A 151-year-old shillelagh brought to Seattle from Ireland in 1859 went missing sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning–only a few days before it is expected to make its annual appearance in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Sunday, according to reports by KOMO4 News.
The president of the Society of the Friends of St. Patrick, Mike McQuaid, said he had the shillelagh at a St. Patrick’s day planning meeting on Tuesday evening, but left it in the back seat of his SUV outside his Queen Anne home overnight.
In the morning he discovered it was gone. “The car was unlocked and the shillelagh was missing,” he told KOMO4.
This isn’t the first time the shillelagh has gone missing. In August 2009 the 3-foot wooden club disappeared before a Irish heritage benefit, reappearing the morning of the event. However, this time McQuaid worries the irreplaceable artifact, thought to be the oldest shillelagh in the Pacific Northwest, might not make it back into the hands of its owners.
“I hope it’s a prank. If it’s a car prowl, we may never see this again,” he told KOMO4.
If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the missing shillelagh, they’re asked to call the Irish Heritage Club at 206-223-3608.