The Spell of The Fairy Tree, Ardagh, Co Longford, Ireland 1983
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- Опубликовано: 12 апр 2021
- A fairy tree that depends on the life and death of the owner of the land on which it stands.
Mike Murphy reports for ‘The Live Mike’ from a fairy tree in Ardagh, Longford. The tree is on land owned by Jim Sweeney. Legend has it that when the tree falls, the last of the Sweeneys will die.
He is convinced that when that tree falls, he will have less than one week to live.
As Jim is the last of the Sweeneys, he is doing everything in his power to keep it alive. Jim spends a lot of time propping up the tree for fear that it might fall during a storm. Bachelor Jim is still hopeful of finding a wife to produce another Sweeney and thereby save himself from the spell of the fairy tree.
This episode of ‘The Live Mike’ was broadcast on 18 February 1983.
‘The Live Mike’ first aired on RTÉ 1 on 9 November, 1979 and was billed as an hourly, Friday night programme of comment, entertainment and surprises. The programme also contained a candid-camera slot in which Mike Murphy and his team took on many disguises. 
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I hope the farmers of Ireland are planting thorn bushes for the generations to come, seriously. Bad enough to have a housing crisis for people without a homeless crisis for fairies as well.
👍🤣🤣🤣
lol 😂 ,very witty comment fair play
Exactly the fae are our elders
Need to tend to there garden
Genius!😂😂😂
What an excellent conversationalist this man was; he had wit and wisdom, and could quote Goldsmith as naturally as we breathe air. We truly "won't see their likes again".
They have been replaced by woke arseholes
Trees have been sacred in Ireland for 1,000s of years. The ancient Irish Ogham script is based on tree species.
guy freaks out for 5 minutes saying the tree must be up so he can live
reporter : let's check it out! ( start pulling the branches )
old fellow : what the...
@Christo Genea Plot twist...the journalist is a fairy!
Gay
@@davidoconnor3930 No Mike, Gay was the other guy. 😉
😀
LOL can't believe he disturbed that old man by yanking on those branches. His reaction was very predictable even before the guy touched the tree. He's not kidding about what he believes. Very disrespectful to listen to the whole story and his beliefs just to jerk on this guys lifeline tree. Might as well have said "yeah right, dumb dumb, bye bye."
Exactly, like tell telling a devout Catholic to burn in hell.
Yeah was really awkward
I can only have envisioned him picking up a thornbush limb and flogging him if he had of brought that tree down by pulling on those branches.
Yeah what a prick lol. Poor old man
I felt the same way, I was like noooo the fairies, don’t do that!
That's quite a chin and jaw line on Jim Sweeney, a unique character and true to his roots. I love his passionate protection of that sacred tree.
It’s a good thing that jaw is on the man because that would make a very homely woman
One of the things I love about Ireland is that we treat the supernatural with such casual reverence, if that makes sense. "Sure we know there's strange goings on, but ah, what harm?"
Love it. Thanks for this. 😁
Oh there were some cold winters in the early 1980s I remember lookin at the snow...
im german but i came to looove ireland not only for its nature, but for exactly that deep old culture. which i heard, is of course , getting forgotten. man do i love me some eddie lenihan storytelling!
Always a good idea to leave these trees as they are and just plow around them.
He's a great character, well read too
i come back to this video at least once a year because him yanking on the tree at the end fuckin kills me every time 🤣
I've experienced what looked like the other way round: a neighbour of mine (in his late eighties) died about ten years ago. He had planted a redwood tree behind the house when he was in his twenties. The tree died the following summer after your man died. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but an eerie one...
Maybe the death of the plane caused him to die somehow but it is a little far fetched.
Eerie enough for yer man to have a Redwood tree....
That is strange.
likely a coincidence, redwoods grow too fast for an urban environment. may not have have enough root space or if planted too deep(super common) the tree will grow roots that girdle the trunk and cut off food supply. still eerie.
@@mikethompson5966 They experts say the best hole to plant a tree in, is a square one. If you put a tree in a circle hole the roots spiral down and in-tangles themselves then tree dies. Square holes encourage the roots to get to the corners there they stretch outward and make a better foundation for the tree. Long live red woods. The best time to grow a tree was 30 years ago the better time is today. 🌴🌳🌲🌵
We have a fairy tree in the middle of a field as well, under no circumstance would you cut it down!!
Deep in the bogs on Summer evenings i heard music from a fairy band.
It frightened me, as it was drawing me close to a world that was very different to the one i knew.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
We all live in our own universe and some of us experience things that others never will. Never seen any faeries, but i did see a ufo back in about 98, when i was 7, in Swords where I’m from. I have also witnessed objects moving in my kitchen. There definitely is something else to this life that we can’t really experience when we’re immersed daily in technology. These people lived in an older time and I really think some of them did see things that were real enough to them.
Love it!
There's been family jokes that I was a changeling, especially given my strange birth, but I do wonder what my dad and his pals were feeling when they saw me walk half a mile into a absolutely massive old bog as a child. Obviously someone saw me leave the trees and go into the bog (I was maybe 5-7 years old), and they fetched my dad. Now obviously my dad didn't want to shout out to me in case I got a fright and fell in, so he tried clambering after me, tripping and getting soaked a few times, which made me turn, skip on over to him as easily as skipping down a street, and ask what he was doing. He thought if I panicked, I'd fall, so told me he came to fetch me because it was time to head back to get lunch. I asked why his legs were wet, and he said that it's because he kept stepping in the puddles, so I asked "Why don't you just walk on the path then?", not realising that for some reason, I could see a path through the bog that he couldn't, when it seemed really obvious to me, so I told him to follow me back and just walk where I did, and sure enough, it was a dry solid path 😂 And then on the walk back through the woods, I brought up a conversation about the spirits that live in the forest and the land like the creepy little child I was. I think that and my weird being able to make electronics flicker and lights turn on and off (my older sister remembers it more clearly that I do. Apparently when I was really little, I could just tell the light to turn on or off, and it would, though I can't remember this, but other family members have mentioned it to lol). I can still see paths through bogs and make electronics flicker and wifi to go out, especially when I'm angry (In Uni the IT department nicknamed me Carrie, because I would kill computers during essay season), but I'm just a very staticy person. I do wonder wtf my dad thought was wrong with me though as the bog incident happened twice. On the second time he was straight up "Stop going near the bog, because if you fall off your little path, you will die." There was also the old lady that lived with us until I was around 2 that would help take care of me (especially during my mother's neglect when my dad was at work), whom I didn't find out until I was around 25 apparently didn't exist. They never had an elderly family member living with them, but both parents said separately (divorced) that it "explained a few things", which hasn't ever been elaborated on other than "Well from the second you could talk, you talked clearly and just knew things you couldn't possibly know.". But they also both never elaborated on the 2 occasions I woke up temporarily able to speak dead languages (old norse was one, can't remember the other, but I know they did do a deep dive try and find out what languages they were both times) that I don't really remember any of now. So fuck knows what's been going on with me since childhood, but ghosts maybe. The waking up briefly with knowledge of a language has happened one time since childhood and it was some form of proto-celtic. So fuck knows what's been going on with me since childhood, but ghosts maybe 🤷♀ My mother revealed when I was around 20 that she'd always been scared of me, which made me surprised that being catholic, she never tried to have me exorcised or something 😂
If I could've been born and came out this weird since birth and it be experienced by every member of my family, I'm fairly confident others must experience unexplainable things in their lives too. There's over 8 billion people on the earth currently, and billions more that have already died since the dawn of humans, so it stands to reason that it's impossible for nobody to have experienced anything unexplainable.
That was awesome, I'll no tell you my age ,I'm on the lookout ! Good on you fella.
He sounds like a great story teller like many of his generation who really did know hard times as opposed to many today who think they do but in reality have it so much better than what people back then in particular rural Ireland had to deal with on a day to day basis and I'm assuming he's dead now so RIP.
Couldn’t agree more ,, 👍
Well said and so true Sean our beautiful country and culture has changed so much sadly 😥
@@jamesgreene4811 Like all things, cultures are constantly evolving. Witnessing this change so clearly can be so very disheartening but it's important not to sway to the path of despair. While it's terribly sad to see the great aspects of our cherished culture diminish over time, you can always take solace in the fact that our developing culture has some positive changes as well. Our stories, our sport, our language, our music and dance are alive and well, and spreading rapidly around the world.
In this modern Ireland most of our people don't have the same grasp on the legends and myths of the land as our grandparents and great grandparents did, but the people of our tiny nation are admired and their effect on the new World has been enormous. There is a traditional Irish bar 3,000 feet high in the mountains of Nepal, a thriving gaeltacht in Toronto, and competitive GAA clubs on every habitable continent. Our culture is changing and being sad about that is grand, but all we can do is keep the important aspects of it alive.
Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla cliste
What does that have to do with being a good story teller
It's coming again.
My dad is from the same part of Longford. He used to know him back in the days.
Did the tree fall, or how did he died, do you know?
Amy idea where exactly the tree is/was John?
I'm not far from there myself.
@@jakenconor Hello Jake. Next time I speak to my dad I will find out for you .
@@johngill7776 thanks John, I'd really appreciate that. 😃
@@johngill7776 “ apparently” him and the tree are still alive???
God, I love the Irish.
I remember when this piece was first aired on the live Mike in the early 80’s
Brilliant. A man of a dying if not already extinct breed here unfortunately. Now we quote Kim Kardashian with ample opportunity for education and access to literature. He likely barely saw school and quoting Goldsmith.
I love these folklore stories, thank you for uploading them.
When you think about it It's all they had, sitting in each others homes on winter nights playing a tune and sharing the folklore, great to have an archive we can all enjoy,
Oh?, you think they are only stories then??🧚🧚♂️
@@eddiecaplan1908 🤭
@@thiest1205 7up
Bit at the end is gas 😂😂
Things were slow in Ireland, news wise, and it was good.
Time nor tide waits for no one..
True
Clannad as the soundtrack. I remember when they were massive.
Like my knob
They were great.
That was one of their earliest "electronic" hits. I saw them when Enya toured as part of the band in 1981/82
They still are ☺️
@@d23bw I used to call her Enema 🤔😂😆🤣
I know a very special tree that grows on my father-in-law's farm, I have been told stories about that special tree and how best care has to be taken not to harm it. I know a man who had forgotten about the power of those fairy trees, he was cutting a branch from the tree, and part of the branch struck him in the eye and caused damage, he did not lose his eye. A lesson was learned that tree has not been damaged since that day.
Imagination is a far more exciting life than plain logic and reason.
Castrated by concrete conclusions.
Prefer to be catapulted into conceived conundrums!
Agree with you🤣🤗💕
Did you ever read the Bible !😁👍👌soundl like it's just up your alley.where imagination ,myth and reality collide
@@christdiedforoursins8985 a man and his symbol's
@@christdiedforoursins8985 Well, clearly you haven't, I love my neighbors, how about you?🤣🤣😃😃
@@carollucey111 I'm glad you have read some of it ,that's great now let's put it into practice 💕👍😁
You are so good at documenting and preserving your history! Not just movies from this channel but in general. Much better then us in Sweden
Keep doing what you are doing in keeping this alive...👍👍
The family farm has a fairy fort on it and of course a few fairy trees, and of course Ioved being inside that fort, really peaceful....
Absolute gold! I love this so much!!! Thank you for sharing.
wow what a jerk lol Messing with the old man's fears like that. If the man does not want you to touch the enchanted tree, don't touch it.
Mike Murphy isn’t a jerk.
@@irishelk3 Might not be a jerk in person but messing with a tree and giving a old man almost a heart attack so viewers can take the piss out of him and his tradition's and belief in the fairies' that is a dick move to me.
@@JaythePandaren Ah no, i don't agree, you're just projecting your own life onto him, he didn't nearly have a heart attack and Mike wasn't taking the piss out of him, he was perfectly nice to the man for the entire interview, and was just having a bit of fun at the end, he's a comedian, and he's a great man, worthy of respect. There's worse people out there.
@@irishelk3 I guess you're right. It is Mike murphy after all. I mean he was on winning streak and all that so still a legend as always
I love these old fellas
These old films are call " In the Vault" the nickname of video on film that's been stored away for years and then brought back to see them again, for today's generation to see.
All I know for a fact is NEVER burn an Elder tree. If you do something bad will surely happen
Lovely music, beautiful singing.
_Clannad's_ the band.
@@DoctorInk20 Enya’s sis
This is a great channel! Keep these gems coming 👍
His favorite drink was a chin and tonic , I'll tell ya , thats a half moon of a chin lol . God bless him .
Them chins are common up in Longford.
@@tri0tran He done well so , Many a seed did this man lay in Longford, PS i was just having a bit banter, and i love listing to old video clips of my Irish people from years ago.
Legend has it, he fell off the tree and survived but a branch fell on him and killed him
😂😂👏👏
😂
The tree still hasn’t died and your man is 137 thinks he’s Benjamin button
ruclips.net/video/qB-4AzYEq4A/видео.html
Well said Pat I remember seeing this video years ago it's sad to see how much our beautiful country and culture has changed 👍
I like this old dude! lol 🍀
There all over Ireland fairy trees and forts.
Agus chuile faoi bhláth álainn bolasmhar na sceice ghile um an dtaca seo.
"Few more years out of the bush" Dont we all)
🤣🤣💯👍
😂😂😂
😁
I'd like to stay in it if I may...
@@garymcmanus9946 🤣🤣🤣
Cathleen, Cathleen! I'm on d'telly!
That auld lad is class. I'll ask my relations and find out if that tree is still standing.
I had my back turn while this was playing and it hit me that this must be where farmer Michael comes from of the Sir Stevo Timothy RUclips Channel.
Sounds exactly like him.
Priceless.....
That one way to make sure your last son won’t emigrate tell him about that bush at the bottom of the field.
May he be in the fae realm..what abeautiful creature! ❤❤❤
You can see the smirk on MM's face. He loves treating these people with a degree of false seriousness, but he's really laughing at them.
It's a respectful milking of the moment, no condescension or malice in it.
Who is this person? Hopefully not still doing "interviews."
@@saintessa Mike Murphy. Bit of a smug gowl. He's retired from working in TV now.
My fairy tree is quite young. Yes,there are fairies in it. Storms will not kill it any time soon.
Best jawline in all of Erie
Pure brill realy is 👌👍😉
"Get away from the tree ye wee shite!"
Love yer vids 👏👏
Great video
This guy is like a real life Darby O'Gill. 🤣
And sounds like him too
Omg my heart💕💗
Oh Ireland how you doing with myths legends
Well, I suppose the obvious question is; did it fall and did he die within a week of it? He must be long gone bless him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the tree is still going strong.
murphy being denigrating and sarcastic. typical west brit attitude. these are genuine people i grew up with. innocent souls but if you crossed them by jaysus!
Very typical attitude to people living beyond the pale by those smug eejits. People like that old fella are what gives Ireland its character and soul.
If the Bush falls he's dead in a week, if he falls from the Bush he's dead in a week.
😂😂😂
But if he's dead, the bush feels no obligation to keel over. 😉
@@genghisthegreat2034 🤣
He hasn't seen a bush since birth that boy...
I have some pictures taken from when my great-grandmother went home to Ireland in 1926 to visit her brother on the “old homestead”. One of the pictures include a tree noted as the “fairy wraith”.
The virgin sceptical journo vs the Chad Fairy Chin Man.
I don't know about our morbid buried alive fellow, I don't care for him much. Such a different attitude entirely vs. the guy with the chin. His fear of that tree being the death of him (in a weeks time) was quite palpable. I've been watching these twice a day all week. These brought me as much joy as 'Waiting for Godot'. Don't let anyone tell you any other people on Earth are anything like the Irish. They are the salt of the Earth, their hearts are always feeling more than the average person, they get into situations only they can. They never miss an opportunity to share very long, very nostalgic stories, they are not quick to fuss over others doing tragically dumb stuff, but you will get lots of dumb and sometimes gross and always annoying scenarios you'll wind up in. They won't have a plan, but they will make it a night full of love, emotion and good humor.
The reporter makes the old man look foolish. Very ignorant and unkind. Who does he think he is? The one who knows it all? And that seems to entitle him to treet an older man like that. Very small.
The reporter is a pound store Terry Wogan 🤔
I believe he thinks he's a normal person who's isn't stupid and the tree thing is him just having a laugh seems to have offended more people in this comment section than it did the old man
🌳💖 Jim Sweeney was likely born at the end of the 19th century,
saw action in WWI, perhaps in WWII;
if his O.C.D. from his anxiety about the randomness of mortality takes such a charming & fairytale like form, so be it.
🌈🌲Everyone needs to feel some small control over heedless vagaries of fate!
Feck off
The tree is still there and the old boy is 139 year's Old and Married with children and survived covert 19
He died in 1989 at age 84. The tree's whereabouts are unknown
I'm crying for my country.
It's like Sir Stevo meets Houstus from courage the cowardly dog.
Holy shit, he completely fucked with him at the end. That was hilarious. 😂
L0Ve
🤩🤩🤩
🤔Wonder if that old tree did indeed fall and did he die less than a week later like he said ? What ever happened to that old guy , I wonder ?
The tree still stands as does he!
It’s good to know all’s standing.
@@Tony97G dont be ridiculous poor crature long gone
@@Tony97G seriously?.. I love to believe that’s true.. He’s just great.
I live in Ardagh and yes the tree still stands
👍
auld one: it could fall over and mark me demise
git: **LIKE THIS?!**
Aye......Wendy the wee duende😀
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🍀🍀🍀🍀❤️
Love Mike Murphy ,, he & Gay ( Rip) will never be matched ...
How he started pull the tree. That was out of order
It was a “set up” for the camera.
My mammy told us stories of banshees and other things and that was fifty years ago I am a Donohoe and I truly believe
Where in longford is this tree ??
Grabbing his tree like that! Fecking lunatic!
The dates are wrong on this video unless the video has had audio editing after the fact. The Celtic song playing is a song by Enya who released the song in 1988, so unless the audio has been edited, the video can't be from 1983.
The date is wrong, but in the opposite direction. The show, The Live Mike, aired from 1979 to 1982 so the description is at least a year off. The song from Enya was probably edited in later.
The Celtic song is called "Theme from Harry's Game" and was released by Clannad in 1982.
Mike took the mike some.
What is the song playing at the beginning? With the female vocal?
It's a group called Clannad..not sure of the song title though.
Oliver gold Smith is pretty good with words.
qxir sent me here
He could shovel snow with that chin
Anyone know the name of the song playing in the beginning?
It's Clannad, Harry's game 🙂
@@nedthestaffieegan3452 Thanks
So....what ever happened to him and the tree?
I thought being a fairy in Ireland was illegal by the church.🤣
😨🙏😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🍀🇮🇪
Is the tree still ip
What species of tree was that ?
Whitethorn.....an sceach geal ! ....all beautifully in heavy bloom maddening bees as I write
@@genghisthegreat2034 Many Thanks ! I did not know it could reach out twisting in this form, and now I read about the Whitethorn and Blackthorn with their haw and sloe berries - and hear "an sceach geal" to understand the place names that record the woods and groves which did flourish healthily, and wait patiently to return.
@@adymode you're welcome ! For some reason, the lone one's in the middle of fields are particularly garlanded in bloom, and no one here would risk moving one. If you enjoy the folklore of them, I recommend Eddie Lenihan on RUclips " The Fairy Bush". Eddie looks like Moses' grandad, you can't miss him 😁
Who went first... The man or the tree?
Name of the song?
Theme of Harry’s game- Clannad
The condescending Mike they should have called this one, poor auld Jackeen down from Bigballs-bridge havin a laugh at the other 95% of people that live outside D4..
He nearly killed him when he shuck that branch 🤣😂😂🤣😅
Tinkerbell don't play
Why the hell did he shake the tree like that in the end? Wasn’t he paying attention?