On 17th March last the
worldʼs fi rst Leprechaun
Museum opened
in a former FÁS offi ce on Jervis
Street in Dublinʼs City centre.
The brainchild of Tom OʼRahilly,
a 43 year old NCAD trained furniture
designer, the museum was
conceived in 2003.

While most Irish people would
probably not be attracted to this
bit of ʻOirishryʼ it has to be admitted
that OʼRahilly did well to
wait for rents in the city centre to
drop suffi ciently low before renting
this prime piece of real estate
in Jervis Street. He now has a site
in Dublinʼs most visited tourist
area.

On entry to the museum, the
visitor is accompanied by a guide
through a series of rooms and corridors
giving the ultimate Leprechaun
experience. A long tunnel
is tapered and appears to shorten
the visitor to leprechaun size. One
room has giant chairs and a table
etc to maintain this illusion.
There is a room dedicated to
the Giantʼs Causeway, the County
Antrim hexagonal rock formation
said to be the best hunting place
for the little people.

A rainbow room leads on to
the proverbial crock of gold with
€250,000 worth of the yellow
lucre sitting in a pot. I hope he
recorded his attempts at getting
insurance quotes.

Another room tells the story of
The Children of Lir, with the floor
covered with a giant map marked
with mythological sites. Next, a
room with bronze walls bounces
with images, making you feel you
are inside a Neolithic site giving a
3-D effect.

The final room is the retail unit
which stocks ʻquality productsʼ,
according to Ciara Gogarty the
Development and Marketing
Manager. It has to be said that, on
the whole, the museum is a very
clever idea, well thought out and
executed with style and a sense of
humour.

The Leprechaun was said to
have lived in Ireland before the
Celts arrived. One third the size
of normal people, their main trade
was repairing shoes. They had the
ability to go from this world to the
next, and were known as tricksters
with an ability to expose the
human weaknesses of curiosity
and greed.

The origin of the word leprechaun
is not clear, some say it is
derived from leath the Irish for
half, and chorp the Latin word
for body… i.e ʻhalf bodyʼ, referring
to their size. It is also likely
to have come from leath and
preachan, the Irish word for a
crow. The crow, along with the
deer and the salmon, hold a huge
place in Irish folklore. The crow
was always known as a bit of a
trickster and a link between this
world and the next. Also, like the
jackdaw, the crow is attracted to
shiny objects like gold.

On Sunday 28th March last,
the medieval village of Carlingford
held its 20th anniversary
Leprechaun Hunt. Families came
from all over to search the Cooley
Mountains for the wee folk.
In December 1988 the original
clothes of the last known Leprechaun
were found in the ʻrushy
glensʼ of Slieve Foy mountain by
P.J. OʼHare, the local publican.
The clothes are on display in his
pub.

The tricky little sneaky people
who crave gold had Ireland in the
same dire straits in 1988 as they
do today. Maybe we should have
an economic meltdown interpretive
centre, with wax fi gures of
bankers, builders and the entire
cast freewheeling the country into
its present state, or forget the wax
and get them to do a daily re-enactment.
Admission priceless.
National Leprechaun Museum
1 Jervis Street, Dublin 1.
www.leprechaunmuseum.ie
Times: 9.30am to 6.15 pm
Entrance fee: €10 adults,
€7 children over 5.

Above: Albert Sharpe and Jimmy
OʼDea (the ʻleprechaun kingʼ
on right) from the 1959 fi lm ʻDarby
OʼGill And The Little Peopleʼ.