TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
TRUE
IRISH GHOST STORIES
COMPILED BY
SI JOHN D. SEYMOUR, B.D.
AUTHOR OK
"IRISH WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY "
ETC.
AND
HARRY L. NELIGAN, D.I.R.I.C.
DUBLIN
HODGES, FIGGIS & CO., LTD.
104 GRAFTON STREET
LONDON
HUMPHREY MILFORD
AMEN CORNER, E.G.
1914
TO
THREE LIVELY POLTERGEISTS
W , J , AND G ,
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY
THE COMPILERS
2061332
FOREWORD
THIS book had its origin on this wise. In
my Irish Witchcraft and Demonology^ pub-
lished in October 1913, I inserted a couple
of famous lyth century ghost stories which
described how lawsuits were set on foot at
the instigation of most importunate spirits.
It then occurred to me that as far as I knew
there was no such thing in existence as a
book of Irish ghost stories. Books on Irish
fairy and folk-lore there were in abundance
some of which could easily be spared
but there was no book of ghosts. And so I
determined to supply this sad omission.
In accordance with the immortal recipe
for making hare-soup I had first to obtain
my ghost stories. Where was I to get
them from ? For myself I knew none
worth publishing, nor had I ever had any
strange experiences, while I feared that my
friends and acquaintances were in much the
ix
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
same predicament. Suddenly a brilliant
thought struck me. I wrote out a letter,
stating exactly what I wanted, and what I
did not want, and requesting the readers of
it either to forward me ghost stories, or
else to put me in the way of getting them :
this letter was sent to the principal Irish
newspapers on October 27, and published
on October 29, and following days.
I confess I was a little doubtful as to the
result of my experiment, and wondered
what response the people of Ireland would
make to a letter which might place a
considerable amount of trouble on their
shoulders. My mind was speedily set at
rest. On October 30, the first answers
reached me. Within a fortnight I had
sufficient material to make a book ; within
a month I had so much material that I
could pick and choose and more was
promised. Further on in this preface I
give a list of those persons whose contribu-
tions I have made use of, but here I should
like to take the opportunity of thanking all
those ladies and gentlemen throughout the
length and breadth of Ireland, the majority
of whom were utter strangers to me, who
FOREWORD
went to the trouble of sitting down and
writing out page after page of stories. I
cannot forget their kindness, and I am only
sorry that I could not make use of more of
the matter that was sent to me. As one
would expect, this material varied in value
and extent. Some persons contributed in-
cidents, of little use by themselves, but
which worked in as helpful illustrations,
while others forwarded budgets of stories,
long and short. To sift the mass of matter,
and bring the various portions of it into
proper sequence, would have been a lengthy
and difficult piece of work had I not been
ably assisted by Mr. Harry L. Neligan, D.I. ;
but I leave it as a pleasant task to the
Higher Critic to discover what portions of
the book were done by him, and what
should be attributed to me.
Some of the replies that reached me
were sufficiently amusing. One gentleman,
who carefully signed himself " Esquire,"
informed me that he was " after " reading a
great book of ghost stories, but several
letters of mine failed to elicit any subse-
quent information. Another person offered
to sell me ghost stories, while several
xi
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
proffered tales that had been worked up
comically. One lady addressed a card to
me as follows :
" THE REVD.-
(Name and address lost of the clergyman whose letter
appeared lately in Irish Times, re " apparitions ")
CAPPAWHITE."
As the number of clergy in the above
village who deal in ghost stories is strictly
limited, the Post Office succeeded in deliver-
ing it safely. I wrote at once in reply, and
got a story. In a letter bearing the Dublin
postmark a correspondent, veiled in anony-
mity, sent me a religious tract with the
curt note, " Re ghost stories, will you please
read this." I did so, but still fail to see
the sender's point of view. Another person
in a neighbouring parish declared that if I
were their rector they would forthwith
leave my church, and attend service else-
where. There are many, I fear, who adopt
this attitude ; but it will soon become out
of date.
Some of my readers may cavil at the ex-
pression, " True Ghost Stories." For myself
I cannot guarantee the genuineness of a single
xii
FOREWORD
incident in this book how could I, as none
of them are my own personal experience ?
This at least I can vouch for, that the
majority of the stories were sent to me as
first or second-hand experiences by ladies
and gentlemen whose statement on an ordi-
nary matter of fact would be accepted with-
out question. And further, in order to
prove the bona fides of this book, I make
the following offer. The original letters
and documents are in my custody at Donohil
Rectory, and I am perfectly willing to
allow any responsible person to examine
them, subject to certain restrictions, these
latter obviously being that names of people
and places must not be divulged, for I regret
to say that in very many instances my corre-
spondents have laid this burden upon me.
This is to be the more regretted, because
the use of blanks, or fictitious initials, makes
a story appear much less convincing than if
real names had been employed.
Just one word. I can imagine some of
my readers (to be numbered by the thousand,
I hope) saying to themselves : " Oh ! Mr.
Seymour has left out some of the best stories.
Did he never hear of such-and-such a
Xlll
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
haunted house, or place ? " Or, "I could relate
an experience better than anything he has
got." If such there be, may I beg of them
to send me on their stories with all imagined
speed, as they may be turned to account at
some future date.
I beg to return thanks to the following
for permission to make use of matter in
their publications : Messrs. Sealy, Bryers,
and Walker, proprietors of the New Ireland
Review ; the editor of the Review of Re-
views ; the editor of the Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research ; the editor
of the Journal of the American S.P.R. ;
the editor of the Occult Review, and Mr.
Elliott O'Donnell ; Messrs. Longmans, Green
and Co., and Mrs. Andrew Lang ; the editor
of the Wide World Magazine; the repre-
sentatives of the late Rev. Dr. Craig.
In accordance with the promise made in
my letter, I have now much pleasure in
giving the names of the ladies and gentle-
who have contributed to, or assisted in, the
compilation of this book, and as well to
assure them that Mr. Neligan and I are
deeply grateful to them for their kindness.
Mrs. S. Acheson, Drumsna, Co. Ros-
xiv
FOREWORD
common ; Mrs. M. Archibald, Cliftonville
Road, Belfast ; J. J. Burke, Esq., U.D.C.,
Rahoon,Galway ; Capt. R. Beamish, Passage
West, Co. Cork ; Mrs. A. Bayly, Wooden-
bridge, Co. Wicklow ; R. Blair, Esq., South
Shields ; Jas. Byrne, Esq., Castletownroche,
Co. Cork ; Mrs. Kearney Brooks, Killarney ;
H. Buchanan, Esq., Inishannon, Co. Cork ;
J. A. Barlow, Esq., Bray, Co. Wicklcw ; J.
Carton, Esq., King's Inns Library, Dublin ;
Miss A. Cooke, Cappagh House, Co. Lime-
rick ; J. P. V. Campbell, Esq.,&//f//cr, Dublin ;
Rev. E. G. S. Crosthwait, M.A., Littleton,
Thurles : J. Crowley, Esq., Munster and
Leinster Bank, Cashel ; Miss C. M. Doyle,
Ashfield Road, Dublin ; J. Ralph Dagg,Esq.,
Baltinglass; Gerald A. Dillon,Esq., Wicklow;
Matthias and Miss Nan Fitzgerald, Cappagh
House, Co. Limerick ; Lord Walter Fitz-
gerald, Kilkea Castle ; Miss Finch, Rush-
brook, Co. Cork ; Rev. H. R. B. Gillespie,
M.A., Aghacon Rectory, Roscrea ; Miss
Grene, Grene Park, Co. Tipperary ; L. H.
Grubb, Esq.,J.P.,D.L.,Ardmayle,Co.Tippe-
rary ; H. Keble Gelston, Esq., Letterkenny ;
Ven. J. A. Haydn, LL.D., Archdeacon of
Limerick ; Miss Dorothy Hamilton, Portar-
XV
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
lington ; Richard Hogan, Esq., Bowman St.,
Limerick ; Mrs. G. Kelly, Rathgar, Dublin ;
Miss Keefe, Carnahallia, Doon ; Rev. D. B.
Knox, Whitehead, Belfast ; Rev. J. D. Kidd,
M.A., Castlewellan ; E. B. de Lacy, Esq.,
Marlboro' Road, Dublin ; Miss K. Lloyd,
Shinrone, King's Co. ; Canon Lett, M.A.,
Aghaderg Rectory ; T. MacFadden, Esq.,
Carrigart,Co. Donegal ; Wm.Mackey,Esq.,
Strabane ; Canon Courtenay Moore, M.A.,
Mitchelstown, Co. Cork ; J. McCrossan,
Esq., "Journalist^ Strabane ; G. H. Miller,
Esq., J.P., Edgeworthstown ; Mrs. P. C. F.
Magee, Dublin ; Rev. R. D. Paterson, B.A.,
Ardmore Rectory ; E. A. Phelps, Esq.,
Trinity College Library ; Mrs. Pratt, Mun-
ster and Leinster Bank, Rathkeale ; Miss
Pirn, Monkstown, Co. Dublin ; Miss B.
Parker, Passage West, Co. Cork ; Henry
Reay, Esq., Harold's Cross, Dublin ; M.
J. Ryan, Esq., Taghmon, Co. Wexford ;
P. Ryan, Esq., Nicker, Pallasgrean ;
Canon Ross-Lewin, Kilmurry, Limerick ;
Miss A. Russell, Elgin Road, Dublin ; Lt.-
Col. the Hon. F. Shore, Thomastown, Co.
Kilkenny ; Mrs. Seymour, Donohil Rectory ;
Mrs. E. L. Stritch, North Great Georges
xvi
FOREWORD
St., Dublin ; M. C. R. Stritch, Esq., Beltur-
bet ; Very Rev. the Dean of St. Patrick's.
D.D.; Mrs. Spratt, Thurles ; W. S. Thomp-
son, Esq., Inishannon, Co. Cork ; Mrs,
Thomas, Sandycove, Dublin ; Mrs. Walker,
Glenbeigh, Co. Kerry ; Miss Wolfe, Skib-
bereen, Co. Cork ; Mrs. E. Welsh, Nenagh ;
T.J.Westropp,Esq.,M.A.,M.R.I.A.,Sandy-
mount, Dublin ; Mrs. M. A. Wilkins, Rath-
gar, Dublin ; John Ward, Esq., Bally mote ;
Mrs. Wrench, Ballybrack, Co. Dublin ;
Miss K. E. Younge, Upper Oldtown, Rath-
downey.
ST. JOHN D. SEYMOUR.
DONOHIL RECTORY,
CAPPAWHITE, TIPPERARY,
February 2, 1914.
XVll
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. HAUNTED HOUSES IN OR NEAR DUBLIN . i
II. HAUNTED HOUSES IN CONN'S HALF . . 32
III. HAUNTED HOUSES IN MOGH'S HALF . . 55
IV. POLTERGEISTS . . . . . .100
V. HAUNTED PLACES . . . . .121
VI. APPARITIONS AT OR AFTER DEATH . . 146
VII. BANSHEES, AND OTHER DEATH-WARNINGS . 175
VIII. MISCELLANEOUS SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES 198
IX. LEGENDARY AND ANCESTRAL GHOSTS . -223
X. MISTAKEN IDENTITY CONCLUSION . . 249
INDEX OF PLACE NAMES . . . -273
xix
TRUE
IRISH GHOST STORIES
CHAPTER I
HAUNTED HOUSES IN OR NEAR DUBLIN
OF all species of ghostly phenomena, that
commonly known as " haunted houses " ap-
peals most to the ordinary person. There
is something very eerie in being shut up
within the four walls of a house with a
ghost. The poor human being is placed
at such a disadvantage. If we know that a
gateway, or road, or field has the reputation
of being haunted, we can in nearly every
case make a detour, and so avoid the un-
pleasant locality. But the presence of a
ghost in a house creates a very different
state of affairs. It appears and disappears
at its own sweet will, with a total disregard
for our feelings : it seems to be as much
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
part and parcel of the domicile as the stair-
case or the hall door, and, consequently,
nothing short of leaving the house or of
pulling it down (both of these solutions
are not always practicable) will free
us absolutely from the unwelcome pre-
sence.
There is also something so natural, and at
the same time so unnatural, in seeing a door
open when we know that no human hand
rests on the knob, or in hearing the sound
of footsteps, light or heavy, and feeling that
it cannot be attributed to the feet of mortal
man or woman. Or perhaps a form ap-
pears in a room, standing, sitting, or walk-
ing in fact, situated in its three dimensions
apparently as an ordinary being of flesh and
blood, until it proves its unearthly nature
by vanishing before our astonished eyes.
Or perhaps we are asleep in bed. The
room is shrouded in darkness, and our
recumbent attitude, together with the weight
of bed-clothes, hampers our movements and
probably makes us more cowardly. A man
will meet pain or danger boldly if he be
standing upright occupying that erect
position which is his as Lord of Creation ;
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
but his courage does not well so high if he
be supine. We are awakened suddenly by
the feel that some superhuman Presence is in
the room. We are transfixed with terror,
we cannot find either the bell-rope or the
matches, while we dare not leap out of bed
and make a rush for the door lest we should
encounter we know not what. In an agony
of fear, we feel it moving towards us ; it
approaches closer, and yet closer, to the
bed, and for what may or may not then
happen we must refer our readers to the
pages of this book.
But the sceptical reader will say : " This
is all very well, but there are no haunted
houses. All these alleged strange happen-
ings are due to a vivid imagination, or else
to rats and mice." (The question of de-
liberate and conscious fraud may be rejected
in almost every instance.) This simple
solution has been put forward so often that
it should infallibly have solved the problem
long ago. But will such a reader explain
how it is that the noise made by rats and
mice can resemble slow, heavy footsteps, or
else take the form of a human being seen
by several persons ; or how our imagination
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
can cause doors to open and shut, or else
create a conglomeration of noises which,
physically, would be beyond the power of
ordinary individuals to reproduce ? What-
ever may be the ultimate explanation, we
feel that there is a great deal in the words
quoted by Professor Barrett : " In spite of
all reasonable scepticism, it is difficult to
avoid accepting, at least provisionally, the
conclusion that there are, in a certain sense,
haunted houses, i.e. that there are houses
in which similar quasi-human apparitions
have occurred at different times to differ-
ent inhabitants, under circumstances which
exclude the hypothesis of suggestion or
expectation."
We must now turn to the subject of this
chapter. Mrs. G. Kelly, a lady well known
in musical circles in Dublin, sends as her
own personal experience the following tale
of a most quiet haunting, in which the
spectral charwoman (!) does not seem to
have entirely laid aside all her mundane
habits.
