Irish People TERRIFIED of Fairies | Televised Éireann

[Music] in irish folklore fairies are believed to be the descendants of one of the first tribes to arrive in ireland they're a race of beings with magical powers but when they were defeated in battle against other tribes they were forced to live in secrecy traditionally irish people believe the fairies live in secluded spots in nature making their dwellings and hawthorne trees or circular embankments known as fairy forts according to this tradition you must never interfere with these dwellings lest you incur the wrath of the fairies who will use their magic to put a curse on you nowadays of course the vast majority of us have institutional education and access to the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips and we don't rely on storytelling quite so much for information we now know those strange circular embankments are the remains of prehistoric ring forts from the iron age and not forts created by magical beings as such there are few people who still believe in the existence of fairies as you can imagine but not too long ago there were quite a number of people who weren't taking any chances when it came to the fairies take this fella interviewed in 1983 who is convinced that the lone tree on his land belongs to fairies and when it falls he will die so he's taken to building supports for the thing well it's a fairy tree there's another tradition do you see that it was ma said on the the thymus was in the final things and uh i and i i wanted to keep it up on that but i had another bigger reason for keeping it up there were six families the sweeneys in this place and there's another tradition that when the bush had falled the last of them a day well they happened to be the last member now with the family and i could be 14 or 20 and if the bush failed to be dead in the weekend regarding took no chances and so i'm propping it up when i every storm that comes i don't vote taking the wires and i'm afraid of my life now as an irish person i'll do my best to put subtitles for those of you who might be hard-pressed to understand the accent but [ __ ] me if i'm not hard-pressed to understand some of this myself and i just want to get another few years old with the [ __ ] it's beginning to get choked as well as me said you see and don't know dolan was telling me and he threatened me more he was down in cherry and this old man came in and he says are you mr donovan andre they are misses and tell me that sweeney man up and lawful did that bush fall through the day oh god he says it'd be that new and god has the four man he says how does he sleep with a white nation if we met the dead no suffering again he's expecting every morning to go and he had only a week to live it says he has that one prompt it doesn't know about what he has done if the spell is on a little fall oh my god that's the end of him it might just be me but i think he looks a bit like eustace from courage the cowardly dog the interviewer then suggests that mr sweeney could avoid the curse by making sure he is no longer the last of his family there is a way that you could solve that problem and that is if you decided to take on to yourself a wife and procreated as you might say the only thing you can do so is still do it well are you going to stay well they don't know but sure they said it says oliver goldsmith there still have hopes me lettuce that was too crowned amid the muddy's bliss said lie down maybe i don't know but so you could never know what happened the fairies might work something for me well god said they could keep me young keep you young oh no that's i'm not answering you that one because they're still on the lookout for my bachelor mr sweeney also possesses a personal pet peeve of mine that's fairly common to irish people particularly up here in dublin and that's adding syllables to words although i will admit it's a lot more charming in his accent they cut off the heavy bits to keep it not to be over top heavy because they want to preserve it as long as they can i don't want to prepare to go or no one here these days anyway i don't want to go even if the weather is body said and what's the worst kind of weather jim though a stardom a storm or stardom to blow it down an old stardom could blow down that tree by god and poor sweeney be in the ground not a week later god help him come on we'll have a look at the tree i must say no it looks solid enough like i don't think that'll come down to it he's not gonna knock it down on top of me what what she had knocked the whole thing down oh sorry god should run out of shaking did you feel this i don't want you to fall off did you feel [Music] oh yeah so you believe you'll die if this tree falls over did you [ __ ] break overall i quite enjoyed that he seemed like a nice old fella he believes in fairies but sure look there's no harm in that but if that clip wasn't quite as strange or quirky as you were hoping well worry not because this next one is something else in this clip from 1966 a worker from cork's stockyard tim hayes wishes to be buried alive in a fairy fort tim why do you want to go down in a fairy fort i just want to proof to the whole world that there's no such a thing as a theory you're a man who obviously doesn't believe i don't believe in fairies although i have been warned by several people not to cut down but even to go near the fairy thought in fact i had a letter from a widow from douglas and carr last night and she said she saw a fairly tough two years ago and she ended ours look since i think that's only on the show you're not going to take any notice we're not going to take any notices of us but you see there are a lot of people like that with a woman you were talking about who who do honestly believe in this isn't that so what definitely in fact my mother believed in this and my uncles and all down outside middleton there's a few fairy thoughts and they wouldn't even go up around us unfortunately for tim in the town where he desires to be buried none of the local people will help him dig the grave as i mentioned it's bad luck to interfere with the fairies lands and so tim and whoever else helps them can probably expect a curse i'm a poor man and i wants money the worst way and i'll tell you the thought if you give me a thousand pound tomorrow morning i wouldn't