Irish MP's Explanation for Road Problems: Fairies

An Irish member of parliament has an interesting hypothesis for damage to a road in the country. Danny Healy-Rae said during an interview with the Irish Times that a dip on one of the country's roads, which was repaired but then reappeared, could be blamed on "fairy forts." The Telegraph explains that, per Irish folklore, interfering with the forts that belong to fairies in the country—said to be the magical gateways to the fairy world—results in a curse. "There are numerous fairy forts in that area," Healy-Rae said. "I know that they are linked. Anyone that tampered with them back over the years paid a high price and had bad luck."

Asked if he believes in fairies, Healy-Rae replied that he's always known "there was something in these places you shouldn’t touch," "sacred places" that fairies live. "If someone told me to go out and knock a fairy fort or touch it, I would starve first," he said. The Times notes that he first brought up fairy forts as the possible cause of the road's troubles back in 2007, when he asked during a formal motion on the cause of the problems, "Is it fairies at work?" He was told by the county council’s road department that, no, it was an "underlying subsoil/geotechnical problem" causing the issues. (More strange stuff stories.)