How the Fairies Came to Ireland

On my re-acquaintance with Darby O’Gill and the Good People

I first saw the Disney Movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People when I was six years old. All I remember is the “Coach of Death” with the headless coachman, and that it scared the stuffin’ out of me.

So, when I happened upon a paperback version of the original book in a thrift shop, I was much intrigued.

Written in the late 19th Century and first published in the U.S. in 1903, this is a set of stories about an Irishman of Tipperary and his adventures and misadventures with the fairies, aka the Little People or Good People. As a modern reader, you might have to work a wee bit, since the prose is written in a dense but charming Irish brogue.

The stories are outstanding, involving not only fairies, but ghosts, banshees and Irish country folk of strange and amusing manners. My favorite is the tale in which Brian O’Connor, the two-foot tall King of the Fairies, recounts how his people first came to dwell in Ireland.

The fairies, it seems, (and this matches Irish folklore I’ve read elsewhere) were originally angels in heaven. (But even then they were only two feet tall.) When Lucifer (aka “Old Nick”) led his rebellion against God, most of the angels took one side or the other. But not the faerie folk.

“I always belayved,” says the King, “one should not fight whin he’s sure to get hurted, onless it’s his juty to fight.” ¹

After the inevitable victory of God’s loyalists over the “Black Angels,” there comes a reckoning. Along comes the Angel Gabriel and upbraids the King for not standing up for the right side. But instead of sending the fairies to the bottomless pit, he decides to send them down to Earth, where they’ll be installing “human beans” pretty soon.

But then the Angel Michael happens by, and he thinks Gabriel is being too harsh:

“sure what harm or what hurt or what good could he have done us? And can you blame the poor little crachures for not interfering?”

Gabriel agrees he may have been too harsh. So he decides to let King Brian settle his people in any part of the world he chooses. He takes out his pencil and paper and lets the King order up whatever kind of humans he’d like to live among.

“Well,” says I, “I’d like the men honest and brave, and the women good.”

“Very well,” he says, writing it down. “I’ve got that—go on.”

“And I’d like them full of jollity and sport, fond of racing and singing and hunting and fighting, and all such innocent divarsions”

“You’ll have no complaint about that,” says he.

“And,” says I, “I’d like them poor and parsecuted, bekase when a man gets rich there’s no more fun in him.”

“Yes, I’ll fix that for you,” says Angel Gabriel writing.

“And I don’t want them to be Christians,” says I. “Make them Haythens or Pagans, for Christians are too much worried about the Day of Judgment.”

“Stop there! Say no more!” says the Saint.

The upshot being, King Brian gets most of what he asks for in specifying the people of Ireland, except that last part.

So matters were arranged. King Brian and his people stepped off the cliff and fell for two years and 26 days before reaching the world. Once there, they wandered around Europe a bit, some stopping in Spain or France. But most kept traveling until they came to “that lovely island that glimmered and laughed and sparkled in the middle of the say.”

And that is the true story of how the fairies came to Ireland.

By the way, you can still find the movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People on DVD or via download. I intend to watch it again as soon as I get up the courage. And by the way, by the way, when I looked this up, I was astonished to discover that one of the lead actors in the film was Sean Connery, just three years before he became famous as James Bond.

Source: movies.disney.com

So, I wonder: Was this just an odd coincidence, or another gift of the fairies?

1. All quotes from Darby O’Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh, edition published 1998 by One Faithful Harp publishing company.