Ireland's New King

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DUBLIN (Reuters) - A wild mountain goat was crowned King of Ireland on Wednesday in an ancient annual ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of history.


For three days, Charlie, a grey male goat with brown trimmings, will reign over this year's Puck Fair -- one of Ireland's oldest and best-loved street festivals -- in Killorglin, in the southwestern county of Kerry.


"Nobody really knows how it came about or when," said Jean Kearney, a spokeswoman for the festival, which is expected this year to attract more than 100,000 visitors for a marathon of music, drinking and dancing.


"It has been traced back to the 1600s, but some say it dates back to a festival held in pagan times."


One theory is that the event pays tribute to a wild goat that alerted the town to the advancing armies of military leader Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.


Another is that it stems from the pagan Celtic festival of Lughnasa, when feasting and sacrifices marked the start of the harvest season, and that the goat is a pagan fertility symbol.


"For the people round here it's no exaggeration to say the Puck Fair is almost as important as Christmas," Kearney said.


"It attracts thousands of tourists but it's also a huge homecoming for Kerry people who have moved away. The atmosphere is just magical."


Charlie, or King Puck to give him his official title, will later be raised up on an elevated platform in the centre of the town square where, from a height of 50 feet (15 metres), he will look down on his loyal subjects for the duration of the fair.


On Friday he will relinquish his gold crown and return to the mountains of Kerry where he was captured last week by local man Frank Joy -- chief goat catcher for the past 15 years.


The festival, which also includes a traditional horse fair, open-air concerts, and firework displays, is expected to generate around 7 million euros (4.8 million pounds) for the local economy.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050810/80/fpca5.html

Edit: this one is better than officehumour.com

[ August 12, 2005, 19:05: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Cough(#12).

Other than the swearing, I don't really.. get it. Must be my lame sense of humor

 

You know, I was honestly expecting it to end with poor Charlie ending up as BBQ on the final night of the festival.

As is, I wonder what the poor goat is thinking about be penned up and gawked at in front of such a large mob of people. Oh well, knowing people around animals the goat is probably being hand fed more than it would normally eat in a month.

 

@gopher - Swearing?

Charlie's quite cute. I'd vote for him.

 

This thread was originally an office humour thread with links to a couple of office jokes with mild swearing in them.

I guess Cúchulainn changed it out of fear of the mighty Gopher's wrath.

 

Good on ya, county Kerry!

Speaking as a dual-citizen (Canadian born, but my father's from Manchester) part of which is English, I wonder about a third possible source for this tradition:

When the English invaded and pushed out the Irish throne, maybe this was done in sarcastic protest? A little thumbing of the nose at the English crown?

Of course, from what I've read of history, Charlie there is probably better behaved than some humans who sat on the thrones of either England or Ireland.

And Gopher: What? Unless you censored stuff out of the original post, I haven't a clue what you're talking about - swearing?!?

EDIT: ahhhhhh so Cul posted, Gopher warned, then Cul edited, THEN I came along and got confused. Gotcha - thanks for the explain.

 

Errr...a goat? I think a donkey would make a better king, that way he could be called a "Royal Ass".

 

It seems to have been changed, and I Tal edited. This one however is funny

 

Well the original was www.office-humour.com, but I thought some of our quirky traditions would be more interesting (and feature less mild swearing!)

Now a good question:

What ever happened to the descendants of the High Kings of Tara?