THE MAGIC OF IRELAND

Leprechauns and fairies in the land of literary giants.

300 year-old Henrietta Street in Dublin. Photo by William Murphy.

Once you navigate the accent, you’ll hear eloquent debates on literature and politics around the coffee shops and pubs of Dublin. It’s understandable that you’re in the hometown of Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, some of the greatest and most intellectual writers of all time.

Imagination blooms from these charming cobbled stone streets and out into the green hills of the countryside with dozens of medieval castles and steep cliffs looking out onto jagged rocky islands. Out in this expanse exists the legends of leprechauns and fairies.

The Cliffs of Moher. Photo by Christopher Lethbridge

You’ll see a few rainbows in this notoriously wet country but don’t go chasing the vicious leprechaun’s pot of gold. Fairies are said to protect the many stone ring forts left here from the Middle Ages.

One of the Many Ring Forts. Photo by West Lothian Archaeological Trust (Jim Knowles, Frank Scott and John Wells)

Though the forts, or what remains of them, are charming to look at, entering is said to lead to evil curses! On the other hand, a four-leaf clover would be a fortuitous souvenir from your trip.