Denis O’Shaughnessy recalls a time when the fairies held up a Limerick housing development.

 

BAD press is nothing new to Limerick. Way back in 1952 when Ballynanty Beg municipal housing scheme was being built, a fairy fort brought construction to a halt. Workers refused to work on the site with the result that plans for the building of another thirty houses had to be shelved. The ensuing story that enfolded gave Paddy Whackery a bad name.

A short time before, the Irish News Agency was founded for the purpose of showing this country in a good light, and to give favourable viewpoints on matters of national importance. It brought the fairy fort story to world attention, but in such a manner that it went completely against the grain of what the Agency had been basically set up to do.
“The people of Limerick will not go within miles of the fort. Several of the bulldozer crew said they saw leprechauns making shoes there one night,” was typical of the statements purported to have been made by locals interviewed for the story.

Appalled at the Paddy Whackery nature of the article, Dubliner Deputy Sean Dunne took the Agency to task, raising the matter in the Dáil on March 11, 1952. Dunne read out examples from the story, quoting Corporation overseer John McNamara: “When Co. Clare workers were drafted in to build on the fort, strange things happened. They built a few house gables, but next morning not one of these gables was left standing.”
Dunne then quoted what city manager actually) was purported to have said: “If I have to get a gun to defend the fort, I will certainly do so.”

It got better. Local school teacher, Robert Cashin, was alleged to have said: “The fort is bounded by a number of fruit and nut trees. We ,were always warned not to touch them, but as a boy I remember a playmate of mine pulling some hazel nuts one day from one of the trees. He became a cripple for life.”

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