" My first encounter with a ghost occurred
about twenty years ago. On that occasion
I was standing in the kitchen of my house
4
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
in Square, when a woman, whom I was
afterwards to see many times, walked down
the stairs into the room. Having heard
the footsteps outside, I was not in the least
perturbed, but turned to look who it was,
and found myself looking at a tall, stout,
elderly woman, wearing a bonnet and old-
fashioned mantle. She had grey hair, and
a benign and amiable expression. We stood
gazing at each other while one could count
twenty. At first I was not at all frightened,
but gradually as I stood looking at her an
uncomfortable feeling, increasing to terror,
came over me. This caused me to retreat
farther and farther back, until I had my
back against the wall, and then the appari-
tion slowly faded.
" This feeling of terror, due perhaps to
the unexpectedness of her appearance, al-
ways overcame me on the subsequent occa-
sions on which I saw her. These occasions
numbered twelve or fifteen, and I have seen
her in every room in the house, and at
every hour of the day, during a period of
about ten years. The last time she appeared
was ten years ago. My husband and I had
just returned from a concert at which he
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
had been singing, and we sat for some time
over supper, talking about the events of the
evening. When at last I rose to leave the
room, and opened the dining-room door, I
found my old lady standing on the mat
outside with her head bent towards the
door in the attitude of listening. I called
out loudly, and my husband rushed to my
side. That was the last time I have seen
her."
" One peculiarity of this spectral visitant
was a strong objection to disorder or untidy-
ness of any kind, or even to an alteration in
the general routine of the house. For in-
stance, she showed her disapproval of any
stranger coming to sleep by turning the
chairs face downwards on the floor in the
room they were to occupy. I well re-
member one of our guests, having gone to
his room one evening for something he had
forgotten, remarking on coming downstairs
again, c Well, you people have an extra-
ordinary manner of arranging your furni-
ture ! I have nearly broken my bones over
one of the bedroom chairs which was turned
down on the floor/ As my husband and I
had restored that chair twice already to
6
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
its proper position during the day, we were
not much surprised at his remarks, although
we did not enlighten him. The whole
family have been disturbed by a peculiar
knocking which occurred in various rooms
in the house, frequently on the door or
wall, but sometimes on the furniture, quite
close to where we had been sitting. This
was evidently loud enough to be heard in
the next house, for our next-door neighbour
once asked my husband why he selected
such curious hours for hanging his pictures.
Another strange and fairly frequent occur-
rence was the following. I had got a set of
skunk furs which I fancied had an un-
pleasant odour, as this fur sometimes has ;
and at night I used to take it from my
wardrobe and lay it on a chair in the draw-
ing-room, which was next my bedroom.
The first time that I did this, on going to
the drawing-room I found, to my surprise,
my muff in one corner and my stole in
another. Not for a moment suspecting a
supernatural agent, I asked my servant about
it, and she assured me that she had not been
in the room that morning. Whereupon I
determined to test the matter, which I did
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
by putting in the furs late at night, and
taking care that I was the first to enter the
room in the morning. I invariably found
that they had been disturbed."
The following strange and pathetic in-
cident occurred in a well-known Square in
the north side of the city. In or about a
hundred years ago a young officer was
ordered to Dublin, and took a house there
for himself and his family. He sent on his
wife and two children, intending to join
them in the course of a few days. When
the latter and the nurse arrived, they found
only the old charwoman in the house, and
she left shortly after their arrival. Finding
that something was needed, the nurse went
out to purchase it. On her return she
asked the mother were the children all right,
as she had seen two ghostly forms flit past
her on the door-step ! The mother answered
that she believed they were, but on going
up to the nursery they found both the
children with their throats cut. The mur-
derer was never brought to justice, and no
motive was ever discovered for the crime.
The unfortunate mother went mad, and it
is said that an eerie feeling still clings to
8
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
the house, while two little heads are some-
times seen at the window of the room where
the deed was committed.
A most weird experience fell to the lot
of Major Macgregor, and was contributed
by him to Real Ghost Stories, the celebrated
Christmas number of the Review of Reviews.
He says : " In the end of 1871 I went over
to Ireland to visit a relative living in a
Square in the north side of Dublin. In
January 1872 the husband of my relative
fell ill. I sat up with him for several
nights, and at last, as he seemed better, I
went to bed, and directed the footman to
call me if anything went wrong. I soon
fell asleep, but some time after was awakened
by a push on the left shoulder. I started
up, and said, c Is there anything wrong ? '
I got no answer, but immediately received
another push. I got annoyed, and said
4 Can you not speak, man ! and tell me if
there is anything wrong." Still no answer,
and I had a feeling I was going to get
another push when I suddenly turned round
and caught a human hand, warm, plump,
and soft. I said, ' Who are you ? ' but I got
no answer. I then tried to pull the person
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
towards me, but could not do so. I then
said, ' I will know who you are ! ' and having
the hand tight in my right hand, with my
left I felt the wrist and arm, enclosed, as it
seemed to me, in a tight-fitting sleeve of
some winter material with a linen cuff, but
when I got to the elbow all trace of an arm
ceased. I was so astounded that I let the
hand go, and just then the clock struck
two. Including the mistress of the house,
there were five females in the establishment,
and I can assert that the hand belonged to
none of them. When I reported the ad-
venture, the servants exclaimed, ' Oh, it must
have been the master's old Aunt Betty, who
lived for many years in the upper part of
that house, and had died over fifty years
before at a great age.' I afterwards heard
that the room in which I felt the hand had
been considered haunted, and very curious
noises and peculiar incidents occurred, such
as the bed-clothes torn off, &c. One lady
got a slap in the face from some invisible
hand, and when she lit her candle she saw
as if something opaque fell or jumped off
the bed. A general officer, a brother of
the lady, slept there two nights, but pre-
10
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
ferred going to a hotel to remaining the
third night. He never would say what he
heard or saw, but always said the room was
uncanny. I slept for months in the room
afterwards, and was never in the least
disturbed."
A truly terrifying sight was witnessed by
a clergyman in a school-house a good many
years ago. This cleric was curate of a
Dublin parish, but resided with his parents
some distance out of town in the direction
of Malahide. It not infrequently happened
that he had to hold meetings in the even-
ings, and on such occasions, as his home was
so far away, and as the modern convenience
of tramcars was not then known, he used
to sleep in the schoolroom, a large bare
room, where the meetings were held. He
had made a sleeping-apartment for himself
by placing a pole across one end of the
room, on which he had rigged up two
curtains which, when drawn together, met
in the middle. One night he had been
holding some meeting, and when every-
body had left he locked up the empty
schoolhouse, and went to bed. It was a
bright moonlight night, and every object
ii
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
could be seen perfectly clearly. Scarcely
had he got into bed when he became con-
scious of some invisible presence. Then he
saw the curtains agitated at one end, as if
hands were grasping them on the outside.
In an agony of terror he watched these
hands groping along outside the curtains
till they reached the middle. The curtains
were then drawn a little apart, and a Face
peered in an awful, evil Face, with an ex-
pression of wickedness and hate upon it
which no words could describe. It looked
at him for a few moments, then drew back
again, and the curtains closed. The clergy-
man had sufficient courage left to leap out
of bed and make a thorough examination of
the room, but, as he expected, he found no
one. He dressed himself as quickly as
possible, walked home, and never again
slept a night in that schoolroom.
The following tale, sent by Mr. E. B. de
Lacy, contains a most extraordinary and
unsatisfactory element of mystery. He says :
" When I was a boy I lived in the suburbs,
and used to come in every morning to school
in the city. My way lay through a certain
street in which stood a very dismal semi-
12
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
detached house, which, I might say, was
closed up regularly about every six months.
I would see new tenants coming into it,
and then in a few months it would be ' To
let ' again. This went on for eight or nine
years, and I often wondered what was the
reason. On inquiring one day from a friend,
I was told that it had the reputation of
being haunted.
" A few years later I entered business in
a certain office, and one day it fell to my
lot to have to call on the lady who at that
particular period was the tenant of the
haunted house. When we had transacted
our business she informed me that she was
about to leave. Knowing the reputation of
the house, and being desirous of investigat-
ing a ghost-story, I asked her if she would
give me the history of the house as far as
she knew it, which she very kindly did as
follows :
" About forty years ago the house was left
by will to a gentleman named . He
lived in it for a short time, when he sud-
denly went mad, and had to be put in an
asylum. Upon this his agents let the house
to a lady. Apparently nothing unusual
13
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
happened for some time, but a few months
later, as she went down one morning to a
room behind the kitchen, she found the
cook hanging by a rope attached to a hook
in the ceiling. After the inquest the lady
gave up the house.
" It was then closed up for some time, but
was again advertised c To let,' and a care-
taker, a woman, was put into it. One
night about one o'clock, a constable going
his rounds heard some one calling for help
from the house, and found the caretaker on
the sill of one of the windows holding on
as best she could. He told her to go in
and open the hall door and let him in, but
she refused to enter the room again. He
forced open the door and succeeded in drag-
ging the woman back into the room, only
to find she had gone mad.
" Again the house was shut up, and
again it was let, this time to a lady, on
a five-years' lease. However, after a few
months' residence, she locked it up, and
went away. On her friends asking her
why she did so, she replied that she
would rather pay the whole five years'
rent than live in it herself, or allow any-
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
one else to do so, but would give no
other reason.
" c I believe I was the next person to take
this house,' said the lady who narrated the
story to me (i.e. Mr. de Lacy). c I took it
about eighteen months ago on a three years'
lease in the hopes of making money by
taking in boarders, but I am now giving it
up because none of them will stay more
than a week or two. They do not give
any definite reason as to why they are leaving ;
they are careful to state that it is not because
they have any fault to find with me or my
domestic arrangements, but they merely say
they do not like the rooms / The rooms them-
selves, as you can see, are good, spacious,
and well lighted. I have had all classes of
professional men ; one of the last was a
barrister, and he said that he had no fault
to find except that he did not like the rooms I
I myself do not believe in ghosts, and I have
never seen anything strange here or else-
where ; and if I had known the house had
the reputation of being haunted, I would
never have rented it."
Marsh's library, that quaint, old-world
repository of ponderous tomes, is reputed to
15
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
be haunted by the ghost of its founder,
Primate Narcissus Marsh. He is said to
frequent the inner gallery, which contains
what was formerly his own private library :
he moves in and out among the cases, taking
down books from the shelves, and occasion-
ally throwing them down on the reader's
desk as if in anger. However, he always
leaves things in perfect order. The late
Mr. - , who for some years lived in the
librarian's rooms underneath, was a firm
believer in this ghost, and said he frequently
heard noises which could only be accounted
for by the presence of a nocturnal visitor ;
the present tenant is more sceptical. The
story goes that Marsh's niece eloped from
the Palace, and was married in a tavern to
the curate of Chapelizod. She is reported
to have written a note consenting to the
elopement, and to have then placed it in
one of her uncle's books to which her lover
had access, and where he found it. As a
punishment for his lack of vigilance, the
Archbishop is said to be condemned to hunt
for the note until he find it hence the
ghost.
The ghost of a deceased Canon was seen
16
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
in one of the Dublin cathedrals by several
independent witnesses, one of whom, a lady,
gives her own experience as follows : "Canon
was a personal friend of mine, and we
had many times discussed ghosts and spiritu-
alism, in which he was a profound believer,
having had many supernatural experiences
himself. It was during the Sunday morn-
ing service in the cathedral that I saw my
friend, who had been dead for two years,
sitting inside the communion-rails. I was
so much astonished at the flesh-and blood
appearance of the figure that I took off my
glasses and wiped them with my handker-
chief, at the same time looking away from
him down the church. On looking back
again he was still there, and continued to
sit there for about ten or twelve minutes,
after which he faded away. I remarked a
change in his personal appearance, which
was, that his beard was longer and whiter
than when I had known him in fact, such
a change as would have occurred in life in
the space of two years. Having told my
husband of the occurrence on our way home,
he remembered having heard some talk of
an appearance of this clergyman in the
17 B
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
cathedral since his death. He hurried back
to the afternoon service, and asked the
robestress if anybody had seen Canon 's
ghost. She informed him that she had, and
that he had also been seen by one of the
sextons in the cathedral. I mention this
because in describing his personal appearance
she had remarked the same change as I had
with regard to the beard."
Some years ago a family had very uncanny
experiences in a house in Rathgar, and sub-
sequently in another in Rathmines. These
were communicated by one of the young
ladies to Mrs. M. A. Wilkins, who published
them in the Journal vi the American S.P.R., 1
from which they are here taken. The
Rathgar house had a basement passage
leading to a door into the yard, and along
this passage her mother and the children
used to hear dragging, limping steps, and
the latch of the door rattling, but no one
could ever be found when search was made.
The house-bells were old and all in a row,
and on one occasion they all rang, apparently
of their own accord. The lady narrator
used to sleep in the back drawing room, and
1 For September 1913.
18
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
always when the light was put out she heard
strange noises, as if some one was going
round the room rubbing paper along the
wall, while she often had the feeling that a
person was standing beside her bed. A
cousin, who was a nurse, once slept with
her, and also noticed these strange noises.
On one occasion this room was given up to
a very matter-of-fact young man to sleep in,
and next morning he said that the room
was very strange, with queer noises in it.
Her mother also had an extraordinary
experience in the same house. One evening
she had just put the baby to bed, when she
heard a voice calling " mother." She left
the bedroom, and called to her daughter,
who was in a lower room, " What do you
want ? " But the girl replied that she had
not called her ; and then, in her turn, asked
her mother if she had been in the front
room, for she had just heard a noise as if
some one was trying to fasten the inside bars
of the shutters across. But her mother had
been upstairs, and no one was in the front
room. The experiences in the Rathmines
house were of a similar auditory nature, i.e.
the young ladies heard their names called,
19
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
though it was found that no one in the
house had done so.
Occasionally it happens that ghosts inspire
a law-suit. In the seventeenth century
they were to be found actively urging the
adoption of legal proceedings, but in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries they
play a more passive part. A case about a
haunted house took place in Dublin in the
year 1885, in which the ghost may be said
to have won. A Mr. Waldron, a solicitor's
clerk, sued his next-door neighbour, one
Mr. Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service,
to recover ^5 for damages done to his
house.
Kiernan altogether denied the charges,
but asserted that Waldron's house was noto-
riously haunted. Witnesses proved that
every night, from August 1884 to January
1885, stones were thrown at the .windows
and doors, and extraordinary and inexplic-
able occurrences constantly took place.
Mrs. Waldron, wife of the plaintiff,
swore that one night she saw one of the
panes of glassof a certain window cut through
with a diamond, and a white hand inserted
through the hole. She at once caught up
20
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand,
cutting off one of the fingers. This finger
could not be found, nor were any traces of
blood seen.
A servant of hers was sorely persecuted
by noises and the sound of footsteps. Mr.
