The Last Leprechaun
By Leonard Wibberley
First Published October 13, 1953
3/16/2016
Not much news comes out of the Republic of Ireland.
No doubt the Irish are capable of producing a hydrogen bomb as anyone else, but while the rest of the world has been busy with this kind of hellish work, the Irish have made a leprechaun.
Personally I think this is an improvement. I’d breathe a little more easily if the United States, Russia and the rest of them were pouring their money into secret leprechaun projects, designed to supply every home with a man who will bring them a pot of gold.
This leprechaun (the first, I believe, reported in the 20th century, which make leprechauns considerably rarer than flying saucers) is the sole property of Mrs. Cathleen Maguire of 228 Keeper Road, Crumlin, near Dublin. Mrs. Maguire found him in a mushroom in Phoenix-Park, Dublin, and if you’re inclined to disbelieve this because you’ve never found a leprechaun yourself, that’s your fault. You can’t find something you don’t believe exists, because even when you’ve found it, you don’t believe it’s there. Therein lies the whole secret of finding leprechauns, gnomes and suchlike. Sea serpents too. They’re all about the place though some people mistake them for grasshoppers or billy goats and there’s no hope for them.
Anyway, this is the way it was that Mrs. Maguire found the leprechaun, more famous now in Ireland than Malenkov, and with better reason.
She took the childer for an outing in Phoenix-Park and there the little gossoons found a cluster of mushrooms as big as Blarney Castle.
“Don’t lay your hand on a single once of them, Michael Maguire,” she said to her boy, “for there’s leprechauns in those mushrooms and the Little People are not to be disturbed.”
“Agaricus campestris,” replied Michael, who had been to school and bad cess to him. “Nothing but mushrooms, edible fungi that goes well with steak.” And with that he plucked up one of the mushrooms and flung it at the feet of his blanching mother.
There’s no record of whether the world shook at the moment for people are so busy these days they hardly notice such things. But Mrs. Maguire picked the pieces of the mushroom from the ground and there, in the heart of the stem, she found a leprechaun.
Dead, of course. Or stunned anyway, for the little man didn’t as much as move a hair of his eyelashes.
Now, as everybody knows, if you catch a leprechaun and hold him tightly by the scruff of his neck and shake him good and hard he’ll tell you where his crock of gold is hidden. But you have to make him take you to it, and you have to hold on to him while it’s being dug up, or maybe fetched out of a tree or a cow’s belly or wherever he has hidden it, for leprechauns are tricky creatures.
Mrs. Maguire, however, took hers home and perhaps gave it a nip of whisky to revive it for the Little Men has a weakness for spirits. Indeed, it is a well-known thing in Connemara that if you leave a crock of whisky on your doorstep at night, it will be gone in the morning, having been drunk by a leprechaun, though some say it’s the neighbors.
Be that as it may, Mrs. Maguire’s leprechaun couldn’t be revived and in the end she agreed to show the little man at an amusement center. Over 5000 people have already paid to see him, and there are plans now to bring him on a tour of England and the United States maybe.
I hope it can be done. I’d like to hear of the leprechaun arriving in New York on St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe there’s enough patriotism left in him to come back to life and take part in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. That would insure that there was one Irishman marching in the thing though he’d have a hard time of it not falling into the trolley tracks and being careful to keep from under the big feet of the Estonians, Turks, Englishmen and others taking part in the celebration.
(P.S. All those who have proof positive that leprechauns so not exist are invited to give a pint of blood to the Red Cross to ward off the bad luck attendant upon their incredulity.)
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In celebration of Saint Patrick's Day, the family has published the ebook of Leonard's leprechaun tale, McGillicuddy McGotham, which was both one his and his granddaughter Nora Maynard's favorite books.
DESCRIPTION:
From the bestselling author of The Mouse That Roared comes a witty tale of a leprechaun in New York. Timothy Patrick Fergus Kevin Sean Desmond McGillicuddy (for short) is a leprechaun diplomat on a mission to convince the President of the United States to halt the construction of a new U.S.-owned airport on a tract of Little People land in Ireland. With the belief "mischief is me nature" and the help of a 10-year-old American boy, he proves wee folk a big force to be reckoned with. This special 60th Anniversary edition features a new Introduction by Quentin Fottrell, memorabilia with Rosalind Russell, original cover art by Aldren A. Watson, and previously unpublished photos of the author.
A timeless classic, McGillicuddy McGotham will charm adults and young readers alike. Click here to find on Kindle.
