Would you like to know what the new year has in store? Rosita Boland visits three fortune tellers - and doesn't like all she hears
Original Irish Fortune Teller Romeo Gipsy, Dublin
It's a walk-in-off-the-street place in George's Street Arcade where Margaret Murphy tells fortunes. The inner sanctum is dark red and hung with twirly plastic yokes, night-lights. There's a gas fire on full blast.
I'm asked to shuffle the tarot cards and pick out 12. Then Murphy lays the 12 cards out in an interlocking fashion, face down. Before she turns them over, she does some guesswork on me.
My work. Do I work with people who wear uniforms? The dress code of a features journalist is, shall we say, relaxed. I don't think I've ever seen a tie on my floor, which features shares with the sports department (whose definition of a tie is when two athletes cross the line together).
Murphy looks puzzled. But I definitely have a job I like helping people in, she says? An image comes into my mind of an e-mail in-box full of corporate-type story pitches from PR people, virtually all of which are destined for the delete button. Er, no, my job isn't really about helping people.
Next it's music. Murphy tells me it's very, very important in my life. Central to it! I almost laugh. I only have a CD player by default, since it came with a radio attached. My paltry collection of CDs came to me via people I interviewed for work. Let's just say music, by and large, has passed me by.
I suspect that all this analysis of one's current situation is meant to reassure you that the fortune teller knows what you're at, and therefore you'll be more inclined to believe their fortune telling. So far, so sadly unconvincing.
The cards are flipped over. Apparently, the best card in the pack, the Wheel of Fortune, is at its centre. This bodes marvellously well for my immediate future. In what way? My finances are going to be good, especially in the coming year. I'll move to a bigger house. Oh yes! I like the sound of this. And I have a close relative involved in a court case. No, I don't actually. And I'll be changing to a new job early into the new year. Well, not unless National Geographic or the Observer come looking for me, I won't.
Time taken: 10 minutes
Cost: €20
Hilary "Fortunes", Galway
An atmospheric stone turret, albeit in the unlikely setting of Eyre Square Shopping Centre, is where Hilary "Fortunes" Peers operates. There are candles and a calm atmosphere, away from the retail madness outside. You have to book in advance here, either by calling ahead as I've done, or turning up early in the morning and putting your initials on a slot of the day's timetable.
As before, I'm asked to shuffle the cards, then to cut them in various places, and make a wish to seal them. Hilary lays out various cards. Am I, or a relative, involved in a court case is the first question. No, definitely not. Am I psychic? Well, what does one say to that? I haven't a clue.
My finances are good and will remain so for 2006. My health is great. Career is going well, and I'm in the right job. Creative work I'm doing for myself is also going well. (I don't say anything to any of this.) Have I published a book lately? I admit I have, although I and half of Ireland can own up to this fact. And I've just started, in the past week, working on an idea for another one now? This is also true, right down to the time-frame.
There are new beginnings ahead, if I can take down my barricades, and the new beginnings kick off in February, and then really get going in April, and it will affect all aspects of my life. This new phase will take me through for three years. Barricades? I keep hearing this word and I don't much like it, in truth. Then she looks at my left hand. "The left hand is what you're born with, and the right is what you make of your life."
What does she see? I've travelled an enormous amount. True (and I'm not done yet). I have had, to date, a very full, but chaotic life. Hmmm. I'll live until my 90s. I feel vaguely horrified by the prospect, but hey, time will tell on that one. There is stuff about my personal life, which I'll keep personal.
Time taken: 25 minutes
Cost: €45.
Mr X, Dublin
For reasons that will become obvious, I'm not naming this particular fortune teller. Like Margaret Murphy at Georges Street Arcade, this is a drop-in business with a sign on the wall clearly advertising its presence - which is how I find it. You don't need to make an appointment, you just turn up and wait.
When it's my turn, Mr X asks what I want to know. To find what 2006 has in store for me, I say. This time, I'm not asked to shuffle the cards. He starts laying down cards swiftly in two vertical fans, each in a kind of tree shape. One tree is my job and career. Everything is pretty rosy there apparently, although in April, there's going to be a big change which will affect both the professional and personal sides of my life.
Then he looks at the other lot of cards, which represent my personal life. Mr X makes a few stinging comments on mistakes I've made in the past. They're all true, but so hard-hitting, and well, personal, they verge on upsetting. I find myself thinking, is this necessary? Then he comes out with a prediction for 2006 - in April, there's big upheaval in my life, which won't be resolved for the next three years and four months. He goes into some detail on the nature of this upheaval. I think: I'd rather not be hearing all this.
Mr X asks if I am listening to him. I am, and I'm not happy. As Mr X has correctly pointed out, I love my job and have found the profession that suits me most, and quite possibly, as he points out bluntly, giving it up would be "a dead loss" for me, but right this minute, I'm rather wishing my job hadn't taken me here. I'm not happy at all, at all. It appears neither of us are. Mr X snatches up the cards and glares at me. I've been there less than five minutes, possibly only three or four, at the most, but it seems like it's all over already.
"What are you doing here?" he snaps. "You came here with an agenda, I know you did. You didn't come here open, you were blocked when you arrived: I could feel it straight away. Why did you come here?"
Blocked. Irrationally, I think of drains. I'm not coming out of this with any dignity. The fee is €10. I take the money out of my wallet, and put it down on the table along with my card. I explain myself. Mr X is incandescent.
"I don't talk to journalists," he says. So why, I ask, does he have a fairly recent newspaper article about him framed on the waiting room wall? "I don't talk to journalists any more."
Now that he's seen through me, I feel - I admit it - madly superstitious. I don't want any bad will coming my way, imagined, or otherwise. Besides, both the other fortune tellers I consulted seemed pretty sure a court case was pending somewhere in my life. Which is why the third and last fortune teller I consulted appears here as Mr X.