Waldron, with the aid of detectives and
policemen, endeavoured to find out the
cause, but with no success. The witnesses
in the case were closely cross-examined, but
without shaking their testimony. The facts
appeared to be proved, so the jury found for
Kiernan, the defendant. At least twenty
persons had testified on oath to the fact
that the house had been known to have
been haunted. 1
Before leaving the city and its immediate
surroundings, we must relate the story of an
extraordinary ghost, somewhat lacking in
good manners, yet not without a certain
distorted sense of humour. Absolutely in-
credible though the tale may seem, yet it
comes on very good authority. It was
related to our informant, Mr. D., by a
Mrs. C., whose daughter he had employed
as governess. Mrs. C., who is described as
1 See Sights and Shadows, p. 42 ff.
21
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
" a woman of respectable position and good
education," heard it in her turn from her
father and mother. In the story the relation-
ship of the different persons seems a little
involved, but it would appear that the
initial A belongs to the surname both of
Mrs. C.'s father and grandfather.
This ghost was commonly called "Corney"
by the family, and he answered to this
though it was not his proper name. He
disclosed this latter to Mr. C.'s mother, who
forgot it. Corney made his presence mani-
fest to the A family shortly after they had
gone to reside in Street in the following
manner. Mr. A had sprained his knee
badly, and had to use a crutch, which at
night was left at the head of his bed. One
night his wife heard some one walking on
the lobby, thump, thump, thump, as if imitat-
ing Mr. A . She struck a match to see if
the crutch had been removed from the head
of the bed, but it was still there.
From that on Corney commenced to talk,
and he spoke every day from his usual
habitat, the coal-cellar off the kitchen. His
voice sounded as if it came out of an emptv
11 r j
barrel.
22
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
He was very troublesome, and continually
played practical jokes on the servants, who,
as might be expected, were in terror of their
lives of him ; so much so that Mrs. A
could hardly induce them to stay with her.
They used to sleep in a press-bed in the
kitchen, and in order to get away from
Corney,they asked for a room at the top of the
house, which was given to them. Accord-
ingly the press-bed was moved up there.
The first night they went to retire to bed
after the change, the doors of the press were
flung open, and Corney's voice said, " Ha 1
ha ! you devils, I am here before you ! I
am not confined to any particular part of
this house."
Corney was continually tampering with
the doors, and straining locks and keys,
He only manifested himself in material form
to two persons ; to , who died with the
fright, and to Mr. A (Mrs. C.'s father)
when he was about seven years old. The
latter described him to his mother as a naked
man, with a curl on his forehead, and a skin
like a clothes-horse (!).
One day a servant was preparing fish for
dinner. She laid it on the kitchen table
23
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
while she went elsewhere for something
she wanted. When she returned the fish
had disappeared. She thereupon began to
cry, fearing she would be accused of making
away with it. The next thing she heard
was the voice of Corney from the coal-cellar
saying, " There, you blubbering fool, is your
fish for you ! " and, suiting the action to
the word, the fish was thrown out on the
kitchen floor.
Relatives from the country used to bring
presents of vegetables, and these were often
hung up by Corney like Christmas decora-
tions round the kitchen. There was one
particular press in the kitchen he would not
allow anything into. He would throw it
out again. A crock with meat in pickle
was put into it, and a fish placed on the
cover of the crock. He threw the fish out.
Silver teaspoons were missing, and no
account of them could be got until Mrs.
A asked Corney to confess if he had done
anything with them. He said, " They are
under the ticking in the servants' bed."
He had, so he said, a daughter in Street,
and sometimes announced that he was going
to see her, and would not be here to-night.
24
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
On one occasion he announced that he
was going to have " company " that even-
ing, and if they wanted any water out of
the soft-water tank, to take it before going
to bed, as he and his friends would be using
it. Subsequently that night five or six
distinct voices were heard, and next morn-
ing the water in the tank was as black as
ink, and not alone that, but the bread and
butter in the pantry were streaked with the
marks of sooty fingers.
A clergyman in the locality, having heard
of the doings of Corney, called to investigate
the matter. He was advised by Mrs. A
to keep quiet, and not to reveal his identity,
as being the best chance of hearing Corney
speak. He waited a long time, and as the
capricious Corney remained silent, he left
at length. The servants asked, " Corney,
why did you not speak ? " and he replied,
" I could not speak while that good man
was in the house." The servants sometimes
used to ask him where he was. He would
reply, "The Great God would not permit
me to tell you. I was a bad man, and I
died the death." He named the room in
the house in which he died.
25
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Corney constantly joined in any conversa-
tion carried on by the people of the house.
One could never tell when a voice from the
coal-cellar would erupt into the dialogue.
He had his likes and dislikes : he appeared
to dislike anyone that was not afraid of him,
and would not talk to them. Mrs. C.'s
mother, however, used to get good of him
by coaxing. An uncle, having failed to get
him to speak one night, took the kitchen
poker, and hammered at the door of the
coal-cellar, [saying, " I'll make you speak " ;
but Corney wouldn't. Next morning the
poker was found broken in two. This
uncle used to wear spectacles, and Corney
used to call him derisively, " Four-eyes."
An uncle named Richard came to sleep one
night, and complained in the morning that
the clothes were pulled off him. Corney
told the servants in great glee, " I slept on
Master Richard's feet all night."
Finally Mr. A made several attempts
to dispose of his lease, but with no success,
for when intending purchasers were being
shown over the house and arrived at Corney 's
domain, the spirit would begin to speak and
the would-be purchaser would fly. They
26
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
asked him if they changed house would he
trouble them. He replied, " No ! but if
they throw down this house, I will trouble
the stones."
At last Mrs. A appealed to him to
keep quiet, and not to injure people who
had never injured him. He promised that
he would do so, and then said, " Mrs. A ,
you will be all right now, for I see a lady
in black coming up the street to this house,
and she will buy it." Within half an hour
a widow called and purchased the house.
Possibly Corney is still there, for our inform-
ant looked up the Directory as he was writ-
ing, and found the house marked " Vacant."
Near Blanchardstown, Co. Dublin, is a
house, occupied at present, or up to very
recently, by a private family ; it was formerly
a monastery, and there are said to be secret
passages in it. Once a servant ironing in
the kitchen saw the figure of a nun approach
the kitchen window and look in. Our in-
formant was also told by a friend (now dead),
who had it from the lady of the house, that
once night falls, no doors can be kept closed.
If anyone shuts them, almost immediately
they are flung open again with the greatest
27
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
violence and apparent anger. If left open
there is no trouble or noise, but light foot-
steps are heard, and there is a vague feeling
of people passing to and fro. The persons
inhabiting the house are matter-of-fact, un-
imaginative people, who speak of this as if
it were an everyday affair. " So long as
we leave the doors unclosed they don't harm
us : why should we be afraid of them ? "
Mrs. said. Truly a most philosophical
attitude to adopt !
A haunted house in Kingstown, Co.
Dublin, was investigated by Professor W.
Barrett and Professor Henry Sidgwick.
The story is singularly well attested (as one
might expect from its being inserted in the
pages of the Proceedings S.P.R. 1 ), as the
apparition was seen on three distinct oc-
casions, and by three separate persons who
were all personally known to the above
gentlemen. The house in which the fol-
lowing occurrences took place is described
as being a very old one, with unusually
thick walls. The lady saw her strange
visitant in her bedroom. She says : " Dis-
liking cross-lights, I had got into the habit
1 July 1884, p. 141.
28
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
of having the blind of the back window
drawn and the shutters closed at night, and
of leaving the blind raised and the shutters
opened towards the front, liking to see the
trees and sky when I awakened. Opening
my eyes now one morning, I saw right
before me (this occurred in July 1873) the
figure of a woman, stooping down and ap-
parently looking at me. Her head and
shoulders were wrapped in a common woollen
shawl ; her arms were folded, and they were
also wrapped, as if for warmth, in the shawl.
I looked at her in my horror, and dared not
cry out lest I might move the awful thing
to speech or action. Behind her head I
saw the window and the growing dawn, the
looking-glass upon the toilet-table, and
the furniture in that part of the room.
After what may have been only seconds
of the duration of this vision I cannot judge
she raised herself and went backwards
towards the window, stood at the toilet-
table, and gradually vanished. I mean she
grew by degrees transparent, and that
through the shawl and the grey dress she
wore I saw the white muslin of the table-
cover again, and at last saw that only in the
29
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
place where she had stood." The lady lay
motionless with terror until the servant came
to call her. The only other occupants of
the house at the time were her brother and
the servant, to neither of whom did she
make any mention of the circumstance,
fearing that the former would laugh at her,
and the latter give notice.
Exactly a fortnight later, when sitting at
breakfast, she noticed that her brother
seemed out of sorts, and did not eat. On
asking him if anything were the matter, he
answered, " I have had a horrid nightmare
indeed it was no nightmare : I saw it
early this morning, just as distinctly as I see
you." "What?" she asked. "A villain-
ous-looking hag," he replied, " with her
head and arms wrapped in a cloak, stooping
over me, and looking like this " He got
up, folded his arms, and put himself in the
exact posture of the vision. Whereupon she
informed him of what she herself had seen
a fortnight previously.
About four years later, in the same month,
the lady's married sister and two children
were alone in the house. The eldest child,
a boy of about four or five years, asked for
30
HAUNTED HOUSES IN DUBLIN
a drink, and his mother went to fetch it,
desiring him to remain in the dining-room
until her return. Coming back she met
the boy pale and trembling, and on asking
him why he left the room, he replied, " Who
is that woman who is that woman ? "
" Where ? " she asked. " That old woman
who went upstairs," he replied. So agitated
was he, that she took him by the hand and
went upstairs to search, but no one was to
be found, though he still maintained that a
woman went upstairs. A friend of the
family subsequently told them that a woman
had been killed in the house many years
previously, and that it was reported to be
haunted.
CHAPTER II
HAUNTED HOUSES IN CONN*S HALF
FROM a very early period a division of Ire-
land into two " halves " existed. This was
traditionally believed to have been made by
Conn the Hundred-fighter and Mogh
Nuadat, in A.D. 166. The north was in
consequence known as Conn's Half, the
south as Mogh's Half, the line of division
being a series of gravel hills extending from
Dublin to Galway. This division we have
followed, except that we have included the
whole of the counties of West Meath and
Galway in the northern portion. We had
hoped originally to have had four chapters
on Haunted Houses, one for each of the
four provinces, but, for lack of material
from Connaught, we have been forced to
adopt the plan on which Chapters I III are
arranged.
Mrs. Acheson, of Co. Roscommon, sends
the following : " Emo House, Co. West-
32
CONN'S HALF
meath, a very old mansion since pulled
down, was purchased by my grandfather for
his son, my father. The latter had only
been living in it for a few days when
knocking commenced at the hall door.
Naturally he thought it was someone play-
ing tricks, or endeavouring to frighten him
away. One night he had the lobby window
open directly over the door. The knocking
commenced, and he looked out : it was a
very bright night, and as there was no
porch he could see the door distinctly ; the
knocking continued, but he did not see the
knocker move. Another night he sat up
expecting his brother, but as the latter did
not come he went to bed. Finally the
knocking became so loud and insistent that
he felt sure his brother must have arrived.
He went downstairs and opened the door,
but no one was there. Still convinced that
his brother was there and had gone round
to the yard to put up his horse, he went
out ; but scarcely had he gone twenty yards
from the door when the knocking recom-
menced behind his back. On turning
round he could see no one."
" After this the knocking got very bad,
33 c
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
so much so that he could not rest. All this
time he did not mention the strange occur-
rence to anyone. One morning he went
up through the fields between four and five
o'clock. To his surprise he found the herd
out feeding the cattle. My father asked
him why he was up so early. He replied
that he could not sleep. 4 Why ? ' asked
my father. ' You know why yourself, sir
the knocking.' He then found that this
man had heard it all the time, though he
slept at the end of a long house. My father
was advised to take no notice of it, for it
would go as it came, though at this time it
was continuous and very loud ; and so it
did. The country people said it was the
late resident who could not rest."
" We had another curious and most eerie
experience in this house. A former rector
was staying the night with us, and as the
evening wore on we commenced to tell
ghost-stories. He related some remarkable
experiences, and as we were talking the
drawing-room door suddenly opened as wide
as possible, and then slowly closed again.
It was a calm night, and at any rate it was
a heavy double door which never flies open
34
CONN'S HALF
however strong the wind may be blowing.
Everyone in the house was in bed, as it was
after 12 o'clock, except the three persons
who witnessed this, viz. myself, my daughter,
and the rector. The effect on the latter
was most marked. He was a big, strong,
jovial man and a good athlete, but when he
saw the door open he quivered like an
aspen leaf."
A strange story of a haunting, in which
nothing was seen, but in which the same
noises were heard by different people, is sent
by one of the percipients, who does not
wish to have her name disclosed. She
says : " When staying for a time in a
country house in the North of Ireland some
years ago I was awakened on several nights
by hearing the tramp, tramp, of horses'
hoofs. Sometimes it sounded as if they
were walking on paving-stones, while at
other times I had the impression that they
were going round a large space, and as if
someone was using a whip on them. I
heard neighing, and champing of bits, and
so formed the impression that they were
carriage horses. I did not mind it much
at first, as I thought the stables must be
35
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
near that part of the house. After hearing
these noises several times I began to get
curious, so one morning I made a tour of
the place. I found that the side of the
house I occupied overlooked a neglected
garden, which was mostly used for drying
clothes. I also discovered that the stables
were right at the back of the house, and so
it would be impossible for me to hear any
noises in that quarter ; at any rate there
was only one farm horse left, and this was
securely fastened up every night. Also
there were no cobble-stones round the yard.
I mentioned what I had heard to the people
of the house, but as they would give me no
satisfactory reply I passed it over. I did
not hear these noises every night."
" One night I was startled out of my
sleep by hearing a dreadful disturbance in
the kitchen. It sounded as if the dish-
covers were being taken off the wall and
dashed violently on the flagged floor. At
length I got up and opened the door of my
bedroom, and just as I did so an appalling
crash resounded through the house. I
waited to see if there was any light to be
seen, or footstep to be heard, but nobody
36
CONN'S HALF
was stirring. There was only one servant
in the house, the other persons being my
host, his wife, and a baby, who had all
retired early. Next morning I described
the noises in the kitchen to the servant, and
she said she had often heard them. I then
told her about the tramping of horses : she
replied that she herself had never heard it,
but that other persons who had occupied
my room had had experiences similar to
mine. I asked her was there any explana-
tion ; she said No, except that a story was
told of a gentleman who had lived there
some years ago, and was very much addicted
to racing and gambling, and that he was
shot one night in that house. For the
remainder of my visit I was removed to
another part of the house, and I heard no
more noises."
