Book 3 Humans and Druids The Last Leprechauns of Ireland

Book 3 is about the first humans coming to Ireland from Central Europe 10,000 years ago and the period up to the coming of Christianity as witnessed by the leprechauns.Ireland has been synonymous with Leprechauns as far back as anyone can remember. It was no surprise therefore when in 1989 a man from Carlingford Co. Louth informed the world that he had found the first authentic suit and bones of one of the little people on the Cooley mountains close to the Slate Rock and beside a Wishing Well on Foy mountain. Even more extraordinary were 4 gold coins in the pocket of the suit.The man P.J.O’ Hare didn’t realise at the time that they had been left there in an attempt to attract human kind to their desperate plight. They would need human help to survive. Millions of the little people had lived in Ireland from the beginning of time. Stories about them filled the pages of Irish folklore and beyond as long as people told stories but now they were a dying breed, only 236 survived in all of Ireland .They could not procreate as there are no female of the particular species. P.J. died not knowing why the artefacts were left where they were. The suit and bones remained in his pub on display after his time but no one knew the whereabouts of the gold coins.Four years after he died a disbelieving friend of his Kevin Woods was fixing a wall in Carlingford on Ghan Road and found a leather purse with 4 gold coins in it. There was a note with it from the deceased P.J. alerting the finder to the coins origins.Woods didn’t know it then but the coins would change the direction of his life. He would find out that each coin carried bestowed on him a particular gift. He would learn that one of them allowed him to hear see and communicate with the last remaining Leprechauns in Ireland. His first encounter with them was in 2003 when he happened across 3 of them sitting on a rock while walking his dog on the mountain. On this occasion he could see them but was transfixed as was the dog. He could not hear or communicate with them. They disappeared after some time below a rock.Nothing could have prepared him for what he had seen: He was elated. He told his story to anyone who would listen; undaunted by the ridicule of family neighbours and friends he set about to have the area under which they lived protected by the E.U under the European Habitats Directive which protects flora fauna and wild animals.Protection finally came in 2009 on the grounds that no one could say for certain whether the story was true or untrue but to be on the safe side the E.U commission came down on the side of protection.It was only then that Woods would finally meet see and communicate with the Elder or Clan leader of the 236 surviving Leprechauns: a man called Carraig who would relate to him the story of their lives from the beginning of time till today. Their story is told as a timeline of their witness to the changes in the geology mythology and social history of Ireland and the Cooley Peninsula in particular.Their story offers an insight into every story ever told about Leprechaun’s; it offers a rational explanation to the belief that there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow and dispels many of the untruths told about them.