"They say that if you look a leprechaun straight in the eye," Mick Moloney told us on his folklore tour of Ireland last month, "he'll lead you to his buried treasure."

Since I have never put much store in the improbable, I listened to that pronouncement with skepticism.

But somewhere along the way on that enchanted odyssey, I found myself wondering about the little people and all sorts of magical things. For I did indeed find treasure, and I have no doubt about who led me to it.

When I read about Mick Moloney's Southwestern/Southeastern Folklore Tour, I knew I found exactly what I had been looking for.

The tour offered a musical and cultural experience through Counties Clare, Kerry , Cork, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow, and in Cork would pass near the villages of my grandparents where, after years of research, I discovered that I actually still had relatives.

For many years, I had been a Mick Moloney follower, and regularly attended the beautiful Mick Moloney and Eugene O'Donnell concerts amid throngs of adoring fans.

Now here was the chance to have Mick all to myself, to visit his Ireland for 10 days, the place he played and sang about and took us to in the stories he told in his soft brogue.

As things turned out, I didn't have Mick all to myself. There were 13 of us ("Mick's 13," as we later called ourselves) who met up with Mick in Shannon on June 8, a diverse group of folks of all ages from as far west as Idaho and as far east as Israel.

From the minute we climbed into the minibus, Mick picked up the microphone and began talking about Ireland. I had come with the foolish notion of putting Mick's words in writing, but I gave up on that right away because the man is a talking book of Irish knowledge, and it became just exhausting trying to keep up.

He told us about everything that caught his eye, and on that trip we learned about the history, geology, ecology, religion, language, archaeology, architecture, music and culture of Ireland, all with a touch of Mick's with and wisdom thrown in.

On the first day, with our driver, the gentle Willie Ryan at the wheel, we drove through the edge of the Burren in County Clare to Killinaboy Church and Dysert area. We explored the ruins there, with Mick guiding us through every inch of the place.

After that, we checked into a fine hotel in Ennis and sat by a roaring fire, mesmerized with folklore tales (that in my fatigue I was beginning to believe) from Ireland's foremost storyteller, Eddie Lenihan.

After a delicious dinner, Willie drove us over dark country roads to Lena Hanrahan's pub in Feakle, for a 12-man session playing the most exquisite strains of traditional music this side of heaven.

Of course, Mick sat in to play with them, as he did at all the sessions to follow.

As I sat there in my jet-lagged state, I began to feel like an alien visiting Lena's from some far-off galaxy.

Indeed, that wondrous music, the dancers, the ancient ruins of Dysert, and Eddie Lenihan all started spinning around in my head.

When a beautiful tenor sang about coming home when the "white daisies" bloomed in his Clare accent, I found myself wondering why they ruined such a lovely song by singing about what sounded to me like "white disease" and indeed trying to imagine a flower by that name.

At the end of the evening, just when I thought I would pitch forward into my Smithwick's, out came Lena and her family, as if in a dream, with pots of tea and trays piled high with scones and sandwiches.

After that, every day was like the first, a dreamlike adventure of driving through the lush green countryside and picturesque towns, tapes of beautiful Irish music playing in the background, to take in the spectacular beauty of the Cork and Kerry coastline, the Dingle peninsula, the Lakes of Killarney, the Ring of Kerry, the Mizzen Peninsula, the thatched villages of Kilkenny, the Wicklow Mountains: of visits to ruins of churches, Viking towers, ring forts, castles, monuments, abbeys, burial grounds and everything, everywhere we went.

At night after dinner, Mick treated us to private concerts, always followed by a session of brilliant craic in some tucked-away place of unparalleled hospitality, where you were sure no tourist had ever set foot before you.

And then there was something magical and mystical going on. One day in Limerick, for example, when I asked Mick about where they filmed The Field, he said that it was filmed in Mayo and then added that as a matter of fact, on our way to Dingle we'd be driving through Listowel, the town in which the author, John B. Keane lived and owned a pub.

I just couldn't believe it - and then, sure enough, not long after that, there we were inside J.B. Keane's pub with the famous author himself, larger than life sitting there sharing stories with Mick.

And then that night in Dingle when I descended the staircase into the hotel lobby, right there on a sofa in front of (and making blue eye contact, I swear), sat none other than the new James Bond himself Pierce Brosnan.

By then, operating on little sleep and bedazzled by it all, I had the distinct impression that Pierce was waiting there for me.

The only thing that kept me from floating into his arms was my certainty that if I did so he would vanish before my very eyes.

The next day I read in the paper that Brosnan is a Kerry man home for a visit, and only then did I believe that the whole thing wasn't Mick's doing.

Now it seems that J.B. Keane and Pierce Brosnan would be hard acts to follow, but each day held its own special magic and wonder.

In Kerry and Cork, for example, we were joined by the elegant Paddy O'Leary, the historian/archaeologist who took us back in time on visits to ancient and mystical places: in Waterford we met witty Jack Burchaell, the cultural geographer who journeyed with us through the Southeast.

And there were musical wonders as well with private concerts from outstanding vocalists, Cork's own Jimmy Crowley and Dublin's Frank Harte.

Of course, I had my own private magic when I made side trips to visit Bweeing and Cloyne where I found the graves of my great-grandparents, the churches where my grandparents were baptized, and best of all, cousins all over the place.

In Bweeing, my cousin Carmel proudly brought out the Looney family crest, and when we held it together to pose for pictures, I could hardly hold back the tears.

And in Cloyne, cousin Michael Costine took me to the top of the 100-foot high Viking tower that he hadn't climbed in 62 years.

From there, it seemed like you could see all of Ireland, and I knew for sure that Grandmom stood in that very spot as a young girl over 100 years ago.

Mick held a final party for his 13 on that last night in Dublin, but you couldn't call it a party by the look on everyone's faces. We all had it in our minds that the trip of a lifetime was coming to an end.

As for me, I kept wondering how I could say good-bye to Willie, Eddie, John B., Paddy, Jack, Jimmy, Frank, all my cousins, 007 and the white disease of Feakle.

Of course, I didn't have to say good-bye to Mick because I knew I'd see him at one of the great concerts he gives in the States. And if I look him straight in the eye, who knows where that will lead.

Barbara Loney Shoemaker of Wyndmoor, PA, is a litigation manager at Dechert, Price & Rhoads. This article was first published in Irish Edition, October 1995, p.22.

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