The Spirit of Life

Human beings who are able to sing, or recite, play music, dance, entertain, tell stories ... are said to receive these fairy gifts from the Duineshee.

The Spirit of Life from the Duineshee also freely bestows a well known talent to many people in Ireland: the `gift of the gab'. But that's another of Auntie Mary's stories.

Those who are singers or musicians, so the story goes, are watched over by the Spirit of Life and receive the added gift of second sight (taisch) and so are able to foretell the future.

Either there are far more singers and musicians in Ireland than you would expect, or the spirits are very generous and open-handed, even undiscerning, with this added gift --- judging by the multitude of fortune-tellers, crystal ball gazers, psychics, seers, palmists, and tarot readers that abound everywhere in Ireland.

In Nanny and Grandad's lane alone, almost every household had someone ready to read your fortune from the tea-leaves in your cup.