A house in the North of Ireland, near that
locality which is eternally famous as having
furnished the material for the last trial for
witchcraft in the country, is said to be
haunted, the reason being that it is built on
the site of a disused and very ancient grave-
yard. It is said that when some repairs
were being carried out nine human skulls
37
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
were unearthed. It would be interesting to
ascertain how many houses in Ireland are
traditionally said to be built on such unplea-
sant sites, and if they all bear the reputation
of being haunted. The present writer knows
of one, in the South, which is so situated
(and this is supported, to a certain extent,
by documentary evidence from the thirteenth
century down) and which in consequence
has an uncanny reputation. But concerning
the above house it has been found almost
impossible to get any information. It is
said that strange noises were frequently
heard there, which sometimes seemed as if
cartloads of stones were being run down one
of the gables. On one occasion an inmate
of the house lay dying upstairs. A friend
went up to see the sick person, and on pro-
ceeding to pass through the bedroom door
was pressed and jostled as if by some unseen
person hurriedly leaving the room. On
entering, it was found that the sick person
had just passed away.
An account of a most unpleasant haunting
is contributed by Mr. W. S. Thompson, who
vouches for the substantial accuracy of it,
and also furnishes the names of two men,
38
CONN'S HALF
still living, who attended the " station."
We give it as it stands, with the comment
that some of the details seem to have been
grossly exaggerated by local raconteurs. In
the year 1869 a ghost made its presence
manifest in the house of a Mr. M in Co.
Cavan. In the daytime it resided in the
chimney, but at night it left its quarters
and subjected the family to considerable
annoyance. During the day they could
cook nothing, as showers of soot would be
sent down the chimney on top of every pot
and pan that was placed on the fire. At
night the various members of the family
would be dragged out of bed by the hair,
and pulled around the house. When anyone
ventured to light a lamp it would immedi-
ately be put out, while chairs and tables
would be sent dancing round the room.
At last matters reached such a pitch that
the family found it impossible to remain
any longer in the house. The night before
they left Mrs. M was severely handled,
and her boots left facing the door as a gentle
hint for her to be off. Before they departed
some of the neighbours went to the house,
saw the ghost, and even described to Mr.
39
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Thompson what they had seen. According
to one man it appeared in the shape of a
human being with a pig's head with long
tusks. Another described it as a horse with
an elephant's head, and a headless man seated
on its back. Finally a " station " was held
at the house by seven priests, at which all
the neighbours attended. The station com-
menced after sunset, and everything in the
house had to be uncovered, lest the evil
spirit should find any resting-place. A free
passage was left out of the door into the
street, where many people were kneeling.
About five minutes after the station opened
a rumbling noise was heard, and a black
barrel rolled out with an unearthly din,
though to some coming up the street it
appeared in the shape of a black horse with
a bull's head, and a headless man seated
thereon. From this time the ghost gave
no further trouble.
The same gentleman also sends an account
of a haunted shop in which members of his
family had some very unpleasant experiences.
u ln October 1882 my father, William
Thompson, took over the grocery and spirit
business from a Dr. S to whom it had
40
CONN'S HALF
been left by will. My sister was put in
charge of the business, and she slept on the
premises at night, but she was not there by
herself very long until she found things
amiss. The third night matters were made
so unpleasant for her that she had to get up
out of bed more dead than alive, and go
across the street to Mrs. M , the servant
at the R.I.C. barrack, with whom she
remained until the morning. She stated
that as she lay in bed, half awake and half
asleep, she saw a man enter the room, who
immediately seized her by the throat and
well-nigh choked her. She had only suffi-
cient strength left to gasp ' Lord, save me ! '
when instantly the man vanished. She also
said that she heard noises as if every bottle
and glass in the shop was smashed to atoms,
yet in the morning everything would be
found intact. My brother was in charge
of the shop one day, as my sister had to go
to Belturbet to do some Christmas shopping.
He expected her to return to the shop that
night, but as she did not do so he was
preparing to go to bed about i A.M., when
suddenly a terrible noise was heard. The
light was extinguished, and the tables and
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
chairs commenced to dance about the floor,
and some of them struck him on the shins.
Upon this he left the house, declaring that
he had seen the Devil ! " Possibly this
ghost had been a rabid teetotaller in the
flesh, and continued to have a dislike to the
publican's trade after he had become dis-
carnate. At any rate the present occupants,
who follow a different avocation, do not
appear to be troubled.
Ghosts are no respecters of persons or
places, and take up their quarters where
they are least expected. One can hardly
imagine them entering a R.I.C. barrack,
and annoying the stalwart inmates thereof.
Yet more than one tale of a haunted police-
barrack has been sent to us nay, in its
proper place we shall relate the appearance
of a deceased member of the " Force,"
uniform and all ! The following personal
experiences are contributed by an ex-R.I.C.
constable, who requested that all names
should be suppressed. "The barrack of
which I am about to speak has now dis-
appeared, owing to the construction of a
new railway line. It was a three-storey
house, with large airyapartmentsand splendid
4*
CONN'S HALF
accommodation. This particular night I
was on guard. After the constables had
retired to their quarters I took my palliasse
downstairs to the day-room, and laid it on
two forms alongside two six-foot tables
which were placed end to end in the centre
of the room."
" As I expected a patrol in at midnight,
and as another had to be sent out when it
arrived, I didn't promise myself a very restful
night, so I threw myself on the bed, intend-
ing to read a bit, as there was a large lamp
on the table. Scarcely had I commenced
to read when I felt as if I was being pushed
off the bed. At first I thought I must have
fallen asleep, so to make sure, I got up, took
a few turns around the room, and then
deliberately lay down again and took up my
book. Scarcely had I done so, when the
same thing happened, and, though I resisted
with all my strength, I was finally landed
on the floor. My bed was close to the
table, and the pushing came from that side,
so that if anyone was playing a trick on
me they could not do so without being
under the table : I looked, but there was
no visible presence there. I felt shaky, but
43
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
changed my couch to another part of the
room, and had no further unpleasant experi-
ence. Many times after I was ' guard ' in
the same room, but I always took care not
to place my couch in that particular spot."
" One night, long afterwards, we were all
asleep in the dormitory, when we were a-
wakened in the small hours of the morning
by the guard rushing upstairs, dashing
through the room, and jumping into a bed
in the farthest corner behind its occupant.
There he lay gasping, unable to speak for
several minutes, and even then we couldn't
get a coherent account of what befel him.
It appears he fell asleep, and suddenly
awoke to find himself on the floor, and a
body rolling over him. Several men volun-
teered to go downstairs with him, but he
absolutely refused to leave the dormitory,
and stayed there till morning. Nor would
he even remain downstairs at night without
having a comrade with him. It ended in
his applying for an exchange of stations."
"Another time I returned off duty at
midnight, and after my comrade, a married
Sergeant, had gone outside to his quarters
I went to the kitchen to change my boots.
44
CONN'S HALF
There was a good fire on, and it looked so
comfortable that I remained toasting my
toes on the hob, and enjoying my pipe.
The lock-up was a lean-to one-storey build-
ing off the kitchen, and was divided into
two cells, one opening into the kitchen, the
other into that cell. I was smoking away
quietly when I suddenly heard inside the
lock-up a dull, heavy thud, just like the
noise a drunken man would make by crash-
ing down on all-fours. I wondered who
the prisoner could be, as I didn't see any-
one that night who seemed a likely candi-
date for free lodgings. However as I heard
no other sound I decided I would tell the
guard in order that he might look after
him. As I took my candle from the table
I happened to glance at the lock-up, and,
to my surprise, I saw that the outer door
was open. My curiosity being roused, I
looked inside, to find the inner door also
open. There was nothing in either cell,
except the two empty plank-beds, and these
were immovable as they were firmly fixed to
the walls. I betook myself to my bedroom
much quicker than I was in the habit of
doing."
45
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
" I mentioned that this barrack was de-
molished owing to the construction of a
new railway line. It was the last obstacle
removed, and in the meantime workmen
came from all points of the compass. One
day a powerful navvy was brought into the
barrack a total collapse from drink, and ab-
solutely helpless. After his neckwear was
loosened he was carried to the lock-up and
laid on the plank-bed, the guard being in-
structed to visit him periodically, lest he
should smother. He was scarcely half an
hour there this was in the early evening
when the most unmerciful screaming brought
all hands to the lock-up, to find the erstwhile
helpless man standing on the plank-bed,
and grappling with a, to us, invisible foe.
We took him out, and he maintained that
a man had tried to choke him, and was still
there when we came to his relief. The
strange thing was, that he was shivering
with fright, and perfectly sober, though in
the ordinary course of events he would not
be in that condition for at least seven or
eight hours. The story spread like wildfire
through the town, but the inhabitants were
not in the least surprised, and one old man
46
CONN'S HALF
told us that many strange things happened
in that house long before it became a
police-barrack."
A lady, who requests that her name be
suppressed, relates a strange sight seen by
her sister in Galway. The latter's husband
was stationed in that town about seventeen
years ago. One afternoon he was out, and
she was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room,
when suddenly from behind a screen (where
there was no door) came a little old woman,
with a small shawl over her head and
shoulders, such as the country women used
to wear. She had a most diabolical expres-
sion on her face. She seized the lady by
the hand, and said : " I will drag you down
to Hell, where I am ! " The lady sprang
up in terror and shook her off, when the
horrible creature again disappeared behind
the screen. The house was an old one, and
many stories were rife amongst the people
about it, the one most to the point being
that the apparition of an old woman, who
was supposed to have poisoned someone,
used to be seen therein. Needless to say,
the lady in question never again sat by her-
self in the drawing-room.
47
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Two stories are told about haunted houses
at Drogheda, the one by A. G. Bradley in
Notes on some Irish Superstitions (Drogheda,
1894), the other by F. G. Lee in Sights and
Shadows (p. 42). As both appear to be
placed at the same date, i.e. 1890, it is
quite possible that they refer to one and
the same haunting, and we have so treated
them accordingly. The reader, if he wishes,
can test the matter for himself.
This house, which was reputed to be
haunted, was let to a tailor and his wife
by the owner at an annual rent of 23.
They took possession in due course, but
after a very few days they became aware
of the presence of a most unpleasant super-
natural lodger. One night, as the tailor and
his wife were preparing to retire, they were
terrified at seeing the foot of some invisible
person kick the candlestick off the table,
and so quench the candle. Although it
was a very dark night, and the shutters
were closed, the man and his wife could
see everything in the room just as well as
if it were the middle of the day. All at
once a woman entered the room, dressed in
white, carrying something in her hand,
4 8
CONN'S HALF
which she threw at the tailor's wife, striking
her with some violence, and then vanished.
While this was taking place on the first
floor, a most frightful noise was going on
overhead in the room where the children
and their nurse were sleeping. The father
immediately rushed upstairs, and found to
his horror the floor all torn up, the furniture
broken, and, worst of all, the children lying
senseless and naked on the bed, and having
the appearance of having been severely
beaten. As he was leaving the room with
the children in his arms he suddenly remem-
bered that he had not seen the nurse, so he
turned back with the intention of bringing
her downstairs, but could find her nowhere.
The girl, half-dead with fright, and very
much bruised, had fled to her mother's
house, where she died in a few days in
agony.
Because of these occurrences they were
legally advised to refuse to pay any rent.
The landlady, however, declining to release
them from their bargain, at once claimed a
quarter's rent ; and when this remained for
some time unpaid, sued them for it before
Judge Kisby. A Drogheda solicitor appeared
49 D
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
for the tenants, who, having given evidence
of the facts concerning the ghost in question,
asked leave to support their sworn testimony
by that of several other people. This, how-
ever, was disallowed by the judge. It was
admitted by the landlady that nothing on
one side or the other had been said regarding
the haunting when the house was let. A
judgment was consequently entered for the
landlady, although it had been shown in-
directly that unquestionably the house had
had the reputation of being haunted, and
that previous tenants had been much incon-
venienced.
This chapter may be concluded with two
stories dealing with haunted rectories. The
first, and mildest, of these is contributed by
the present Dean of St. Patrick's ; it is not
his own personal experience, but was related
to him by a rector in Co. Monaghan, where
he used to preach on special occasions. The
rector and his daughters told the Dean that
they had often seen in that house the appari-
tion of an old woman dressed in a drab cape,
while they frequently heard noises. On
one evening the rector was in the kitchen
together with the cook and the coachman.
50
CONN'S HALF
All three heard noises in the pantry as if
vessels were being moved. Presently they
saw the old woman in the drab cape come
out of the pantry and move up the stairs.
The rector attempted to follow her, but the
two servants held him tightly by the arms,
and besought him not to do so. But hearing
the children, who were in bed, screaming,
he broke from the grip of the servants and
rushed upstairs. The children said that they
had been frightened by seeing a strange old
woman coming into the room, but she was
now gone. The house had a single roof,
and there was no way to or from the nursery
except by the stairs. The rector stated that
he took to praying that the old woman
might have rest, and that it was now many
years since she had been seen. A very old
parishioner told him that when she was
young she remembered having seen an old
woman answering to the rector's description,
who had lived in the house, which at that
time was not a rectory.
The second of these, which is decidedly
more complex and mystifying, refers to a
rectory in Co. Donegal. It is sent as the
personal experience of one of the percipients,
5 1
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
who does not wish to have his name disclosed.
He says : " My wife, children, and myself
will have lived here four years next January
(1914). From the first night that we came
into the house most extraordinary noises
have been heard. Sometimes they were in-
side the house, and seemed as if the furni-
ture was being disturbed, and the fireirons
knocked about, or at other times as if a dog
was running up and down stairs. Some-
times they were external, and resembled tin
buckets being dashed about the yard, or as
if a herd of cattle was galloping up the drive
before the windows. These things would
go on for six months, and then everything
would be quiet for three months or so, when
the noises would commence again. My
dogs a fox-terrier, a boar-hound, and a
spaniel would make a terrible din, and
would bark at something in the hall we
could not see, backing away from it all the
time.
" The only thing that was ever seen was
as follows : One night my daughter went
down to the kitchen about ten o'clock for
some hot water. She saw a tall man, with
one arm, carrying a lamp, who walked out
CONN'S HALF
of the pantry into the kitchen, and then
through the kitchen wall. Another daughter
saw the same man walk down one evening
from the loft, and go into the harness-room.
She told me, and I went out immediately,
but could see nobody. Shortly after that
my wife, who is very brave, heard a knock
at the hall door in the dusk. Naturally
thinking it was some friend, she opened the
door, and there saw standing outside the
self-same man. He simply looked at her,
and walked through the wall into the house.
She got such a shock that she could not
speak for several hours, and was ill for some
days. That is eighteen months ago, and he
has not been seen since, and it is six months
since we heard any noises." Our correspon-
dent's letter was written on 25th November
1913. "An old man nearly ninety died
last year. He lived all his life within
four hundred yards of this house, and
used to tell me that seventy years ago
the parsons came with bell, book, and
candle to drive the ghosts out of the
house." Evidently they were unsuccess-
ful. In English ghost-stories it is the
parson who performs the exorcism success-
53
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
fully, while in Ireland such work is gene-
rally performed by the priest. Indeed a
tale was sent to us in which a ghost quite
ignored the parson's efforts, but succumbed
to the priest.
