School: Drumacoon (roll number 351)
- Location:
- Drumacoon, Co. Monaghan
- Teacher: P. Ó Grianáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0950, Page 355
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Drumacoon
- XML Page 355
- XML “Fairy Pipes”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- There are a lot of forts in County Monaghan and around these forts little pipes are found. Sometimes when men are ploughing in fields near these forts one or two of these pipes are turned up. They are little pipes about an inch long and a half an inch across. They have wee thin shanks about two and a half inches long. They are very peculiarly made little pipes.
My grandfather told me that when the Tuatha De Dananns were chased out of Ireland they turned into fairies and went in under these forts and used smoke these pipes. It is said that the smoke from their pipes cast a spell on anyone who chanced to stray across the fairies and disturb their revels. Other people say that when there was a plague that people smoke herbs in them to keep away the plague.
You would know by these pipes that they were not used for smoking because they are too small and there was no tobacco at that time. The people keep these little pipes known as fairy pipes.
