Leprechauns and Irish Legends

It was time to commandeer a ship.

Moored in the River Liffey was a beautiful ship from the days of yore, full of cotton sails and rope, made of shining wood partially painted blue. 

 

“I’ve been practising my American accent,” Sophie said, as I craned my neck over Hannah’s head to look out of the bus window.  

I raised an eyebrow, turning back to her. “Why?”

“It’ll help, if we get into trouble.”

“How so?”

Jennifer leapt in on the conversation. “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse in England. You didn’t know about it? Oh well, too bad, come along now.”

“Stupidity is not a crime,” I said, remembering what an old friend of mine used to say. “But it’s best just to say ‘no hablo’ and run.”

“Let’s just blame it on the Americans,” Sophie said.

The bus started moving again, and we left the beautiful boat behind us. A few moments later we found ourselves in front of Trinity College, for the second time in our lives. Dublin was just as crowded as it was when we left. Almost immediately I found myself being swept away in the current, going this way and that.

“Come back!” Nikola, the RA, shouted. The seven of us turned back and managed to present ourselves before her. “This is Jaime. Jaime also wants to visit the Leprechaun Museum.”

She pushed a small blonde girl towards us.

“Okay,” we said, “but we’re going to Trinity College first.”

After grilling Jaime about her identity (American. From the south. Studying music at Queen’s for a year) and looking quickly at the Tour Buses, all of which cost 16 euro, we decided to foot it to the Leprechaun Museum, but took our first pit stop at Trinity College, which had the only free toilet for miles and also had a magnificent bookshop that Hannah and I had wanted to check out more thoroughly. On our last trip to Dublin we managed to see the Book of Kells about ten minutes before it closed, but we hadn’t been able to go through the bookshop properly. We each bought variants of the same things, and then headed out for a picnic lunch outside.

Jennifer had made sandwiches, as she had the day we climbed Cave Hill, Sophie had brought along boiled eggs, and Rebekah had made more cupcakes. We enjoyed eating what we had all brought, and I got to try animal crackers with chocolate on the back. While this is not unusual (we have these in America, after all, I’m certain of it) before I was allowed to eat any of the biscuits Victoria (who was sharing the bag with me) and I had to tell everyone the name of the animal featured on the biscuit and then imitate its call. In theory this is brilliant, until....

“Alligator?” I said doubtfully, holding up my biscuit.

“I think they hiss,” Jennifer said.

“They hiss,” Victoria said.

Both of them hissed.

“Clap,” Jaime and Rebekah said, holding out their hands and clapping, so that their hands looked like an alligator’s.

I clapped, and was allowed to eat the biscuit, but I was denied the right to eat the toucan for sounding more like a kookaburra and the monkey because I was not enthusiastic enough. 

 

After our picnic lunch, we left the part of Dublin with which I was familiar, crossed the River Liffey, and followed Rebekah and Jennifer to the Leprechaun Museum.

“How did you guys find out about it?” Jaime asked, jogging a little to keep up with everyone.

“Rebekah,” I told her, pointing at Rebekah, who stood out in her fabulous Harvey the Husky Hat. Rebekah raised her arms in triumph. This did not exactly answer the question, but we moved on. “How about you?”

“Huh?”

“Nikola said you wanted to see the Leprechaun Museum, too.”

“Oh, that? Not really. I think she just wanted to stick me with a group. Last time we went out I followed her everywhere, like a puppy.”

About that time Rebekah shouted that we were there, and we found ourselves in front of a street corner that read LEPRECHAUN MUSEUM. It was small, with fake green grass on the concrete, and looked, very worryingly, like a small child’s paradise. 

We love the Leprechaun Museum!

Sophie and Rebekah show off the museum!

“I’m so excited,” Jaime said, “I’m like a two-year-old at heart. Just to warn you.”

“We’re all two inside,” I said, and from then on Jaime was officially one of the group.

We bought our tickets, and I chatted with the man selling them. He was very friendly, and while his accent wasn’t Southern Irish or even what you would hear in movies, it had a pleasing lilt to it. Standing nearby was a short woman with mussed up rust-red hair, dressed in the part of a leprechaun. I wondered if she was hung over. As she talked to the ticket-seller, though, I realised that she was only exhausted; that morning a group of Swiss tourists had come by and she’d had to give the tour in German. I thought that this was absolutely amazing.

We started off the tour by talking about why leprechauns are so popular, and also why the Irish do not like them—yet, at the same time, dress up as leprechauns when they travel abroad to watch football games. I was reminded very strongly of the Harry Potter books, when the Weasleys take Harry out to see a professional Quidditch game and the leprechauns swoop around dropping false gold everywhere. Then our guide opened a hidden door and let us loose in a room full of giant furniture. 