54
CHAPTER III
HAUNTED HOUSES IN MOGH's HALF
THE northern half of Ireland has not proved
as prolific in stories of haunted houses as the
southern portion : the possible explanation
of this is, not that the men of the north are
less prone to hold, or talk about, such be-
liefs, but that, as regards the south half, we
have had the good fortune to happen upon
some diligent collectors of these and kindred
tales, whose eagerness in collecting is only
equalled by their kindness in imparting in-
formation to the compilers of this book.
On a large farm near Portarlington there
once lived a Mrs. , a strong-minded,
capable woman, who managed all her affairs
for herself, giving her orders, and taking
none from anybody. In due time she died,
and the property passed to the next-of-kin.
As soon, however, as the funeral was over,
the house was nightly disturbed by strange
noises : people downstairs would hear rush-
55
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
ings about in the upper rooms, banging of
doors, and the sound of heavy footsteps.
The cups and saucers used to fall off the
dresser, and all the pots and pans would
rattle.
This went on for some time, till the people
could stand it no longer, so they left the
house and put in a herd and his family.
The latter was driven away after he had
been in the house a few weeks. This hap-
pened to several people, until at length a
man named Mr. B took the house. The
noises went on as before until some one sug-
gested getting the priest in. Accordingly
the priest came, and held a service in the
late Mrs. 's bedroom. When this was
over, the door of the room was locked.
After that the noises were not heard till one
evening Mr. B came home from a fair,
fortified, no doubt, with a little " Dutch
courage," and declared that even if the devil
were in it he would go into the locked room.
In spite of all his family could say or do, he
burst open the door, and entered the room,
but apparently saw nothing. That night
pandemonium reigned in the house, the
chairs were hurled about, the china was
56
MOGH'S HALF
broken, and the most weird and uncanny
sounds were heard. Next day the priest
was sent for, the room again shut up, and
nothing has happened from that day to this.
Another strange story comes from the
same town. " When I was on a visit to a
friend in Portarlington," writes a lady in
the Journal of the American S.P.R. 1 "a
rather unpleasant incident occurred to me.
At about two o'clock in the morning I woke
up suddenly, for apparently no reason what-
ever ; however, I quite distinctly heard snor-
ing coming from under or in the bed in
which I was lying. It continued for about
ten minutes, during which time I was abso-
lutely limp with fright. The door opened,
and my friend entered the bedroom, saying,
4 1 thought you might want me, so I came
in.' Needless to say, I hailed the happy
inspiration that sent her to me. I then
told her what I had heard ; she listened to
me, and then to comfort ( !) me said, ' Oh,
never mind ; // is only grandfather ! He died
in this room, and a snoring is heard every
night at two o'clock, the hour at which he
passed away.' Some time previously a Ger-
1 For September, 1913.
57
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
man gentleman was staying with this family.
They asked him in the morning how he
had slept, and he replied that he was dis-
turbed by a snoring in the room, but he
supposed it was the cat."
A lady, formerly resident in Queen's Co.,
but who now lives near Dublin, sends the
following clear and concise account of her
own personal experiences in a haunted house :
" Some years ago, my father, mother, sister,
and myself went to live in a nice but rather
smallhouse close to the town of in Queen's
Co. We liked the house, as it was con-
veniently and pleasantly situated, and we
certainly never had a thought of ghosts or
haunted houses, nor would my father allow
any talk about such things in his presence.
But we were not long settled there when we
were disturbed by the opening of the parlour
door every night regularly at the hour of
eleven o'clock. My father and mother used
to retire to their room about ten o'clock,
while my sister and I used to sit up reading.
We always declared that we would retire
before the door opened, but we generally
got so interested in our books that we would
forget until we would hear the handle of
58
MOGH'S HALF
the door turn, and see the door flung open.
We tried in every way to account for this,
but we could find no explanation, and there
was no possibility of any human agent being
at work.
" Some time after, light was thrown on
the subject. We had visitors staying with
us, and in order to make room for them, my
sister was asked to sleep in the parlour.
She consented without a thought of ghosts,
and went to sleep quite happily ; but during
the night she was awakened by some one
opening the door, walking across the room,
and disturbing the fireirons. She, suppos-
ing it to be the servant, called her by name,
but got no answer : then the person seemed
to come away from the fireplace, and walk
out of the room. There was a fire in the
grate, but though she heard the footsteps,
she could see no one.
" The next thing was, that I was coming
downstairs, and as I glanced towards the
hall door I saw standing by it a man in a
grey suit. I went to my father and told
him. He asked in surprise who let him in,
as the servant was out, and he himself had
already locked, bolted, and chained the door
59
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
an hour previously. None of us had let
him in, and when my father went out to
the hall the man had disappeared, and the
door was as he had left it.
" Some little time after, I had a visit from
a lady who knew the place well, and in the
course of conversation she said :
" c This is the house poor Mr. used to
live in.'
" ' Who is Mr. ? ' I asked.
" c Did you never hear of him ? ' she re-
plied. ' He was a minister who used to
live in this house quite alone, and was
murdered in this very parlour. His land-
lord used to visit him sometimes, and one
night he was seen coming in about eleven
o'clock, and was seen again leaving about
five o'clock in the morning. When Mr.
did not come out as usual, the door was
forced open, and he was found lying dead
in this room by the fender, with his head
battered in with the poker.'
" We left the house soon after," adds our
informant.
The following weird incidents occurred,
apparently in the Co. Kilkenny, to a Miss
K. B., during two visits paid by her to
60
MOGH'S HALF
Ireland in 1880 and 1881. The house in
which she experienced the following was
really an old barrack, long disused, very old-
fashioned, and surrounded with a high wall :
it was said that it had been built during the
time of Cromwell as a stronghold for his
men. The only inhabitants of this were
Captain C (a retired officer in charge of
the place), Mrs. C , three daughters, and
two servants. They occupied the central
part of the building, the mess-room being
their drawing-room. Miss K. B.'s bedroom
was very lofty, and adjoined two others
which were occupied by the three daughters,
E., G., and L.
" The first recollection I have of anything
strange," writes Miss B.," was that each night
I was awakened about three o'clock by a
tremendous noise, apparently in the next
suite of rooms, which was empty, and it
sounded as if some huge iron boxes and
other heavy things were being thrown about
with great force. This continued for about
half an hour, when in the room underneath
(the kitchen) I heard the fire being violently
poked and raked for several minutes, and
this was immediately followed by a most
61
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
terrible and distressing cough of a man, very
loud and violent. It seemed as if the ex-
ertion had brought on a paroxysm which
he could not stop. In large houses in Co.
Kilkenny the fires are not lighted every day,
owing to the slow-burning property of the
coal, and it is only necessary to rake it up
every night about eleven o'clock, and in the
morning it is still bright and clear. Conse-
quently I wondered why it was necessary
for Captain C to get up in the middle of
the night to stir it so violently."
A few days later Miss B. said to E. C.:
" I hear such strange noises every night are
there any people in the adjoining part of
the building ? " She turned very pale, and
looking earnestly at Miss B., said, " Oh K.,
I am so sorry you heard. I hoped no one but
myself had heard it. I could have given
worlds to have spoken to you last night,
but dared not move or speak." K. B.
laughed at her for being so superstitious, but
E. declared that the place was haunted, and
told her of a number of weird things that
had been seen and heard.
In the following year, 1881, Miss K. B.
paid another visit to the barrack. This
2
MOGH'S HALF
time there were two other visitors there a
colonel and his wife. They occupied Miss
B.'s former room, while to her was allotted
a huge bedroom on the top of the house,
with a long corridor leading to it ; opposite
to this was another large room, which was
occupied by the girls.
Her strange experiences commenced again.
" One morning, about four o'clock, I was
awakened by a very noisy martial footstep
ascending the stairs, and then marching
quickly up and down the corridor outside
my room. Then suddenly the most violent
coughing took place that I ever heard,
which continued for some time, while the
quick, heavy step continued its march. At
last the footsteps faded away in the distance,
and I then recalled to mind the same cough-
ing after exertion last year." In the morn-
ing, at breakfast, she asked both Captain C
and the colonel had they been walking
about, but both denied, and also said they
had no cough. The family looked very un-
comfortable, and afterwards E. came up with
tears in her eyes, and said, " Oh K., please
don't say anything more about that dreadful
coughing ; we all hear it often, especi-
63
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
ally when anything terrible is about to
happen."
Some nights later the C s gave a dance.
When the guests had departed, Miss B.
went to her bedroom. " The moon was
shining so beautifully that I was able to read
my Bible by its light, and had left the Bible
open on the window-sill, which was a very
high one, and on which I sat to read, having
had to climb the washstand to reach it. I
went to bed, and fell asleep, but was not
long so when I was suddenly awakened by
the strange feeling that some one was in the
room. I opened my eyes, and turned around,
and saw on the window-sill in the moon-
light a long, very thin, very dark figure
bending over the Bible, and apparently
earnestly scanning the page. As if my move-
ment disturbed the figure, it suddenly darted
up, jumped off the window-ledge on to the
washstand, then to the ground, and flitted
quietly across the room to the table where
my jewellery was." That was the last she
saw of it. She thought it was some one try-
ing to steal her jewellery, so waited till morn-
ing, but nothing was missing. In the
morning she described to one of the daugh-
64
MOGH'S HALF
ters, G., what she had seen, and the latter
told her that something always happened
when that appeared. Miss K. B. adds that
nothing did happen. Later on she was told
that a colonel had cut his throat in that
very room.
Another military station, Charles Fort,
near Kinsale, has long had the reputation of
being haunted. An account of this was
sent to the Wide World Magazine (Jan. 1908),
by Major H. L. Ruck Keene, D.S.O. ; he
states that he took it from a manuscript
written by a Captain Marvell Hull about
the year 1880. Further information on the
subject of the haunting is to be found in
Dr. Craig's Real Pictures of Clerical Life in
Ireland.
Charles Fort was erected in 1667 by the
Duke of Ormonde. It is said to be haunted
by a ghost known as the " White Lady,"
and the traditional account of the reason for
this haunting is briefly as follows : Shortly
after the erection of the fort, a Colonel
Warrender, a severe disciplinarian, was ap-
pointed its governor. He had a daughter,
who bore the quaint Christian name of
1 Proceedings S.P,R. } x. 341.
65 E
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
" Wilful " ; she became engaged to a Sir
Trevor Ashurst, and subsequently married
him. On the evening of their wedding-day
the bride and bridegroom were walking on
the battlements, when she espied some flowers
growing on the rocks beneath. She ex-
pressed a wish for them, and a sentry posted
close by volunteered to climb down for them,
provided Sir Trevor took his place during
his absence. He assented, and took the
soldier's coat and musket while he went in
search of a rope. Having obtained one, he
commenced his descent ; but the task prov-
ing longer than he expected, Sir Trevor fell
asleep. Meantime the governor visited the
sentries, as was his custom, and in the course
of his rounds came to where Sir Trevor was
asleep. He challenged him, and on receiv-
ing no answer perceived that he was asleep,
whereupon he drew a pistol and shot him
through the heart. The body was brought
in, and it was only then the governor real-
ised what had happened. The bride, who
appears to have gone indoors before the
tragedy occurred, then learned the fate that
befell her husband, and in her distraction,
rushed from the house and flung herself
66
MOGH'S HALF
over the battlements. In despair at the
double tragedy, her father shot himself dur-
ing the night.
The above is from Dr. Craig's book al-
ready alluded to. In the Wide World Maga-
zine the legend differs slightly in details.
According to this the governor's name was
Browne, and it was his own son, not his
son-in-law, that he shot ; while the incident
is said to have occurred about a hundred
and fifty years ago.
The " White Lady " is the ghost of the
young bride. Let us see what accounts
there are of her appearance. A good many
years ago Fort-Major Black, who had served
in the Peninsular War, gave his own per-
sonal experience to Dr. Craig. He stated
that he had gone to the hall door one
summer evening, and saw a lady entering
the door and going up the stairs. At first he
thought she was an officer's wife, but as he
looked, he observed she was dressed in white,
and in a very old-fashioned style. Impelled
by curiosity, he hastened upstairs after her,
and followed her closely into one of the
rooms, but on entering it he could not find
the slightest trace of anyone there. On
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
another occasion he stated that two sergeants
were packing some cast stores. One of
them had his little daughter with him, and
the child suddenly exclaimed, " Who is that
white lady who is bending over the banisters,
and looking down at us ? ' The two men
looked up, but could see nothing, but the
child insisted that she had seen a lady in
white looking down and smiling at her,
On another occasion a staff officer, a
married man, was residing in the " Gover-
nor's House." One night as the nurse lay
awake she and the children were in a room
which opened into what was known as the
White Lady's apartment she suddenly saw
a lady clothed in white glide to the bedside
of the youngest child, and after a little place
her hand upon its wrist. At this the child
started in its sleep, and cried out, " Oh !
take that cold hand from my wrist ! " the
next moment the lady disappeared.
One night, about the year 1880, Captain
Marvell Hull and Lieutenant Hartland were
going to the rooms occupied by the former
officer. As they reached a small landing
they saw distinctly in front of them a
woman in a white dress. As they stood
68
MOGH'S HALF
there in awestruck silence she turned and
looked towards them, showing a face beauti-
ful enough, but colourless as a corpse, and
then passed on through a locked door.
But it appears that this presence did not
always manifest itself in as harmless a manner.
Some years ago Surgeon L was quartered
at the fort. One day he had been out
snipe-shooting, and as he entered the fort
the mess-bugle rang out. He hastened to
his rooms to dress, but as he failed to put
in an appearance at mess, one of the officers
went in search of him, and found him lying
senseless on the floor. When he recovered
consciousness he related his experience. He
said he had stooped down for the key of his
door, which he had placed for safety under
the mat ; when in this position he felt him-
self violently dragged across the hall, and
flung down a flight of steps. With this
agrees somewhat the experience of a Captain
Jarves, as related by him to Captain Marvell
Hull. Attracted by a strange rattling noise
in his bedroom, he endeavoured to open the
door of it, but found it seemingly locked.
Suspecting a hoax, he called out, whereupon
a gust of wind passed him, and some unseen
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
power flung him down the stairs, and laid
him senseless at the bottom.
Near a seaside town in the south of Ire-
land a group of small cottages was built by
an old lady, in one of which she lived, while
she let the others to her relatives. In pro-
cess of time all the occupants died, the
cottages fell into ruin, and were all pulled
down (except the one in which the old
lady had lived), the materials being used by
a farmer to build a large house which he
hoped to let to summer visitors. It was
shortly afterwards taken for three years by
a gentleman for his family. It should be
noted that the house had very bare surround-
ings ; there were no trees near, or out-
houses where people could be concealed.
