A wild mountain goat called Billy, who has been chosen to be crowned King Puck, should be in Killorglin after all in time for the start of the famous Co Kerry fair next month, it was revealed today.
Organisers feared the event might be without the main attraction for the first time in 400 years because of cross-Border animal welfare controls.
But the man who headed up the team which captured the goat after stalking it in the hills of north Antrim for almost three weeks believes Department of Agriculture officials in Belfast will give the go-ahead for the movement by the end of the week.
Retired painter and decorator Séamus Blaney (66), from Ballycastle, Co Antrim, a member of Moyle District Council, said today: “I expect to have all the necessary administrative work sorted out quite soon. There was a bit of a hiccup over the Twelfth holidays and the wrong papers were filled in.
“But everything is now going to plan and, while nothing is guaranteed, it should be all right. There are certain papers for selling livestock north-south, and papers for showing livestock. We’re not blaming anyone and we hope to have Billy there in time.”
The fair, which begins on August 10th, will run for three days. Up to 100,000 visitors are expected. It is the 30th anniversary of Ireland’s oldest three fairs working together, the Puck Fair, the Oul Lamas Fair in Ballycastle and the Great October Horse Fair in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
The king-in-waiting for the Puck Fair was caught on the north Antrim coast’s Fair Head after Mr Blaney and a team of 12 men spent almost three weeks tracking the animal which they believe is an offspring of a goat trapped in the McGillycuddy Reeks and transported to the Lamas Fair in 1979.
Mr Blaney said: “It was one of about 15 wild goats moving about. They were here, there and everywhere, never staying in the one place. It meant us following them every day, but we used grass and sweeteners to feed them and eventually lull them into a false sense of safety.
“It was just a question of picking our moment and grabbing it. It happened a fortnight ago around the time of the run-up to the Twelfth, and we felt it appropriate we call it Billy.”
The goat’s whereabouts are being kept secret amid fears there could be an attempt to free it, according to Mr Blaney.
He added: “I expect the Agriculture people to give the all-clear either tomorrow, or Friday and it will travel south in a goat cart. We’re not saying who the driver is, or the route he will take, because I’ve no doubt there will be those looking to release it just for the craic.”
The Puck Fair is believed to date back to a charter from 1603 by King James I granting legal status to the existing fair in Killorglin. It has been suggested that it is linked to pre-Christian celebrations of a fruitful harvest and that the male goat or “Puck” was a pagan symbol of fertility, like the pagan god Pan.
PA