. According to folklore these beautiful white-flower trees that stand brazenly in the middle of a field have bestowed bad fortune on those who dared to harm a single twig.

Unfortunately, Fairy Trees are a bit scarce round O’Connell Street, (though stranger things have been planted there) so I have to travel home to Monaghan to where there’s one just a few fields away from where I grew up.

My fascination with Fairy Trees began when my grandmother told me about the day she saw fairies dancing around a tree. It’s irrelevant to me that no tiny DNA prints were found at the site– the fact is it’s a lovely tale and given the amount of fantasy I’ve heard echoing from wooden pulpits, it’s a more credible one.

Each time I visit that tree, I hear my grandmother’s tale and again I feel the magic. The magic feeling lasts much longer than Mary Grimley’s gobstoppers and is more inebriating than any liqueur I’ve ever tasted.

I have learned to tap into that feeling whenever I find myself in bull-bait situations, like Tesco’s on a Saturday morning or aboard the No.18 on a Friday evening. Times like that, I truly wish I was ‘away with the fairies’.

Little tip. Keep your favourite place close to your heart. You’ll get there much quicker.

Above: ‘Fairies’ by J. Fitzgerald.