The Exiled Leprechaun and the Irish Patriot: A Tale of 19th Century Ireland

In the 1840s, the Great Potato Famine struck Ireland. Great Britain had long ruled over the island following the dictates of the Protestant Ascendancy that aimed to keep the Irish Catholics poor and illiterate, and subservient to the British landed gentry. By the mid-1840s, remnants of the Ascendancy sought the eradication of Gaelic cultural traditions altogether. As fields of potatoes began to yield only shriveling inedible black tubers, landlords began to drive thousands of the peasants from their land. Depopulation of Ireland occurred on a massive scale with the population falling from 8 million to 5 million. Among the Irish poor, one million would die from starvation and disease. Another two million attempted to escape through emigration to America in “coffin ships,” in which many would die en route, while those who survived the Atlantic crossing faced hardships often as difficult as what they had left behind.Brothers Tadhg and Fionn O’Brien, were living on a tenant farm when the black plague took their family’s meager crop. Their father and mother each died of the “famine fever,” and the brothers were separated and left to fend for themselves. Steeped in Irish legends and Gaelic traditions inculcated in them by their beloved Popa, the young Tadhg adopted whatever means necessary to survive, and ultimately emigrated to America. His older brother Fionn sought to defend his homeland and fought for the cause of Irish Independence. Read more