The National Leprechaun Museum
Recently I visited the Leprechaun museum, based in Twilfit House, Jervis Street, alone and later on when I was given the task to review it I decided to kill two birds with one stone by bringing my little cousins along with their father and our grandmother to see if they would enjoy it. I wanted my cousins to learn more about our mythology, which is what this museum was intending to do, in a fun and creative manner that all ages can enjoy.
At the starting point we are placed in a small room full of intriguing items on display such as leprechaun memorabilia, photos of ruins, illustrations of mythology, poems(one of which is in mirror writing facing a convenient mirror wall) a box of lucky charms cereal, a copy of the horror movie ‘Leprechaun’, portrait photos of preservers of Irish mythology such as Yeats, Lady Gregory and Hyde, a leprechaun suit and screenshots from the Disney movie ‘Darby O’Gill and the little people’. Our enthusiastic tour guide explained that the stereotypical image of a leprechaun wearing green stems from the before mentioned Disney flick.
We then enter a dark hall via a secret door (one of my cousins opened it by giving it a little dance) to a magical tunnel that took us beneath the Giants Causeway and shrunk us to the size of a leprechaun. We entered into a room called “The Giants Room” which contained a giant table, giant seats and a giant fireplace.
We were admitted into the fireplace where we encountered a dark room called “The Map Room” with a luminescent model of the island of Ireland in the centre. Complete with mountains and animated fish wandering the waters surrounding the island. We all listened to narration explaining Irish folklore, pointing out important ancient Irish locations in Ireland’s history and mythology such as the Hill of Tara, Newgrange and Lough Derravaragh.
The adjoining room was a reconstruction of an old Irish cottage. Our guide asked us how many people would live in such a cottage to which my uncle exclaimed “13’” to which our guide agreed with him. They then explained to us the importance of the itinerant storyteller in Irish society before the populace became more literate. Afterwards we went through what was called “The Rainbow Passage” screaming “WEEEE”.
Our following location was a circular room with a pot of gold in the centre. Our guide told us how leprechauns earned their gold as cobblers and that usually they only play tricks to those who deserved it. Our guide related to us a story of how her friend had caught a leprechaun. The leprechaun guided her friend to a tree and her friend put a sock on one of the branches to mark it so as to dig it up tomorrow. The next day her friend returned with a shovel only to find that every tree in the area had a sock on its branches.
The final room was a reconstruction of a dark, sinister forest with a wishing well within it. Once seated our guide proceeded to tell us the joint stories of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his encounter with the Salmon of Knowledge and his fight with a hypnotist dragon. We then exited to a courtyard and a gift shop in which resided the giant doll Seamus the Leprechaun, which my cousins loved to bits.
Overall everyone, from my young cousins to my grandmother, enjoyed the museum greatly. I can certainly state that everyone, whether big into mythology or not, will enjoy and be glad to have experienced this tour.
The Leprechaun museum is opened 7 days a week from 10am-6:30 pm. Guided tours are exclusively in the English language. Each tour is around 45 minutes long and tickets for adults cost €16, students and seniors €14 and children €10.
