Show Notes
Supping Fairies, a Ghost Cat, a Drunken Mule, Revenue Men...and a very unfortunate genet. Poitín! This episode dives into the strange and wonderful stories that grew up around Ireland’s illicit spirit. Poteen makers outwit the Revenue men, fairies drink from golden cups, its all in there boys.
More from Pisrógs
One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, Three for a Girl, Four for a Boy, Five for Silver, Six for Gold and Seven for a Secret Never to be Told.
The Slasher House, Banshees, Count Tornado, Highkick Jack, The IRA, Headless Horseman and Cures upon Cures upon Cures. The boys set up a confessional booth at Electric Picnic and ye blurted out your best folk stories from all around the country!
You walk on an ordinary patch of grass and suddenly become so violently hungry that you can barely make it home. The Hungry Grass, or Féar Gortach, cursed patches of ground said to bring on an overwhelming, almost fatal hunger, sometimes only moments after a person has eaten. A single crumb of bread could save you… but in some tales, people were reduced to chewing boot laces, raw meat, or whatever they could find. And the stories get stranger. We encounter hungry grass growing over graves, fairy forts and places where people supposedly died of hunger; black horses that lure travellers towards deadly lakes; witches, curses and mysterious patches of mountain ground. One tale even tells of a man so desperate with hunger that he began eating the flesh of a hare he was carrying. But where did these stories come from? The Hungry Grass preserves memories of the Great Famine, but it also goes back much further. We explore its eerie connection to the Fear Gorta, the ghostly “Man of Hunger”, and draw a comparison with the Native American traditions surrounding the Wendigo: another supernatural figure associated with famine, but also insatiable hunger, environmental collapse, and cannibalism.
If you went back in time to an Irish village or settlement the first place you should go was surprisingly, the forge.
PRIEST HUNTERS, during Ireland's Penal Laws these were bounty hunters paid to track down Catholic priests, going from village to village looking for the rewards offered for their holy heads. Haunted houses, swarms of black beetles, priests disguised as gardeners, bloodhounds chasing clergy across the countryside, highwaymen turned heroes, and assassinations which quite literally backfire. Whilst Mass Rocks (where people worshipped in secret) are widely discussed, Cathal and Luke wanted to know more about the people they were hiding from.