Editor’s Note: This is a particularly interesting and little researched case. If any readers know something about the characters involved or can help us track down the original Irish reports…

While people all over the world have been thinking and talking of wars and rumors of wars the inhabitants of certain villages in West Limerick have been chiefly occupied in watching for fairies, according to reports from Dublin. Crowds are assembling in the evening at cross-roads hoping to catch a glimpse of the ‘good little people’; boys and men have chased the fairies, while a youth named Keely says he actually held a leprechaun by the hand. Old people shaking their heads said it was a ‘bad omen’ to see so many of the ‘little people’ at one time and in broad daylight, as well as in the evenings. Many people— especially girls— are afraid to go out after dark according to the story. Describing the strange occurrences an Irish newspaper says: ‘John Keely a schoolboy, seeing a fairy alone, ran and told the Mulqueens about It. They sent him back to interrogate the little visitor, who admitted to Keely that he ‘was from the mountains and it is all equal to you what my business is.’ Next day two fairies appeared at the cross-roads between Ballingarry and Kilfinney, six miles from Rathkeale, In daylight, with skipping ropes, and ‘they could leap the height of a man’ according to Robert and John Mulligan and other eye-witnesses. The little people allowed Keely to approach them and he actually took one of them by the hand and ‘set off along the road with him’ he said. (Anon, ‘Fairies Reported’, 1938)