News Item

From Special Irish Fest Pagan Ceremony Correspondent Marcia Johnson:

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A goat named Louis was crowned King of Ireland on Thursday in one of the country's oldest festivals.

Each year a wild male mountain goat is caught in the foothills of Carrauntoohill, Ireland's highest mountain, and paraded through the country town of Killorglin as part of the Puck Fair -- an annual festival of music, drinking and dancing.

The goat then reigns for three days from a platform 15 metres (50 ft) above the town's streets.

No one knows for sure the origins of the fair, which is expected to attract more than 100,000 visitors this year, and has long been held on August 10-12.

Jean Kearney, a spokeswoman for the festival, said there were many wildly inventive legends about how it began but no written record of the first event.

"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."

Another theory suggests 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 has an almost 70-cm (27-inch) 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 will be dethroned and returned to the wild on Saturday.

Rumors that Louis the goat has been named president of the 2007 Kansas City Irish Fest are thought to be unsubstantiated.