Soon after the family came to the house
they began to hear raps all over it, on doors,
windows, and walls ; these raps varied in
nature, sometimes being like a sledge-
hammer, loud and dying away, and some-
times quick and sharp, two or three or five
in succession ; and all heard them. One
morning about 4 A.M., the mother heard
very loud knocking on the bedroom door ;
thinking it was the servant wanting to go
70
MOGH'S HALF
to early mass, she said, " Come in," but the
knocking continued till the father was
awakened by it ; he got up, searched the
house, but could find no one. The servant's
door was slightly open, and he saw that she
was sound asleep. That morning a telegram
came announcing the death of a beloved
uncle just about the hour of the knocking.
Some time previous to this the mother was
in the kitchen, when a loud explosion took
place beside her, startling her very much,
but no cause for it could be found, nor
were any traces left. This coincided with
the death of an aunt, wife to the uncle who
died later.
One night the mother went to her bed-
room. The blind was drawn, and the
shutters closed, when suddenly a great crash
came, as if a branch was thrown at the
window, and there was a sound of broken
glass. She opened the shutters with the
expectation of finding the window smashed,
but there was not even a crack in it. She
entered the room next day at one o'clock, and
the same crash took place, being heard by
all in the house : she went in at 10 A.M. on
another day, and the same thing happened,
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
after which she refused to enter that room
again.
Another night, after 1 1 P.M., the servant
was washing up in the kitchen, when heavy
footsteps were heard by the father and
mother going upstairs, and across a lobby to
the servant's room ; the father searched the
house, but could find no one. After that
footsteps used to be heard regularly at that
hour, though no one could ever be seen
walking about.
The two elder sisters slept together, and
used to see flames shooting up all over the
floor, though there was no smell or heat ;
this used to be seen two or three nights at a
time, chiefly in the one room. The first
time the girls saw this one of them got up
and went to her father in alarm, naturally
thinking the room underneath must be on
fire.
The two boys were moved to the haunted
room [which one ?], where they slept in one
large bed with its head near the chimney-
piece. The elder boy, aged about thirteen,
put his watch on the mantelpiece, awoke
about 2 A.M., and wishing to ascertain the
time, put his hand up for his watch ; he
72
MOGH'S HALF
then felt a deathly cold hand laid on his.
For the rest of that night the two boys were
terrified by noises, apparently caused by two
people rushing about the room fighting and
knocking against the bed. About 6 A.M.
they went to their father, almost in hysterics
from terror, and refused to sleep there again.
The eldest sister, not being nervous, was
then given that room ; she was, however,
so disturbed by these noises that she begged
her father to let her leave it, but having no
other room to give her, he persuaded her to
stay there, and at length she got accustomed
to the noise, and could sleep in spite of it.
Finally the family left the house before their
time was up. 1
Mr. T. J. Westropp, to whom we are in-
debted for so much material, sends a tale
which used to be related by a relative of his,
the Rev. Thomas Westropp, concerning
experiences in a house not very far from
the city of Limerick. When the latter was
appointed to a certain parish he had some
difficulty in finding a suitable house, but
finally fixed on one which had been un-
tenanted for many years, but had neverthe-
1 Journal of American S.P.R. for September 1913.
73
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
less been kept aired and in good repair, as a
caretaker who lived close by used to come
and look after it every day. The first night
that the family settled there, as the clergy-
man was going upstairs he heard a footstep
and the rustle of a dress, and as he stood aside
a lady passed him, entered a door facing the
stairs, and closed it after her. It was only
then he realised that her dress was very old-
fashioned, and that he had not been able to
enter that particular room. Next day he
got assistance from a carpenter, who, with
another man, forced open the door. A mat
of cobwebs fell as they did so, and the floor
and windows were thick with dust. The
men went across the room, and as the
clergyman followed them he saw a small
white bird flying round the ceiling ; at his
exclamation the men looked back and also
saw it. It swooped, flew out of the door,
and they did not see it again. After that
the family were alarmed by hearing noises
under the floor of that room every night.
At length the clergyman had the boards
taken up, and the skeleton of a child was
found underneath. So old did the remains
appear that the coroner did not deem it
74
MOGH'S HALF
necessary to hold an inquest on them, so the
rector buried them in the churchyard.
Strange noises continued, as if some one
were trying to force up the boards from
underneath. Also a heavy ball was heard
rolling down the stairs and striking against
the study door. One night the two girls
woke up screaming, and on the nurse run-
ning up to them, the elder said she had seen
a great black dog with fiery eyes resting its
paws on her bed. Her father ordered the
servants to sit constantly with them in the
evenings, but, notwithstanding the presence
of two women in the nursery, the same
thing occurred. The younger daughter
was so scared that she never quite recovered.
The family left the house immediately.
The same correspondent says : " An old
ruined house in the hills of east Co. Clare
enjoyed the reputation of being ' desperately
haunted' from, at any rate, 1865 down to
its dismantling. I will merely give the
experiences of my own relations, as told by
them to me. My mother told how one
night she and my father heard creaking and
grating, as if a door were being forced open.
The sound came from a passage in which
75
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
was a door nailed up and clamped with
iron bands. A heavy footstep came down
the passage, and stopped at the bedroom
door for a moment ; no sound was heard,
and then the 'thing' came through the
room to the foot of the bed. It moved
round the bed, they not daring to stir.
The horrible unseen visitant stopped, and
they felt it watching them. At last it
moved away, they heard it going up the
passage, the door crashed, and all was silence.
Lighting a candle, my father examined the
room, and found the door locked ; he then
went along the passage, but not a sound was
to be heard anywhere.
" Strange noises like footsteps, sobbing,
whispering, grim laughter, and shrieks were
often heard about the house. On one occa-
sion my eldest sister and a girl cousin drove
over to see the family and stayed the night.
They and my two younger sisters were all
crowded into a huge, old-fashioned bed, and
carefully drew and tucked in the curtains
all round. My eldest sister awoke feeling a
cold wind blowing on her face, and putting
out her hand found the curtains drawn back
and, as they subsequently discovered, wedged
76
MOGH'S HALF
between the bed and the wall. She reached
for the match-box, and was about to light
the candle when a horrible mocking laugh
rang out close to the bed, which awakened
the other girls. Being always a plucky
woman, though then badly scared, she struck
a match, and searched the room, but nothing
was to be seen. The closed room was said
to have been deserted after a murder, and
its floor was supposed to be stained with
blood which no human power could wash
out."
Another house in Co. Clare, nearer the
estuary of the Shannon, which was formerly
the residence of the D family, but is
now pulled down, had some extraordinary
tales told about it in which facts (if we may
use the word) were well supplemented by
legend. To commence with the former.
A lady writes : " My father and old Mr.
D were first cousins. Richard D asked
my father would he come and sit up with
him one night, in order to see what might
be seen. Both were particularly sober men.
The annoyances in the house were becoming
unbearable. Mrs. D 's work-box used to
be thrown down, the table-cloth would be
77
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
whisked off the table, the fender and fireirons
would be hurled about the room, and other
similar things would happen. Mr. D and
my father went up to one of the bedrooms,
where a big fire was made up. They
searched every part of the room carefully,
but nothing uncanny was to be seen or
found. They then placed two candles and
a brace of pistols on a small table between
them, and waited. Nothing happened for
some time, till all of a sudden a large black
dog walked out from under the bed. Both
men fired, and the dog disappeared. That
is all ! The family had to leave the house."
Now to the blending of fact with fiction,
of which we have already spoken : the
intelligent reader can decide in his own
mind which is which. It was said that
black magic had been practised in this
house at one time, and that in consequence
terrible and weird occurrences were quite
the order of the day there. When being
cooked, the hens used to scream and the
mutton used to bleat in the pot. Black dogs
were seen frequently. The beds used to
be lifted up, and the occupants thereof used
to be beaten black and blue, by invisible
78
MOGH'S HALF
hands. One particularly ghoulish tale was
told. It was said that a monk (!) was in
love with one of the daughters of the house,
who was an exceedingly fat girl. She died
unmarried, and was buried in the family
vault. Some time later the vault was again
opened for an interment, and those who
entered it found that Miss D 's coffin had
been disturbed, and the lid loosened. They
then saw that all the fat around her heart
had been scooped away.
Apropos of ineradicable blood on a floor,
which is a not infrequent item in stories of
haunted houses, it is said that a manifestation
of this nature forms the haunting in a farm-
house in Co. Limerick. According to our
informants, a light must be kept burning in
this house all night ; if by any chance it is
forgotten, or becomes quenched, in the
morning the floor is covered with blood.
The story is evidently much older than the
house, but no traditional explanation is
given.
Two stories of haunted schools have been
sent to us, both on very good authority ;
these establishments lie within the geo-
graphical limits of this chapter, but for
79
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
obvious reasons, we cannot indicate their
locality more precisely, though the names
of both are known to us. The first of these
was told to our correspondent by the boy
Brown, who was in the room, but did not see
the ghost.
When Brown was about fifteen he was
sent to School. His brother told him
not to be frightened at anything he might
see or hear, as the boys were sure to play
tricks on all new-comers. He was put to
sleep in a room with another new arrival, a
boy named Smith, from England. In the
middle of the night Brown was roused from
his sleep by Smith crying out in great
alarm, and asking who was in the room.
Brown, who was very angry at being waked
up, told him not to be a fool that there
was no one there. The second night Smith
roused him again, this time in greater alarm
than the first night. He said he saw a man
in cap and gown come into the room with
a lamp, and then pass right through the
wall. Smith got out of his bed, and fell on
his knees beside Brown, beseeching him not
to go to sleep. At first Brown thought it
was all done to frighten him, but he then
80
MOGH'S HALF
saw that Smith was in a state of abject
terror. Next morning they spoke of the
occurrence, and the report reached the ears
of the Head Master, who sent for the two
boys. Smith refused to spend another night
in the room. Brown said he had seen or
heard nothing, and was quite willing to
sleep there if another fellow would sleep
with him, but he would not care to remain
there alone. The Head Master then asked
for volunteers from the class of elder boys,
but not one of them would sleep in the
room. It had always been looked upon as
"haunted," but the Master thought that
by putting in new boys who had not heard
the story they would sleep there all right.
Some years after, Brown revisited the
place, and found that another attempt had
been made to occupy the room. A new
Head Master who did not know its history,
thought it a pity to have the room idle, and
put a teacher, also new to the school, in
possession. When this teacher came down
the first morning, he asked who had come
into his room during the night. He stated
that a man in cap and gown, having books
under his arm and a lamp in his hand, came
81 F
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
in, sat down at a table, and began to read.
He knew that he was not one of the masters,
and did not recognise him as one of the
boys. The room had to be abandoned.
The tradition is that many years ago a
master was murdered in that room by one
of the students. The few boys who ever
had the courage to persist in sleeping in the
room said if they stayed more than two or
three nights that the furniture was moved,
and they heard violent noises.
The second story was sent to us by the
percipient herself, and is therefore a first-
hand experience. Considering that she was
only a schoolgirl at the time, it must be
admitted that she made a most plucky
attempt to run the ghost to earth.
"A good many years ago, when I first
went to school, I did not believe in ghosts,
but I then had an experience which caused
me to alter my opinion. I was ordered
with two other girls to sleep in a small top
room at the back of the house which over-
looked a garden which contained ancient
apple-trees.
" Suddenly in the dead of night I was
awakened out of my sleep by the sound of
82
MOGH'S HALF
heavy footsteps, as of a man wearing big
boots unlaced, pacing ceaselessly up and
down a long corridor which I knew was
plainly visible from the landing outside my
door, as there was a large window at the
farther end of it, and there was sufficient
moonlight to enable one to see its full length.
After listening for about twenty minutes,
my curiosity was aroused, so I got up and
stood on the landing. The footsteps still
continued, but I could see nothing, although
the sounds actually reached the foot of the
flight of stairs which led from the corridor
to the landing on which I was standing.
Suddenly the footfall ceased, pausing at my
end of the corridor, and I then considered
it was high time for me to retire, which I
accordingly did, carefully closing the door
behind me.
" To my horror the footsteps ascended
the stairs, and the bedroom door was violently
dashed back against a washing-stand, beside
which was a bed ; the contents of the ewer
were spilled over the occupant, and the steps
advanced a few paces into the room in my
direction. A cold perspiration broke out
all over me ; I cannot describe the sensation.
83
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
It was not actual fear it was more than
that I felt I had come into contact with
the Unknown.
" What was about to happen ? All I
could do was to speak ; I cried out, " Who
are you ? What do you want ? " Suddenly
the footsteps ceased ; I felt relieved, and lay
awake till morning, but no further sound
reached my ears. How or when my ghostly
visitant disappeared I never knew ; suffice it
to say, my story was no nightmare, but an
actual fact, of which there was found suffi-
cient proof in the morning ; the floor was
still saturated with water, the door, which
we always carefully closed at night, was wide
open, and last, but not least, the occupant of
the wet bed had heard all that had happened,
but feared to speak, and lay awake till
morning.
" Naturally, we related our weird experi-
ence to our schoolmates, and it was only
then I learned from one of the elder girls
that this ghost had manifested itself for many
years in a similar fashion to the inhabitants
of that room. It was supposed to be the
spirit of a man who, long years before, had
occupied this apartment (the house was
84
MOGH'S HALF
then a private residence), and had commited
suicide by hanging himself from an old
apple tree opposite the window. Needless
to say, the story was hushed up, and we were
sharply spoken to, and warned not to men-
tion the occurrence again.
" Some years afterwards a friend, who
happened at the time to be a boarder at this
very school, came to spend a week-end with
me. She related an exactly similar incident
which occurred a few nights previous to her
visit. My experience was quite unknown
to her."
The following account of strange happen-
ings at his glebe-house has been sent by
the rector of a parish in the diocese of
Cashel : " Shortly after my wife and I came
to live here, some ten years ago, the servants
complained of hearing strange noises in the
top storey of the Rectory where they sleep.
One girl ran away the day after she arrived,
declaring that the house was haunted, and
that nothing would induce her to sleep
another night in it. So often had my wife
to change servants on this account that at
last I had to speak to the parish priest, as
I suspected that the idea of ' ghosts ' might
85
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
have been suggested to the maids by neigh-
bours who might have some interest in get-
ting rid of them. I understand that my
friend the parish priest spoke very forcibly
from the altar on the subject of spirits, say-
ing that the only spirits he believed ever
did any harm to anyone were , mention-
ing a well-known brand of the wine of the
country. Whether this priestly admonition
was the cause or not, for some time we
heard no more tales of ghostly manifesta-
tions.
