“Do you believe in faeries?”

“Believe in them, of course not! But they’re there just the same!”

This sentiment echoes through the writing about the faery folk in Ireland, and is a very insightful reflection on Irish relationships with the otherworld. The word ‘faery’ or feadh-ree is said to be a modification of ‘Peri’, a Persian word for a race midway between angel and man, invisible though ever present. A spirit race encompassing many entities of the spirit realms, the otherworld.

William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is widely credited as the first to characterize faeries as small winged creatures. And the image stuck, now ubiquitous through the world of Disney. However for the Irish this is not the world of faery. There is more, much more…