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Story Notes
Eddie Lenihan is a consummate storyteller. He has told his stories in schools and prisons and at gatherings of storytellers all over this country. He has been acclaimed a national treasure and has an international reputation.
He is a collector of stories and has probably the biggest private collection of tapes, cds and video in this country. He has written more than twenty books. In short, Eddie Lenihan is something of a phenomenon.
But Eddie doesn't just tell his stories - he believes in them.
He talks of the fairies, 'the good people', 'them', 'the other crowd', as more than the inhabitants of tales from the past. They look, he says, just like the rest of us - which means they can't be easily identified.
In 1999 Eddie began a campaign that lead to the NRA rerouting the Ennis Bypass around a lone bush at Latoon, near Newmarket-on-Fergus. The bush is the site where the fairies of Munster gather before they set out to do battle with those from Connaught. It is also the place the ghostly 'Dead Hunt' passes through.
For Eddie Lenihan the past isn't the past at all. Every place is significant.
First Broadcast Sunday 2nd March 2009, 7pm
To find out more about Eddie, visit his website
An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries
Story Credits