take a spit with a spade here well what about what about the fairy field now where they've changed it too the fairy field and the raheem is all the same to me i wouldn't meddle with it and god between us and all harm i don't want to see anyone around here meddling with us that with that enchanted place peter bryan isn't alone in his fear of the power of the wee people i have to say i'm quite a fan of this fellow i love this characterization of himself he's a poor man who wants money in the worst way what sort of desperate and dastardly man is this but even he won't go near that [ __ ] fairy fort i can only assume he's had a prior bad experience where the fairies cursed him to emote like a jim henson puppet for all eternity thankfully tim is able to get help from out of town and he's soon buried in a coffin with a few supplies and a phone line to the surface to keep him occupied the whole thing seems to be an effort to break some sort of record but i don't have full context for the clip so i couldn't be sure on exactly what he's trying to achieve but regardless seems like he's intent on staying in that coffin for quite a while well he went down on christmas day soon after he had had his talkie in plum pudding dinner there were many in ballymore to see him buried for them it was a christmas devotion and they didn't expect him to last longer than a few hours but he stayed down linked by a phone and alarm system in a coffin that allowed him space to maneuver he read by torch a couple of books like the beautiful coffin and dracula and enjoyed himself tim are you happy down there tell me what does it feel to be down there with people talking to you from the surface boy lovely i'm that happy now if they put a cops in alongside me it wouldn't worry me any feeling of loneliness nor not a bit in the world what about claustrophobia tim does this warrior no no never did tim one of the things you told newsbeat earlier was that you were looking forward to the sound of the earth and the stones hitting the coffin as they buried you did you find that this was quite as pleasant as you expected oh yes i was looking forward to it it was it was lovely to hear it pumping off with the lid tim's a bit peculiar isn't he it seems like there's some sort of deep psychological thing going on here in his fascination with being buried i honestly think the people who are afraid of disturbing the fairies are less strange than him by the time the existing record of 100 hours had been equaled there were thousands in ballymore to applaud the achievement i thought that chap was only a child until the camera zoomed out and now i don't know what to think well what does tim's mother think it's been a terrible hard deal and i have died a hundred dates since tim she went down but still i'm very happy with the committee he's got because they've looked after him wonderful and i think they're marvelous and there's great credit due to him did you ever try and put tim off going down the street when first i did i thought you know it was a bit of a wild idea but then when i knew he was so secure and every precaution was taken for his good and benefit i was very happy about it and how do you feel about him tonight are you proud of him oh i'm very proud of him very proud of me i think he's marvelous really marvelous and all i'm long enough to see well that took a [ __ ] turn i have died 100 deaths since my only begotten son clambered into that coffin stricken with fear i have suffered in the shadow of grief fearing that some mishap may claim his life or his folly may have caused offence to the mystical beings of the other world who in anger may put upon him a hex for the rest of his days on this mortal coil but yes uh the whole event's been fantastic and really i couldn't complain with the record broken all that's left is to get him out of there hello i'm sure he wouldn't mind if you just left him [Applause] [Music] that was about 90 degrees did you ever feel that you'd have to give up the attempt no no i know what the division would settle that what about the feeling of claustrophobia tim did this warrior it never did what were you thinking about most down there tim oh when i was away at sea and that's my school days and and uh both friends that was friends that were dead what were you thinking oh this must have been what they were up to the last few years you said before going down that you were doing this in the interest of research and science yeah any tests in fact carried out on you while you were down there no no well has it all been worth it from your point of view or twas yes would you do it again i would just i'd go down away again for another 100 hours if they left me well already they've been there there are other people talking of breaking the record um how do you feel about this you can have a go and i'll try again you're quite confident about it and there the clip ends it sounds like a fight or something was breaking out above ground it's a shame i don't have any follow-up on tim how was his life after disturbing the fairy fort maybe he dropped dead not long after this event sure obviously wouldn't have bothered him [Music] and that concludes our look at fairies and the people who believe and don't believe in them if irish folklore is something that interests you there are still a few select people who still believe in fairies and can show you around these sites and tell you stories particularly in the more rural west of ireland so if you're ever planning on coming over for a visit a quick google search can probably direct you to these places if you're so inclined and if you won't be over anytime soon but you still want to find out a little bit more there's plenty of content on youtube of people showing off these places and talking about them and if you want to see the original clips i used in this video in their entirety without some fat gaps i talking over them i'll put the links in the description that's all for now but do join me next time as i take a look at more strange and bizarre occurrences that were broadcast on irish tv cheers [Music] you

Channel: Qxir

Views: 565,638

Keywords: ireland, irish, fairies, faeries, fairy, faery, fae, fort, tree, footage, interview, rath, explained, mythology, folklore, funny, qxir

Id: 80PvtSId9DU

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021