§159

‘Coming home along an empty country road in daylight, in springtime – my husband driving, I was in the passenger seat. We were crossed the bridge over the river Barrow and came around a gentle bend in the road. Our turn off was to the right and was in the distance. About five yards away on my side of the road a woman was walking – about four to five feet tall, short dark hair with her back to me. She wore a fitted black jacket and full black skirt with a red design around the hem. I saw her very clearly as it was daylight but she didn’t stop or turn around as we approached. She didn’t wave or put up her hand which is the usual practice in the Irish countryside. We passed her but I didn’t look back at her. She was so real that I asked my husband why he didn’t indicate and pull out to give her more room. He didn’t see her at all. I was so sure I had seen her that we turned the car around and returned to the place and stopped. We got out – no sign of her, no houses where she could have gone – nothing. There have been other experiences here but this was the most recent and the clearest.’ ‘Not specifically there but the wider area is known for fairies, fairy paths and a fairy tree.’ ‘I don’t know for sure that it was a fairy experience. May have been a spirit or ghost as you call them.’ ‘[Fairies are] spirits of nature, creatures who are part of the land and associated with special, powerful places.’ ‘Only had these sightings since I have lived in rural Ireland except when I was a child when I spent my summers in the countryside on the Isle of Man. My grandmother was a native Manx speaker who believed in the ‘little people’ as did my mother.’