Goat King

A goat named Louis was crowned King of Ireland this year in one of Irelands oldest festivals. Every year a wild male mountain goat is captured in the foothills of Carrauntoohill, which Ireland's highest mountain. The goat is then paraded through the country town of Killorglin as part of the Puck Fair, which is an annual festival of music, drinking and dancing. The goat then reigns for 3 days from a platform 15 metres above the town's streets.

The origins may be linked to pre-Christian celebrations of a fruitful harvest and that the male goat or 'Puck' was a pagan symbol of fertility, similar to the pagan god Pan. An alternative theory says the festival began in honour of a goat who warned Killorglin residents of an impending attack by English leader Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century. This year's King Puck is named Louis after the French Sun King and he has an almost 70-centimetre horn span. He is kept in a special pen during his reign and fed a regular mountain diet of nuts, wild herbs, holly leaves, saplings and tender grasses. Louis was returned to the wild afterwards, and I am sure the rest of the herd will never believe his tale.