Leprechauns: A shoe-in to win the war of the little people?

EDITOR’S NOTE: I recently reported on Operation Gnome Helm in the United States, never dreaming that those localized events might take a more ominous, global turn. With this post from our Ireland correspondent Beith, Roamin’ Gnomials begins to flex its journalistic muscles, demonstrating that we have capable staff members in every corner of the globe, covering gnome news wherever and whenever it happens. Refresh your screen often for the latest developments!

Leprechaun Liberation Army forces have gone into a defensive posture around this hawthorn tree in anticipation of a possible attack by Garden Gnomes shipped into Ireland from the U.S.A.

BY BEITH
EMBEDDED REPORTER WITH THE LEPRECHAUN LIBERATION ARMY
(Embedded = stuck in a hedgerow, being twelve times the size of everyone else)

SUNRISE — 0545H, EASTERN IRELAND — An elite Leprechaun Liberation Army craic-team, the armed wing of the Guild of Fairy Shoemakers, has placed a defensive cordon of shoemaker’s tacks around the old hawthorn fairy tree at the junction of the Slige Cualann, the ancient road to Tara, and the plain of Brega, in which the royal site of Tara is situated. This is in response to the arrival of a consignment of USA-originated Garden Gnomes shipped into the port of Dublin last week, following reports of increased activity of rogue Gnome cells responsible for gnome-grown terrorism in the southwestern U.S.A.

Irish Government officials played down concerns about the potential for influx of insurgent gnomes masquerading as American tourists tracing ancestors here, with a government minister categorically stating,  “Sure ’tis no worry at all at all at all.”

However the defensive actions of the Leprechaun Liberation Army (LLA) suggest that it is being taken very seriously indeed, with the placement of tacks and Leprechauns wielding hammers around the fairy tree, to avoid its destruction by invading forces, should indeed a gnome cell be operating in the area.

Destruction of sacred trees has long been a feature of tribal wars in Irish history, with opposing tribes seeking to fell the ‘bile’ or sacred tree under which rival clan chieftains were inaugurated. In 2010, the Irish Times newspaper reported the destruction by fireball of a cedar tree at Ardbreccan, County Meath (former site of the long since destroyed sacred Ash tree of Tortan at Ardbreccan), which raised tensions and confusion as to the perpetrator, with speculation as to meteorites, lightning-strikes and drunken teenage Welsh dragons on an illegal cross-border fly-by.

Mobilization of the LLA has also been suggested by the scale up of commissary and ordnance supplies — as evidenced by the arrival of a number of Guinness and Jameson whiskey delivery trucks and a job-lot of hammers from a nearby hardware store. Increased bulk-sales of leather and tacks have been reported by commercial suppliers in county Meath, but that may be due to the opening of an S&M club in downtown Navan.

When asked about the actions of the LLA commandos, a surprised Leprechaun spokesman replied, “No, our men wear underpants, to be sure to be sure.”

Whatever the case, it is clear that growing tensions in diplomatic relations between Gnomes and Leprechauns are raising concerns and pointy hats everywhere, despite denials from the Gnome ambassador Mr. G. Fishersson, who is on record denying Leprechaun complaints of gnomic incursions to Irish sovereign territories as “a load of old cobblers.”