" After a while, however, my wife and I
began to hear a noise which, while in no
sense alarming, has proved to be both re-
markable and inexplicable. If we happen
to be sitting in the dining-room after dinner,
sometimes we hear what sounds like the
noise of a heavy coach rumbling up to the
hall door. We have both heard this noise
hundreds of times between eight P.M. and
midnight. Sometimes we hear it several
times the same night, and then perhaps we
won't hear it again for several months. We
hear it best on calm nights, and as we are
nearly a quarter of a mile from the high
road, it is difficult to account for, especially
86
MOGH'S HALF
as the noise appears to be quite close to us
I mean not farther away than the hall-
door. I may mention that an Englishman
was staying with us a few years ago. As
we were sitting in the dining-room one
night after dinner he said, ' A carriage has
just driven up to the door ' ; but we knew
it was only the ' phantom coach,' for we
also heard it. Only once do I remember
hearing it while sitting in the drawing-
room. So much for the ' sound ' of the
' phantom coach/ but now I must tell you
what I saw with my own eyes as clearly as
I now see the paper on which I am writing.
Some years ago in the middle of the summer,
on a scorching hot day, I was out cutting
some hay opposite the hall door just by the
tennis court. It was between twelve and
one o'clock. I remember the time distinctly,
as my man had gone to his dinner shortly
before. The spot on which I was com-
manded a view of the avenue from the
entrance gate for about four hundred yards.
I happened to look up from my occupation
for scything is no easy work and I saw
what I took to be a somewhat high dog-
cart, in which two people were seated, turn-
87
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
ing in at the avenue gate. As I had my
coat and waistcoat off, and was not in a
state to receive visitors, I got behind a newly-
made hay-cock and watched the vehicle
until it came to a bend in the avenue where
there is a clump of trees which obscured it
from my view. As it did not, however, re-
appear, I concluded that the occupants had
either stopped for some reason or had taken
by mistake a cart-way leading to the back
gate into the garden. Hastily putting on
my coat, I went down to the bend in the
avenue, but to my surprise there was nothing
to be seen.
" Returning to the Rectory, I met my
housekeeper, who has been with me for
nearly twenty years, and I told her what I
had seen. She then told me that about a
month before, while I was away from home,
my man had one day gone with the trap to
the station. She saw, just as I did, a trap
coming up the avenue until it was lost to
sight owing to the intervention of the
clump of trees. As it did not come on, she
went down to the bend, but there was no
trap to be seen. When the man came in
some half-hour after, my housekeeper asked
88
MOGH'S HALF
him if he had come half-way up the avenue
and turned back, but he said he had only
that minute come straight from the station.
My housekeeper said she did not like to
tell me about it before, as she thought I
' would have laughed at her.' Whether
the c spectral gig ' which I saw and the
4 phantom coach ' which my wife and I
have often heard are one and the same I
know not, but I do know that what I saw
in the full blaze of the summer sun was not
inspired by a dose of the spirits referred to
by my friend the parish priest.
" Some time during the winter of 1912, I
was in the motor-house one dark evening at
about 6 P.M. I was working at the engine,
and as the car was ' nose in ' first, I was, of
course, at the farthest point from the door.
I had sent my man down to the village with
a message. He was gone about ten minutes
when I heard heavy footsteps enter the yard
and come over to the motor-house. I ' felt '
that there was some one in the house quite
close to me, and I said, * Hullo, , what
brought you back so soon/ as I knew he
could not have been to the village and back.
As I got no reply, I took up my electric
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
lamp and went to the back of the motor to
see who was there, but there was no one to
be seen, and although I searched the yard
with my lamp, I could discover no one.
About a week later I heard the footsteps
again under almost identical conditions, but
I searched with the same futile result.
" Before I stop, I must tell you about a
curious 'presentiment' which happened with
regard to a man I got from the Queen's
County. He arrived on a Saturday evening,
and on the following Monday morning I put
him to sweep the avenue. He was at his
work when I went out in the motor car at
about 10-30 A.M. Shortly after I left he left
his wheel-barrow and tools on the avenue
(just at the point where I saw the ' spectral
gig ' disappear) and, coming up to the Rec-
tory, he told my housekeeper in a great state
of agitation that he was quite sure that his
brother, with whom he had always lived,
was dead. He said he must return home
at once. My housekeeper advised him to
wait until I returned, but he changed his
clothes and packed his box, saying he must
catch the next train. Just before I returned
home at 12 o'clock, a telegram came saying
90
MOGH'S HALF
his brother had died suddenly that morning,
and that he was to return at once. On my
return I found him almost in a state of
collapse. He left by the next train, and I
never heard of him again."
K Castle is a handsome blending of
ancient castle and modern dwelling-house,
picturesquely situated among trees, while the
steep glen mentioned below runs close beside
it. It has the reputation of being haunted,
but, as usual, it is difficult to get information.
One gentleman, to whom we wrote, stated
that he never saw or heard anything worse
than a bat. On the other hand, a lady who
resided there a good many years ago, gives
the following account of her extraordinary
experiences therein :
DEAR MR. SEYMOUR,
I enclose some account of our experi-
ences in K Castle. It would be better
not to mention names, as the people occu-
pying it have told me they are afraid of
their servants hearing anything, and con-
sequently giving notice. They them-
selves hear voices often, but, like me, they
do not mind. When first we went there
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
we heard people talking, but on looking
everywhere we could find no one. Then
on some nights we heard fighting in the
glen beside the house. We could hear
voices raised in anger, and the clash of
steel : no person would venture there after
dusk.
One night I was sitting talking with
my governess, I got up, said good-night,
and opened the door, which was on the top
of the back staircase. As I did so, I heard
some one (a woman) come slowly upstairs,
walk past us to a window at the end of the
landing, and then with a shriek fall heavily.
As she passed it was bitterly cold, and I
drew back into the room, but did not say
anything, as it might frighten the gover-
ness. She asked me what was the matter,
as I looked so white. Without answer-
ing, I pushed her into her room, and then
searched the house, but with no results.
Another night I was sleeping with my
little girl. I awoke, and saw a girl with
long, fair hair standing at the fireplace,
one hand at her side, the other on the
chininey-piece. Thinking at first it was
my little girl, I felt on the pillow to see
92
MOGH'S HALF
if she were gone, but she was fast asleep.
There was no fire or light of any kind in
the room.
Some time afterwards a friend was sleep-
ing there, and she told me that she was
pushed out of bed the whole night. Two
gentlemen to whom I had mentioned this
came over, thinking they would find out
the cause. In the morning when they
came down they asked for the carriage to
take them to the next train, but would
not tell what they had heard or seen.
Another person who came to visit her
sister, who was looking after the house
before we went in, slept in this room, and
in the morning said she must go back that
day. She also would give no informa-
tion.
On walking down the corridor, I have
heard a door open, a footstep cross before
me, and go into another room, both doors
being closed at the time. An old cook
I had told me that when she went into
the hall in the morning, a gentleman
would come down the front stairs, take
a plumed hat ofF the stand, and vanish
through the hall door. This she saw nearly
93
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
every morning. She also said that a girl
often came into her bedroom, and put her
hand on her (the cook's) face ; and when
she would push her away she would hear
a girl's voice say, "Oh don't !" three times.
I have often heard voices in the drawing-
room, which decidedly sounded as if an
old gentleman and a girl were talking.
Noises like furniture being moved were
frequently heard at night, and strangers
staying with us have often asked why the
servants turned out the rooms underneath
them at such an unusual hour. The front-
door bell sometimes rang, and I have gone
down, but found no one. Yours very
sincerely,
F. T.
" Kilman " Castle, in the heart of Ireland
the name is obviously a pseudonym has
been described as perhaps the worst haunted
mansion in the British Isles. That it de-
serves this doubtful recommendation, we
cannot say ; but at all events the ordinary
reader will be prepared to admit that it con-
tains sufficient " ghosts " to satisfy the most
greedy ghost-hunter. A couple of months
94
MOGH'S HALF
ago the present writer paid a visit to this
castle, and was shown all over it one morn-
ing by the mistress of the house, who, under
the nom de plume of " Andrew Merry " has
published novels dealing with Irish life, and
has also contributed articles on the ghostly
phenomena of her house to the Occult Review
(Dec. 1908 and Jan. 1909).
The place itself is a grim, grey, bare
building. The central portion, in which is
the entrance-hall, is a square castle of the
usual type ; it is built on a rock, and a slight
batter from base to summit gives an added
appearance of strength and solidity. On
either side of the castle are more modern
wings, one of which terminates in what is
known as the " Priest's House."
Now to the ghosts. The top storey of the
central tower is a large, well-lighted apart-
ment, called the " Chapel," having evidently
served that purpose in times past. At one end
is what is said to be an oubliette, now almost
filled up. Occasionally in the evenings, people
walking along the roads or in the fields see
the windows of this chapel lighted up for a
few seconds as if many lamps were suddenly
brought into it. This is certainly not due
95
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
to servants ; from our experience we can
testify that it is the last place on earth that
a domestic would enter after dark. It is
also said that a treasure is buried somewhere
in or around the castle. The legend runs
that an ancestor was about to be taken to
Dublin on a charge of rebellion, and, fearing
he would never return, made the best of the
time left to him by burying somewhere a
crock full of gold and jewels. Contrary to
expectation, he did return ; but his long con-
finement had turned his brain, and he could
never remember the spot where he had de-
posited his treasure years before. Some
time ago a lady, a Miss B., who was decidedly
psychic, was invited to Kilman Castle in the
hope that she would be able to locate the
whereabouts of this treasure. In this re-
spect she failed, unfortunately, but gave,
nevertheless, a curious example of her power.
As she walked through the hall with her
hostess, she suddenly laid her hand upon the
bare stone wall, and remarked, " There is
something uncanny here, but I don't know
what it is." In that very spot, some time
previously, two skeletons had been discovered
walled up.
MOGH'S HALF
The sequel to this is curious. Some time
after, Miss B. was either trying automatic
writing, or else was at a seance (we forget
which), when a message came to her from
the Unseen, stating that the treasure at Kil-
man Castle was concealed in the chapel under
the tessellated pavement near the altar. But
this spirit was either a " lying spirit," or else
a most impish one, for there is no trace of
an altar, and it is impossible to say, from
the style of the room, where it stood ;
while the tessellated pavement (if it exists) is
so covered with the debris of the former
roof that it would be almost impossible to
have it thoroughly cleared.
There is as well a miscellaneous assortment
of ghosts. A monk with tonsure and cowl
walks in at one window of the Priest's
House, and out at another. There is also
a little old man, dressed in the antique garb
of a green cut-away coat, knee breeches,
and buckled shoes : he is sometimes ac-
companied by an old lady in similar old-
fashioned costume. Another ghost has a
penchant for lying on the bed beside its
lawful and earthly occupant ; nothing is
seen, but a great weight is felt, and a
97 o
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
consequent deep impression made on the
bedclothes.
The lady of the house states that she has
a number of letters from friends, in which
they relate the supernatural experiences they
had while staying at the Castle. In one of
these the writer, a gentleman, was awakened
one night by an extraordinary feeling of
intense cold at his heart. He then saw in
front of him a tall female figure, clothed
from head to foot in red, and with its right
hand raised menacingly in the air : the
light which illuminated the figure was from
within. He lit a match, and sprang out ot
bed, but the room was empty. He went
back to bed, and saw nothing more that
night, except that several times the same
cold feeling gripped his heart, though to
the touch the flesh was quite warm.
But of all the ghosts in that well-haunted
house the most unpleasant is that inexplicable
thing that is usually called " It." The lady
of the house described to the present writer
her personal experience of this phantom.
High up round one side of the hall runs a
gallery which connects with some of the
bedrooms. One evening she was in this
MOGH'S HALF
gallery leaning on the balustrade, and look-
ing down into the hall. Suddenly she felt
two hands laid on her shoulders ; she turned
round sharply, and saw " It " standing close
beside her. She described it as being human
in shape, and about four feet high ; the eyes
were like two black holes in the face, and
the whole figure seemed as if it were made
of grey cotton-wool, while it was accom-
panied by a most appalling stench, such as
would come from a decaying human body.
The lady got a shock from which she did
not recover for a long time.
99
CHAPTER IV
POLTERGEISTS
POLTERGEIST is the term assigned to those
apparently meaningless noises and move-
ments of objects of which we from time to
time hear accounts. The word is, of course,
German, and may be translated " boisterous
ghost." A poltergeist is seldom or never
seen, but contents itself by moving furniture
and other objects about in an extraordinary
manner, often contrary to the laws of gravi-
tation ; sometimes footsteps are heard, but
nothing is visible, while at other times
vigorous rappings will be heard either on
the walls or floor of a room, and in the
manner in which the raps are given a polter-
geist has often showed itself as having a
close connection with the physical pheno-
mena of spiritualism, for cases have occurred
in which a poltergeist has given the exact
number of raps mentally asked for by some
person present. Another point that is
100
POLTERGEISTS
worthy of note is the fact that the hauntings
of a poltergeist are generally attached to a
certain individual in a certain spot, and thus
differ from the operations of an ordinary
ghost.
The two following incidents related in
this chapter are taken from a paper read by
Professor Barrett, F.R.S., before the Society
for Psychical Research. 1 In the case of the
first anecdote he made every possible inquiry
into the facts set forth, short of actually
being an eye-witness of the phenomena. In
the case of the second he made personal in-
vestigation, and himself saw the whole of
the incidents related. There is therefore
very little room to doubt the genuineness of
either story.
In the year 1910, in a certain house in
Court Street, Enniscorthy, there lived alabour-
ing man named Redmond. His wife took
in boarders to supplement her husband's
wages, and at the time to which we refer
there were three men boarding with her,
who slept in one room above the kitchen.
The house consisted of five rooms two on
the ground-floor, of which one was a shop
1 Proceedings^ August 1911, pp. 377-95.
101
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
and the other the kitchen. The two other
rooms upstairs were occupied by the Red-
monds and their servant respectively. The
bedroom in which the boarders slept was
large, and contained two beds, one at each
end of the room, two men sleeping in one
of them ; John Randall and George Sinnott
were the names of two, but the name of
the third lodger is not known he seems
to have left the Redmonds very shortly
after the disturbances commenced.
It was on July 4, 1910, that John
Randall, who is a carpenter by trade, went
to live at Enniscorthy, and took rooms with
the Redmonds. In a signed statement, now
in possession of Professor Barrett, he tells
a graphic tale of what occurred each night
during the three weeks he lodged in the
house, and as a result of the poltergeist's
attentions he lost three-quarters of a stone
in weight. It was on the night of Thurs-
day, July 7, that the first incident occurred,
when the bedclothes were gently pulled off
his bed. Of course he naturally thought
it was a joke, and shouted to his com-
panions to stop. As no one could explain
what was happening, a match was struck,
102
POLTERGEISTS
and the bedclothes were found to be at
the window, from which the other bed (a
large piece of furniture which ordinarily
took two people to move) had been rolled
just when the clothes had been taken off
Randall's bed. Things were put straight
and the light blown out, " but," Randall's
account goes on to say, " it wasn't long
until we heard some hammering in the
room tap-tap-tap-like. This lasted for a
few minutes, getting quicker and quicker.
