In Irish folklore, it is believed that disturbing areas with strong connections to fairies can bring bad luck | Flickr via Creative Commons Irish MP blames fairy curse for problems with road Independent lawmaker says there’s ‘something in these places you shouldn’t touch.’

A member of the Irish parliament blamed bad luck caused by angry fairies for dips in a road that were repaired and then reappeared.

Danny Healy-Rae, an independent MP, said the N22 road — which runs from from Killarney in County Kerry to Cork — passes through an area that's rich in fairy folklore. Dips in the road have been repaired but the problems reappeared.

He told the Irish Times: "There are numerous fairy forts in that area. I know that they are linked. Anyone that tampered with them back over the years paid a high price and had bad luck.”

Asked by the paper if he believed in fairies, Healy-Rae said he subscribed to the local belief that “there was something in these places you shouldn’t touch.”

Healy-Rae, the owner of a plant hire company, said: "I have a machine standing in the yard right now. And if someone told me to go out and knock a fairy fort or touch it, I would starve first."

In Irish folklore, it is believed that disturbing areas with strong connections to fairies can bring bad luck.

Healy-Rae first raised the issue of fairies at a meeting of Kerry County Council in 2007 after a dip developed in the N22. In a formal motion on the cause of the dip, Healy-Rae a local councillor at the time, asked: “Is it fairies at work?”

The council’s road department said the dip was due to an "underlying subsoil/geotechnical problem.”

Authors: