Case INT/0003 — Carlingford, Co. Louth, 1989

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE CLAIM / PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY DECLARED

Date of events

1989.

Location

Mountainside above Carlingford, Co. Louth, Ireland.

Principal figure

P. J. O'Hare, Carlingford publican.

Summary of account

O'Hare claimed to have found leprechaun clothing on the mountainside and presented the items on television. The Carlingford Tourism Association subsequently organised a paid leprechaun hunt to attract visitors. A contemporary UTV broadcast survives and documents both the claim and its promotional afterlife, which is rarer and more valuable than it sounds: most cases of this shape lose their primary footage and keep only the anecdote.

Archive treatment

The file distinguishes three separate events, and declines to let any of them borrow standing from the others:

1. The original find as claimed by O'Hare;
2. The display of the objects on television;
3. The organised hunt, openly conducted for tourism.

Event 3 is established fact and classified PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY DECLARED without prejudice; a declared leprechaun hunt is at least honest about what it is for. Events 1 and 2 are recorded as claims. The clothing itself has never been examined by this archive.

Sources

Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive, UTV, “Leprechaun Hunt” (1989).

Editorial notes

Carlingford has maintained an annual hunt in more recent years, and the surrounding area now has certain formal protections for its little people under European habitat designations. Readers should consult current local sources, as tourism material updates faster than we do.

Revision history

Date	Change
8 Aug 2004	File created from secondhand accounts.
21 Jun 2017	Broadcast located in the Digital Film Archive; file rebuilt around primary footage.
21 Jun 2017	Three-event separation adopted. Previous single-event version withdrawn.

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