Ireland's Last Leprechauns: The Bizarre Story of a Green Suit, Gold Coins and a Chance Discovery Made in 1989

  Known for its narrow lanes and small streets with an enormous castle erected in the early 13th century by England’s King John overlooking its Harbor the town of Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland still retains a medieval feel.  

Not only is Carlingford home to King John’s Castle but the town also possesses part of its original town wall from the early Middle Ages called, “The Tholsel”.  The Tholsel is a structure that  may be one of history’s last surviving examples of an intact medieval jail.  Carlingford is also home to a fortified 16th century townhouse called  the Carlingford Mint which is now considered a National Irish Monument and stands as a testament to Ireland’s long, troubled and enduring history.

The Carlingford Mint

Carlingford is a coastal town.  Its name derives from an Old Norse word that literally translates to, “narrow sea-inlet of the hag” and today a majority of the town’s residents are employed in seafaring occupations most notably oyster farming and fishing.

Situated on the southern shore of a fjord, a mountain called Slieve Foy in Gaelic, sometimes simply referred to as Carlingford Mountain, rises nearly 2,000 feet high just to the west of town and is one of the highest peaks in all of Ireland.

View of Carlingford with Slieve Foy in Background

In 1989 local Carlingford resident and pub owner, P.J. O’Hare was tending the garden outside his home at the foot of Slieve Foy Mountain when he heard a loud high pitched scream like that of a terrified child.

Alarmed by the scream Mr. O’Hare rushed up the mountainside to investigate.  After ascending Slieve Foy Mountain for several hundred feet O’Hare came upon a cavern in the side of the mountain, the site of a freshwater spring, that had once been used as a well by the residents of Carlingford.

 When he stepped inside the cavern P.J. O’Hare came upon something truly amazing.  At the edge of the cavern Mr. O’Hare discovered a small patch of scorched earth that contained tiny charred human bones surrounded by a green suit and hat.  Inside the pockets of the green suit next to the tiny body which appeared to have spontaneously combusted were four gold coins.

Convinced that he had stumbled upon the corpse of a real, although incinerated leprechaun, O’Hare rushed down the side of the mountain and (in good Irish form) went straight to the pub he owned in Carlingford.

Once there he told his friend, local amateur historian and researcher, Kevin Woods that he believed he had just discovered the remains of a real life leprechaun.

“You’re mad,” Woods insisted, but he agreed to head up the side of Slieve Foy Mountain to the cavern to investigate what his friend had found.

Sure enough, once inside the cavern, the two men came across the same small patch of scorched earth, green suit and tiny human bones that O’Hare had first come upon only hours before.

Amazed the two men grabbed the suit, the bones and the four gold coins and brought them down the side of the mountain where they displayed them inside a glass case at O’Hare’s pub.

Pub owner P.J. O'Hare with the Green Suit

The residents of Carlingford were divided over what the two men had found and debate about the so-called discovery of the remains of a “real” leprechaun was fierce.  Some said that the whole thing was a simple hoax concocted by the two men on a whim after drinking too many pints of Guinness.  Some insisted that both O’Hare and Woods were nothing more than profit seeking hoaxters.  However, some who over the years had reported to have heard strange screams and high pitched singing coming from the peaks of Slieve Foy were fervent believers in the veracity of the leprechaun remains.

Some believe that the reason we no longer see leprechauns today is that the species is, in fact, endangered, but that at one time the small green (and sometimes red!) clad trickster fairies were common throughout all of Ireland before being hunted and driven nearly extinct after Ireland’s conversion to Christianity in the 5th and 6th centuries.

One of the tragic features of leprechauns in folklore is that the creatures’ thirst for gold, riches and precious jewels drives them into close contact with humans, who are fearful and often consider leprechauns to be Satanic thieves, and therefore hunt and kill them despite the leprechauns best efforts to outsmart their human adversaries.

Given the leprechaun’s dual thirst for treasure but wish to remain hidden from human eyes by staying underground and only coming out at night, a wealthy medieval city sitting at the edge of a foreboding and uninhabited mountain range such as Carlingford would be an ideal habitat for the diminutive faerie species.

Believers assert that only around 200 leprechauns remain alive today and thanks in large part to the discovery made by O’Hare and Woods on the slope of Carlingford the European Union has actually, and officially, declared the area around Carlingford and Slieve Foy Mountain to be a “Protected Habitat” because it may be home to Ireland’s last surviving leprechauns!  

This is true...not fiction.  Though, whether leprechauns exist, or ever actually existed for that matter well...back in 1989, led by Woods and O’Hare the townspeople of Carlingford organized the first ever leprechaun hunt in history.

Woods and O’Hare, certain of the veracity of what they had found, led dozens of residents on countless hours-long searches of Slieve Foy Mountain and the countryside around Carlingford, seeking further evidence for the possible existence of leprechauns.

Unfortunately, after months of searching and thousands of man hours, the leprechaun hunters, led by Woods and O’Hare, came up empty and were unable to find any further evidence to support the existence of leprechauns.

The small green suit, charred bones and four gold coins remained on display in a glass case at P.J. O’Hare’s pub, but after 1989 most people in and around Carlingford gave up the hunt for real-life leprechauns, and simply started to find the whole thing rather amusing.

Most people that is, but not Kevin Woods.  After being a sceptic at first, once Woods saw the green suit, charred bones and gold coins that his friend P.J. O’Hare first stumbled upon he became a fervent believer in the reality of the leprechaun species as he likes to call it.

Undeterred, Woods kept up the search for many years, and in 2002 he made another discovery that left all of Ireland both baffled and amazed.  

Near a stone wall on a pathway just outside of Carlingford called Ghan Road, Woods came across a small bag of gold coins.  Right away, many said that Woods had planted the coins there himself, seeking publicity and notoriety.

He may have.  

Today, Kevin Woods is known as the self-proclaimed last “Leprechaun Whisperer” of Ireland and he claims to regularly communicate with Ireland’s remaining 236 leprechaun survivors through an entity called “Carraig” which he asserts is the elder of all the remaining leprechauns.

Kevin Woods Ireland's Last Leprechaun Whisperer

Still, though Mr. Woods' grip on reality may have slipped somewhat over the years, it still does not explain how he ever came across solid gold coins of early medieval origin or why tiny human bones and an old green suit ever appeared hidden away in a cavern on the side of Carlingford Mountain in the first place.

Today, Carlingford itself is home to a quaint, albeit somewhat thriving tourist industry as the supposed “Home of Ireland’s Last Leprechaun”.  Thanks to the work of the residents of Carlingford leprechauns are, truthfully, on the EU’s list of endangered/threatened species and Kevin Woods still holds the title of the world’s last “Leprechaun Whisperer” while P.J. O’Hare, the man who started it all, simply continues to run his pub with the leprechaun bones and suit on display in a glass case where he urges people from around the world to, “Come to P.J. O’Hare’s Pub and see the world famous leprechaun bones.”

P.J. O'Hare Pub in Carlingford

Each year the residents of Carlingford still conduct a “Leprechaun Hunt” partly to commemorate the bizarre events that occurred there in 1989, partly out of sheer fun and partly, I’m sure, to find one more piece of evidence to confirm the nagging suspicion that many of us have that perhaps, just maybe, leprechauns might somehow be real.