ON THE AFTERNOON OF 16 April 1950, 72-year-old James McAnespie, of Fintona village, County Tyrone, left his home and didn’t come back. He was a creature of habit; so, when he hadn’t returned home by 8pm, his neighbours called the police.
Search parties, consisting of police and locals, were hastily organised. And as they searched the fields and the forest around the village, they called out McAnespie’s name. But he made no reply.
After hours of searching in the dark, and just as his neighbours began to fear the worst, James was found, alive and well, standing at the site of a recently felled tree, in Ecclesville Demesne.
He had an incredibly strange story to tell.
It began three weeks earlier, when some workmen who were carrying out “improvements and extensions” work at Fintona Golf Course, which is within Ecclesville Demesne, accidentally destroyed a fairy thorn – a tree long held as sacred in Irish tradition. They had been granted permission by the landowner, Raymond Browne-Lecky, to remove an old hedge, but they had also bulldozed the fairy thorn that had stood alone in a field in the demesne for over 300 years.
Though Mr Browne-Lecky was quite phlegmatic about the incident, the locals were furious. “The people in the village are in a rage over it,” Mr Browne-Lecky said at the time. “For my part, however, the hatchet is buried, because it was apparently a mistake. I was not angry because of possible revenge from the fairies – I’m afraid I don’t believe in them. But many people do, and that’s what the villagers are upset about.”
The fear was such that it made the news. “The uprooting of the fairy thorn has created a certain amount of talk in the district, as many believe that to do so was to court the worst disaster,” reported The Northern Whig.
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Unlike the dainty fairies that appear in Shakespeare plays or Disney films, an Irish fairy, according to Dermot MacManus in his book The Middle Kingdom, is a “a powerful spirit in human form which should be treated with respect, if not with a little fear.”
There are certain trees – such as the whitethorn, hazel, ash and holly trees – that these powerful spirits hold sacred, and to destroy one of these sacred trees, MacManus warns, “is firmly looked upon as extremely dangerous if not fatal.”
Though few will admit to believing in the fairies, there are fewer still who would knowingly cut down a fairy tree. And often, the Irish will go to great lengths – and expense – to avoid doing so.
In 1968, a new road was being built between the Donegal villages of Rossnowlagh and Ballintra. And right in the middle of the proposed route, at Ballymagroarty Scotch, was a “gnarled, moss-covered old whitethorn tree.”
The tree was due to be cut down; but as the whitethorn is particularly sacred to the fairies, Donegal Council could find no one brave enough to do it.
The first to refuse was Roy Greene, the council’s tree felling contractor. Greene had felled hundreds of trees to make way for the new road, but he wouldn’t touch this one.
“I don’t believe in fairies,” Greene said at the time, “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 got a wife and two sons to protect.”
The second contractor the council approached was Bob Harrison. He, too, refused to cut it down. “I’m not saying I believe in the fairies,” he explained, “but there is something uncanny about that tree.”
When every other contractor they approached refused to fell the tree, Donegal Council re-routed the new road around the tree – adding 6 months and €1.5 million to the project.
But there was a very different outcome in 1920, when Father Denis O’Hara set out to build a small rural hospital for the people of Kiltimagh, in County Mayo.
Father O’Hara had raised all of the funding and had secured a site for the hospital. But there was a problem: the field for the proposed hospital had two fairy trees. And no matter where the architect positioned the hospital, either one or both trees would have to be cut down.
Neither Father O’Hara nor the architect were bothered by this prospect – but they couldn’t find anyone in the parish willing to fell the trees.
Eventually, they found a man in a neighbouring town to do the work. But just a few hours after cutting down the trees, he suffered a massive stroke.
There were several other mishaps – and the hospital was never completed.
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In Fintona, no one doubted that the destruction of the fairy thorn had been unintentional. But what James McAnespie did next was no accident. After buying some of the wood from the fairy tree from the contractors – he burnt it on his fire.
From the first moment James McAnespie put the wood on his fire, strange things began to happen in his house. Invisible bells would tinkle and small creatures – which resembled wasps – would appear and dart about his house.
But seemingly unfazed by any of this, McAnespie continued to burn the wood from the fairy tree. And when he’d burnt everything, he went back to Ecclesville Demesne – on Sunday, 16 April – for more.
After spending an untroubled afternoon gathering wood at the site, McAnespie tied his spoils with a rope and began to drag them home. But, as he reached the spot where the old fairy thorn had stood, he suddenly lost all ability to move. “I was rooted to the ground,” he explained afterwards. “I could not move a foot. Then I tried to cry out, but to my consternation no sound came. I was completely powerless.”
While he was frozen like this, McAnespie claimed that strange things began to happen around him. He could hear the tinkling bells that had been haunting his home for the last few weeks. Two fairies came to him. And then a large White House appeared. It was lit up inside and its front door was ajar. McAnespie says he tried to reach the door but couldn’t.
At some point during the night, he became aware of the searchers shouting his name. He tried to call out to them, but the strange paralysis continued to silence him. McAnespie believes he was held like this for about two hours, his hands clasped tightly to the rope the whole time.
At 11:30pm, some of the searchers found McAnespie standing motionless in the forest. Their arrival seemed to break the spell – or whatever it was – and McAnespie was able to follow them back to the village, where he went back to his home – and his life – seemingly unharmed by his strange adventure in Ecclesville Demesne.
It’s not known if he took his bundle of sticks with him.
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So, was James McAnespie really held captive by the fairies?
It’s fair to say the police were sceptical. While Sergeant Boland, who had led the search for the missing man, confirmed that McAnespie had been found at the site of the fairy thorn, he told a journalist for The Northern Whig newspaper: “I must say I heard no bells and I saw no house.”
And the landowner, Mr Browne-Lecky, thought the whole idea of fairies was preposterous.
However, the locals believed McAnespie’s story. And there’s some evidence that he may not have been the only recipient of fairy justice.
Two months after McAnespie’s encounter with the fairies, The Northern Whig reported that the bulldozer responsible for uprooting the fairy thorn had mysteriously tumbled off a lorry while it was being moved to another site. There was some suggestion, said the Whig, that the fairies were responsible.
Whatever the truth of McAnespie’s strange tale – or the fate of the bulldozer, Fintona’s golfers were taking no risks with their lovely, new and improved golf club. So, one year later, when the work had been completed, the club members replaced the fairy tree with a “special variety” of thorn chosen to please the fairies.
The club’s captain, Mr F McCaffrey, said that he hoped that the fairies would look kindly on their gesture.
IOW
Recommended Reading
If you enjoyed this post and would like to know more, you might enjoy the following book:
Sacred Trees of Ireland – Christine Zucchelli
The fairy tree is only one type of sacred tree that can be found in Ireland. There are many others, and Christine Zucchelli’s Sacred Trees of Ireland is an incredible guide to them. It’s full of insight and beautiful photographs. And unlike my other recommendations, it’s currently in print.