Pisrógs

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, Three for a Girl, Four for a Boy, Five for Silver, Six for Gold and Seven for a Secret Never to be Told.

You have heard the rhyme, you've waved superstitiously at the singular flapping corvid, but now learn about why the Magpie carries such a weight in Irish folklore.

Death Prophecies, Cromwelian Invasion, Enchanted Feathers, Crucifixions and MORE.

Supping Fairies, a Ghost Cat, a Drunken Mule, Revenue Men...and a very unfortunate genet.
Poitín! This episode dives into the strange and wonderful stories that grew up around Ireland’s illicit spirit.
Poteen makers outwit the Revenue men, fairies drink from golden cups, its all in there boys.

The Slasher House, Banshees, Count Tornado, Highkick Jack, The IRA, Headless Horseman and Cures upon Cures upon Cures.
The boys set up a confessional booth at Electric Picnic and ye blurted out your best folk stories from all around the country!

You walk on an ordinary patch of grass and suddenly become so violently hungry that you can barely make it home.
The Hungry Grass, or Féar Gortach, cursed patches of ground said to bring on an overwhelming, almost fatal hunger, sometimes only moments after a person has eaten. A single crumb of bread could save you… but in some tales, people were reduced to chewing boot laces, raw meat, or whatever they could find.
And the stories get stranger. We encounter hungry grass growing over graves, fairy forts and places where people supposedly died of hunger; black horses that lure travellers towards deadly lakes; witches, curses and mysterious patches of mountain ground. One tale even tells of a man so desperate with hunger that he began eating the flesh of a hare he was carrying.
But where did these stories come from? The Hungry Grass preserves memories of the Great Famine, but it also goes back much further. We explore its eerie connection to the Fear Gorta, the ghostly “Man of Hunger”, and draw a comparison with the Native American traditions surrounding the Wendigo: another supernatural figure associated with famine, but also insatiable hunger, environmental collapse, and cannibalism.

If you went back in time to an Irish village or settlement the first place you should go was surprisingly, the forge.

The village forge was the ancient internet, the pub, the pharmacy, and occasionally the battlefield briefing room. It's where you would get the weekly news.

The blacksmith dealt in Iron, Information and Anvils, but also Fairies, Cures and Curses.

Cathal and Luke tell tales of fairy warfare, three-legged horses, magical purses, enchanted forge water and Holy Women's curses.

The blacksmith's power wasn't just in his physical strength, but in his skill of sorcery.

They could cure illnesses, stop bleeding with secret charms, banish rats, break curses, and even bargain with the fairy world.

From ancient gods like Goibniu the divine smith to the humble village forge where neighbours gathered for stories, craic and gossip, the forge stands at the precipice between the human world and the supernatural.

Video References:

Hands: Powers of the Metal:
https://youtu.be/jUP8W3xfezY?is=-UNtfZVcmouHvhw_

Last of the Dublin Blacksmiths:
https://youtu.be/FPMe73RgO4U?is=PuPwrdHsyHLyKzmT

A Blacksmith Retires, Ballymahon Com Longford:
https://youtu.be/uhorleq7C2s?is=HkfwStz2FILHRGkp