 

Immediately the two-year-olds inside of us came out, along with the group of Continental tourists who were all much, much older than our little group of Queen’s students. We were all scrambling over drawers, chairs, and tables, taking pictures of everyone as a dwarf. Too soon, our guide came through a fireplace and told us to follow her for story time. I felt like a child again after recess, wishing it could have gone on forever.

We followed her into another dark room, where she told us about the mythical leprechaun gold, and then into another, with a screen depicting scenes from stories she told about leprechauns and Finn McCool, and then she led us into another room with a little fake well in it. After letting us drop in coins and making wishes, we sat down again on tree stumps and listened to her tell the story of the Children of Lir. 

 

It ended with a spot to take pictures, of which we took several, and then we went back onto the streets of Dublin. Coca-Cola was having a Christmas promotional deal, and we all got mini cans of free Coke, and sipping it happily we wound our way to the Temple Bar area for shopping, with me squealing every time I saw a tram pass by.

“Have you never seen a tram before?” Sophie asked, exasperated.

“No!”

“Rebekah,” Hannah said, “that’s what they were building in Edinburgh. Remember?”

“Yes, I know, but I thought they would be trolleys...”

“That’s what we call them in America, I think.”

I shook my head. “No, when I thought trolley, I thought of San Francisco trolleys...I don’t know. LOOK THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!” And another tram passed by, with a child on a bike holding on to the sides and getting a free ride to wherever he was going.

There were lots of stalls set up in the Temple Bar area, but I had no euros to spend—which was a good thing, or else I would have bought books I would not have been able to bring home. After realising that time was running short, we went back, crossed Bachelor’s Walk and River Liffey, visited a tourist shop, and then wandered down Grafton Street, which is a major shopping lane. 

 

Grafton was full to the brim. It was hard to keep track of all seven of us, and it was a task made harder by all of the events going on around us. One man was on a very tall unicycle, and there were three musicians playing tunes. There was even a group of six men painted all black, as if they were statues, with a little stuffed dog beside them.

 

By then it was late, and we went back to Trinity to meet the others. This was not well-organised, however, and involved all of us splitting up to run into different stores, buying more things, and then getting lost. At last, when the sky was a deep gray, we found Nikola, and we reunited with Mark and Manuel, the two boys who climbed Cave Hill with us two weeks ago. The buses were not there, however, and we ran around looking at more shops and then dashing across the road to rejoin the group.

Finally the coach arrived, and our group went around Trinity College towards Marrion Square, where Oscar Wilde’s home resides, and climbed back on the coach and started to drive home.

“We should have commandeered the ship,” one of us said sorrowfully as we again crossed the River.

“Next time,” was the reply.

I settled down against the window and looked out at Dublin. Last time I visited I had not been pleased with it, and found it dirty and boring, full of people who were irritable and mean. That had not been my impression today. Maybe it was because I had spent the day laughing with six amazing girls, or maybe, I thought, as we passed a beautiful display of lights, it was because nothing can look ugly at Christmas. Just like Belfast, Dublin was bedecked in blue lights and Christmas trees, with Santas on every street and Christmas music playing on intercoms. Settling in, snuggling under my coat and getting ready to nap for two hours, I thought drowsily that though I wouldn’t ever like to live in Dublin...maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad place to visit again...I had heard good things about their museum...and I had yet to really enter Oscar Wilde’s house...

“Hey,” Nikola said, startling me, “you girls be careful when you get back, all right?”

“Okay. Why?”

“They’ve closed down City Centre. No one’s getting in, or out.”

I blinked. Things had gotten that bad?

Earlier that morning, on the way to Dublin, Nikola had told us that there was to be a scheduled protest in City Centre over the taking down of the Union flag at City Hall. This has been a big deal for about a week, involving riots in the Holy Lands and in front of City Hall (which is annoying, as that is also where the Continental Market is being held), and also Cosmin and the others at iCafe telling us to please walk home in groups. Hannah had been very happy that we were travelling out of Belfast, and talking about how, on the day we were supposed to go to Dublin two weeks ago, there had been a protest there.

“God’s watching out for us!” she said, before we started to sing all of the riot songs we knew (‘Riot’ by Three Days Grace and ‘I Predict a Riot’ by Kaiser Chiefs).

“We want to go to Saint George’s tomorrow,” Hannah said, concerned. “Will it be safe?”

Nikola made a face. I knew what was going through her mind:

            Belfast is the second safest city in Europe!

            But we put up a peace wall just two years ago.

            Americans have nothing to fear, as they have no political affiliations!

            The boys in the front were caught up in riot acts yesterday.

“Yeah, it should be fine,” she said.

I cheered inside. I thought it would be fun to see a proper Belfast riot.

Two hours later, when we pulled into Belfast, I kept looking around for lights or the large police cars, but saw nothing. We were dropped off safely at Elms Village, bags of Christmas presents in our purses, tired in a good way, planning for finals and our hectic final week in Belfast.