Haunted places · Forests, islands and abandoned places

The Latoon fairy bush that stopped a motorway

When: since May 1999 date from records made at the time
Where: Latoon near Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare, Ireland
Verdict: Disputed

In 1999 the storyteller Eddie Lenihan warned that felling a lone hawthorn for the Ennis bypass would anger the fairies. The bush was spared – and still grows today.

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52.79°, -8.92° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

The lone hawthorn in a field at Latoon in County Clare looked no different from thousands of other bushes along Irish field boundaries – except that, according to local tradition, it was the meeting place of the fairies of Munster, who gathered there before riding out to battle with the fairies of Connacht. The ghostly “Dead Hunt” was also said to pass through the spot. In spring 1999 the bush stood on the route of the planned Ennis bypass (later the M18 motorway) and was due to be cut down. The folklorist and storyteller Eddie Lenihan, who had spent years collecting tales in Clare, wrote to local radio, the Clare Champion and The Irish Times, warning that destroying the bush would bring misfortune and death to drivers on the new road. A local farmer told him about “lumps of green stuff” on the branches – the traces of fairy battles in the night. The New York Times picked up the letter, and crews from the BBC, CNN and French and Swedish television descended on Latoon. In May 1999 the road builders decided the bush would stay, and the route was taken past it. The hawthorn still grows beside the motorway, in the care of Clare County Council.

Witnesses

Eddie Lenihan and local farmers; The Irish Times, The New York Times and other media that covered the story in 1999; the National Roads Authority.

Explanations and hypotheses

The episode itself is well documented, but its interpretation is disputed: Lenihan and RTÉ speak of the road being “rerouted” around the bush, while others point out that the adjustment was minor and that the decision simply let the road builders avoid a row and bad press. Belief in fairy bushes and fairy forts that must not be disturbed is old in Ireland and widely recorded by folklorists – such bushes were left standing during ploughing and building for centuries. Latoon shows that in 1999 the tradition still carried real weight.

Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.

Sources

More: Wikipedia (en)