Hang a Left at the Fairy Tree

Photo: Belfast Telegraph

In 1968, a new road was being built between Rossnowlagh and Ballintra village. For most of the people in that part of County Donegal, the new road was a good thing – something that would help with the area’s growing tourist numbers.

But in Ballymagroarty Scotch they wanted it stopped. Why? Because right in the middle of the new road was a fairy tree. And though Daily Mirror journalist Michael Hellicar described it as a “gnarled, moss-covered whitethorn” that looked “no different from hundreds which are being hacked down to make way for the road,” the people of Bayymagroarty Scotch believed that the tree was special, and that to interfere with it was to court disaster – and even death.

For six months they protested to get the £100,000 (about £1.5m today, according to inflationtool.com) road diverted. But in October 1968, the problem resolved itself: the council could find no one to cut down the tree.

Roy Greene, the council’s “tree-felling contractor,” was the first to refuse.

“I don’t believe in fairies,” he said. “But it was tempting fate to ignore all the stories and beliefs that I have known since I was a boy. After all, there might be a grain of truth in it somewhere, and I’ve a wife and two sons to protect.

“The council were very understanding when I told them why I couldn’t cut the tree and that none of my men would do it either.”

Bob Harrison was another contractor who refused to cut it down. “I’m not saying I believe in fairies,” he said, “but there is something uncanny about that tree.”

That October, the council announced that the new road was to be diverted around the fairy thorn. They were reluctant, however, to admit why they had taken this decision. According to “county engineer” Maurice O’Connell: “We changed our minds, that’s all. The landscape would have looked bare without the tree.”

Whatever the reason for the decision, 65-year-old farmer Joe Walsh was delighted. “The fairies are good little folk who don’t normally cause trouble,” he said. “I was forced to sell the land for the road, but would they have understood that? I dread to think what might have happened to me if the tree had been cut.

“I’ve got another fairy tree behind my house. Once, after someone cut a branch to make way for a haystack, I lost thirty head of cattle, a sow and four horses.

“Call their deaths coincidence, if you like, but I couldn’t risk anything like that again.”

Source:

Daily Mirror, 21 October 1968