Dietze, The Grafton Street Leprechaun

The main shopping center in Dublin, Grafton Street ranges from St. Stephen’s Green in the north to College Green in the south. You really can’t escape it. The street is filled with Celtic gift shops, pharmacies, fast food stops, and fashionable clothing for the young and old.  Street performers open their guitar cases like tiny coffins and beggars line the street pleading for your spare change. And within this convoluted chaos, you’ll find a leprechaun. This ‘leprechaun’ is dressed formally head to toe in proper leprechaun attire – green trousers with matching coat and top hat and a bright orange beard framing his tiny face.  The crowd gathers around to wait their turn to take a picture with the tiny fellow. 

  

{http://youtu.be/BkKd_RbspEs] 

Leprechauns historically, are known as shoemakers or craftsman, and being very skilled, made a lot of 'gold' and stored it into a black pot for safe keeping. Irish folklore suggests that these "pots of gold" were found at the end of a rainbow. These fellows were also known to be great lovers of music. W.B. Yeats once said, “because of their love of dancing they will constantly need shoes.” As legend goes, if someone was clever enough to capture one of these sly little fairies they must keep their eye fixated upon him or else he will vanish.  If you managed to keep him in your sight, he would grant you three wishes in return for his release.  This has also become ‘make a wish on a rainbow.' 


The Grafton Street leprechaun stuck with me. Partly because he creeped me out and partly because  any REAL leprechaun wouldn't be caught dead in the tourist trap of Grafton Street. A true leprechaun lives in the countryside in a tiny burrow made out of an oak tree beside a twinkling pond on a hill side... duh. My memory of the little green man was resurfaced one afternoon in Phoenix Park, north of the River Liffey. Walking out of the gates of the park, my departure was graced with a perfectly arched RAINBOW. There was no leprechaun in sight and the spectacle of lights vanished before I could even think of following it to any pot of gold. But I like to think thats where one belongs, not in a shopping area in the city. The Grafton Street leprechaun is a disgrace to real leprechauns everywhere.