When it got very quick, their bed started
to move out across the room. . . . We
then struck a match and got the lamp. We
searched the room thoroughly, and could
find nobody. Nobody had come in the
door. We called the man of the house
(Redmond) ; he came into the room, saw
the bed, and told us to push it back and
get into bed (he thought all the time one
of us was playing the trick on the other).
I said I wouldn't stay in the other bed by
myself, so I got in with the others ; we
put out the light again, and it had only
been a couple of minutes out when the bed
ran out on the floor with the three of us.
Richard struck a match again, and this time
103
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
we all got up and put on our clothes ; we
had got a terrible fright and couldn't stick
it any longer. We told the man of the
house we would sit up in the room till
daylight. During the time we were sitting
in the room we could hear footsteps leaving
the kitchen and coming up the stairs ; it
would stop on the landing outside the door,
and wouldn't come into the room. The
footsteps and noises continued through the
house until daybreak."
The next night the footsteps and noises
were continued, but the unfortunate men
did not experience any other annoyance.
On the following day the men went home,
and it is to be hoped they were able to
make up for all the sleep they had lost on
the two previous nights. They returned
on the Sunday, and from that night till they
finally left the house the men were dis-
turbed practically every night. On Monday,
1 1 th July the bed was continually running
out from the wall with its three occupants.
They kept the lamp alight, and a chair was
seen to dance gaily out into the middle of
the floor. On the following Thursday we
read of the same happenings, with the addi-
104
POLTERGEISTS
tion that one of the boarders was lifted out
of the bed, though he felt no hand near
him. It seems strange that they should
have gone through such a bad night exactly
a week from the night the poltergeist
started its operations. So the account goes
on ; every night that they slept in the room
the hauntings continued, some nights being
worse than others. On Friday, 29th July,
" the bed turned up on one side and threw
us out on the floor, and before we were
thrown out, the pillow was taken from
under my head three times. When the
bed rose up, it fell back without making
any noise. This bed was so heavy, it took
both the woman and the girl to pull it out
from the wall without anybody in it, and
there were only three castors on it." The
poltergeist must have been an insistent
fellow, for when the unfortunate men took
refuge in the other bed, they had not been
long in it before it began to rise, but could
not get out of the recess it was in unless
it was taken to pieces.
" It kept very bad," we read, " for the
next few nights. So Mr. Murphy, from
the Guardian office, and another man named
105
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Devereux, came and stopped in the room
one night."
The experiences of Murphy and Devereux
on this night are contained in a further
statement, signed by Murphy and corrobo-
rated by Devereux. They seem to have
gone to work in a business-like manner, as
before taking their positions for the night
they made a complete investigation of the
bedroom and house, so as to eliminate all
chance of trickery or fraud. By this time,
it should be noted, one of Mrs. Redmond's
lodgers had evidently suffered enough from
the poltergeist, as only two men are men-
tioned in Murphy's statement, one sleeping
in each bed. The two investigators took
up their position against the wall midway
between the two beds, so that they had a
full view of the room and the occupants of
the beds. " The night," says Murphy, " was
a clear, starlight night. No blind obstructed
the view from outside, and one could see
the outlines of the beds and their occupants
clearly. At about 11.30 a tapping was
heard close at the foot of Randall's bed.
My companion remarked that it appeared
to be like the noise of a rat eating at timber.
IOO
POLTERGEISTS
Sinnott replied, c You'll soon see the rat it is.'
The tapping went on slowly at first . . .
then the speed gradually increased to about
a hundred or a hundred and twenty per
minute, the noise growing louder. This
continued for about five minutes, when it
stopped suddenly. Randall then spoke. He
said : c The clothes are slipping off my bed :
look at them sliding off. Good God, they
are going off me.' Mr. Devereux immedi-
ately struck a match, which he had ready
in his hand. The bedclothes had partly
left the boy's bed, having gone diagonally
towards the foot, going out at the left
corner, and not alone did they seem to be
drawn off the bed, but they appeared to be
actually going back under the bed, much in
the same position one would expect bed-
clothes to be if a strong breeze were blowing
through the room at the time. But then
everything was perfectly calm."
A search was then made for wires or
strings, but nothing of the sort could be
found. The bedclothes were put back and
the light extinguished. For ten minutes
silence reigned, only to be broken by more
rapping which was followed by shouts from
107
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Randall. He was told to hold on to the
clothes, which were sliding off again. But
this was of little use, for he was heard to
cry, " I'm going, I'm going, I'm gone,"
and when a light was struck he was seen to
slide from the bed and all the bedclothes
with him. Randall, who, with Sinnott, had
shown considerable strength of mind by
staying in the house under such trying
circumstances, had evidently had enough of
ghostly hauntings, for as he lay on the floor,
trembling in every limb and bathed in per-
spiration, he exclaimed : " Oh, isn't this
dreadful ? I can't stand it ; I can't stay
here any longer." He was eventually
persuaded to get back to bed. Later on
more rapping occurred in a different
part of the room, but it soon stopped,
and the rest of the night passed away in
peace.
Randall and Sinnott went to their homes
the next day, and Mr. Murphy spent from
eleven till long past midnight in their
vacated room, but heard and saw nothing
unusual. He states in conclusion that
" Randall could not reach that part of the
floor from which the rapping came on any
108
POLTERGEISTS
occasion without attracting my attention
and that of my comrade."
The next case related by Professor Barrett
occurred in County Fermanagh, at a spot
eleven miles from Enniskillen and about two
miles from the hamlet of Derrygonelly, where
there dwelt a farmer and his family of four
girls and a boy, of whom the eldest was a
girl of about twenty years of age named
Maggie. His cottage consisted of three
rooms, the kitchen, or dwelling-room, being
in the centre, with a room on each side used
as bedrooms. In one of these two rooms
Maggie slept with her sisters, and it was
here that the disturbances occurred, gener-
ally after they had all gone to bed, when
rappings and scratchings were heard which
often lasted all night. Rats were first blamed,
but when things were moved by some un-
seen agent, and boots and candles thrown
out of the house, it was seen that something
more than the ordinary rat was at work.
The old farmer, who was a Methodist, sought
advice from his class leader, and by his direc-
tions laid an open Bible on the bed in the
haunted room, placing a big stone on the
book. But the stone was lifted off" by an
109
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
unseen hand, the Bible moved out of the
room, and seventeen pages torn out of it.
They could not keep a lamp or candle in the
house, so they went to their neighbours for
help, and, to quote the old farmer's words to
Professor Barrett, "Jack Flanigan came and
lent us a lamp, saying the devil himself
would not steal it, as he had got the priest
to sprinkle it with holy water." " But that,"
the old man said, " did us no good either,
for the next day it took away that lamp
also."
Professor Barrett, at the invitation of Mr.
Thomas Plunkett of Enniskillen, went to
investigate. He got a full account from the
farmer of the freakish tricks which were
continually being played in the house, and
gives a graphic account of what he himself
observed : " After the children, except the
boy, had gone to bed, Maggie lay down on
the bed without undressing, so that her
hands and feet could be observed. The rest
of us sat round the kitchen fire, when faint
raps, rapidly increasing in loudness, were
heard coming apparently from the walls,
the ceiling, and various parts of the inner
room, the door of which was open. On
1 10
POLTERGEISTS
entering the bedrqom with a light the
noises at first ceased, but recommenced when
I put the light on the window-sill in the
kitchen. I had the boy and his father by
my side, and asked Mr. Plunkett to look
round the house outside. Standing in the
doorway leadingto the bedroom, the noises re-
commenced, the light was gradually brought
nearer, and after much patience I was able
to bring the light into the bedroom whilst
the disturbances were still loudly going on.
At last I was able to go up to the side of
the bed, with the lighted candle in my hand,
and closely observed each of the occupants
lying on the bed. The younger children
were apparently asleep, and Maggie was
motionless ; nevertheless, knocks were going
on everywhere around ; on the chairs, the
bedstead, the walls and ceiling. The closest
scrutiny failed to detect any movement on
the part of those present that could account
for the noises, which were accompanied by
a scratching or tearing sound. Suddenly a
large pebble fell in my presence on to the bed ;
no one had moved to dislodge it, even if it
had been placed for the purpose. When I
replaced the candle on the window-sill in the
in
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
kitchen, the knocks became still louder, like
those made by a heavy carpenter's hammer
driving nails into flooring."
A couple of days afterwards, the Rev.
Maxwell Close, M.A., a well-known member
of the S.P.R., joined Professor Barrett and
Mr. Plunkett, and together the party of three
paid visits on two consecutive nights to
the haunted farm-house, and the noises were
repeated. Complete search was made, both
inside and outside of the house, but no cause
could be found. When the party were leav-
ing, the old farmer was much perturbed that
they had not " laid the ghost." When ques-
tioned he said he thought it was fairies.
He was asked if it had answered to questions
by raps and he said he had ; " but it tells lies
as often as truth, and oftener, I think. We
tried it, and it only knocked at L M N
when we said the alphabet over." Professor
Barrett then tested it by asking mentally for
a certain number of raps, and immediately
the actual number was heard. He repeated
this four times with a different number each
time, and with the same result.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this
particular case is at the end of Professor
112
POLTERGEISTS
Barrett's account, when, at the request of the
old farmer, Mr. Maxwell Close read some
passages from Scripture, followed by the
Lord's Prayer, toan accompaniment of knock-
ings and scratches, which were at first so
loud that the solemn words could hardly
be heard, but which gradually ceased as they
all knelt in prayer. And since that night
no further disturbance occurred.
Another similar story comes from the
north of Ireland. In the year 1866 (as
recorded in the Larne c Rgporter of March 3 1
in that year), two families residing at Upper
Ballygowan, near Larne, suffered a series of
annoyances from having stones thrown into
their houses both by night and by day.
Their neighbours came in great numbers to
sympathise with them in their affliction, and
on one occasion, after a volley of stones had
been poured into the house through the
window, a young man who was present
fired a musket in the direction of the mysteri-
ous assailants. The reply was a loud peal
of satanic laughter, followed by a volley of
stones and turf. On another occasion a heap
of potatoes, which was in an inner apartment
of one of the houses, was seen to be in com-
113 H
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
motion, and shortly afterwards its contents
were hurled into the kitchen, where the
inmates of the house, with some of their
neighbours, were assembled.
The explanation given by some people
of this mysterious affair was as mysterious
as the affair itself. It was said that many
years before the occurrences which we have
now related took place, the farmer who
then occupied the premises in which they
happened was greatly annoyed by mis-
chievous tricks which were played upon him
by a company of fairies who had a habit of
holding their rendezvous in his house. The
consequence was that this man had to leave
the house, which for a long time stood a
roofless ruin. After the lapse of many
years, and when the story about the dilapi-
dated fabric having been haunted had prob-
ably been forgotten, the people who then
occupied the adjoining lands unfortunately
took some of the stones of the old deserted
mansion to repair their own buildings. At
this the fairies, or " good people," were
much incensed ; and they vented their dis-
pleasure on the offender in the way we
have described.
114
POLTERGEISTS
A correspondent from County Wexford,
who desires to have his name suppressed,
writes as follows : " Less than ten miles
from the town of , Co. Wexford, lives a
small farmer named M , who by dint of
thrift and industry has reared a large family
decently and comfortably.
" Some twenty years ago Mr. M ,
through the death of a relative, fell in for
a legacy of about a hundred pounds. As
he was already in rather prosperous circum-
stances, and as his old thatched dwelling-
house was not large enough to accommodate
his increasing family, he resolved to spend
the money in building a new one."
" Not long afterwards building operations
commenced, and in about a year he had a
fine slated cottage, or small farm-house,
erected and ready for occupation : so far
very well ; but it is little our friend M
anticipated the troubles which were still
ahead of him. He purchased some new
furniture at the nearest town, and on a
certain day he removed all the furniture
which the old house contained into the
new one ; and in the evening the family
found themselves installed in the latter for
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
good, as they thought. They all retired to
rest at their usual hour ; scarcely were they
snugly settled in bed when they heard
peculiar noises inside the house. As time
passed the din became terrible there was
shuffling of feet, slamming of doors, pulling
about of furniture, and so forth. The man
of the house got up to explore, but could
see nothing, neither was anything disturbed.
The door was securely locked as he had left
it. After a thorough investigation, in which
his wife assisted, he had to own he could
find no clue to the cause of the disturb-
ance. The couple went to bed again,
and almost immediately the racket recom-
menced, and continued more or less till
dawn.
" The inmates were puzzled and fright-
ened, but determined to try whether the
noise would be repeated the next night
before telling their neighbours what had
happened. But the pandemonium experi-
enced the first night of their occupation was
as nothing compared with what they had
to endure the second night and for several
succeeding nights. Sleep was impossible,
and finally Mr. M and family in terror
116
POLTERGEISTS
abandoned their new home, and retook
possession of their old one.
" That is the state of things to this day.
The old house has been repaired and is
tenanted. The new house, a few perches
off, facing the public road, is used as a store-
house. The writer has seen it scores of
times, and its story is well known all over
the country-side. Mr. M is disinclined
to discuss the matter or to answer questions ;
but it is said he made several subsequent
attempts to occupy the house, but always
failed to stand his ground when night came
with its usual rowdy disturbances.
" It is said that when building opera-
tions were about to begin, a little man of
bizarre appearance accosted Mr. M and
exhorted him to build on a different site ;
otherwise the consequences would be un-
pleasant for him and his ; while the local
peasantry allege that the house was built
across a fairy pathway between two raths^
and that this was the cause of the trouble.
It is quite true that there are two large
raths in the vicinity, and the haunted house
j '
is directly in a bee-line between them. For
myself I offer no explanation ; but I guaran-
117
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
tee the substantial accuracy of what I have
stated above."
Professor Barrett, in the paper to which
we have already referred, draws certain
conclusions from his study of this subject ;
one of the chief of these is that " the wide-
spread belief in fairies, pixies, gnomes,
brownies, &c., probably rests on the varied
manifestations of poltergeists." The popular
explanation of the above story bears out
this conclusion, and it is further emphasized
by the following, which comes from Portar-
lington : A man near that town had saved
five hundred pounds, and determined to build
a house with the money. He fixed on a
certain spot, and began to build, very much
against the advice of his friends, who said
it was on a fairy path, and would bring him
ill-luck. Soon the house was finished, and
the owner moved in ; but the very first
night his troubles began, for some unseen
hand threw the furniture about and broke it,
while the man himself was injured. Being
unwilling to lose the value of his money, he
tried to make the best of things. But
night after night the disturbances continued,
and life in the house was impossible ; the
118
POLTERGEISTS
owner chose the better part of valour and
left. No tenant has been found since, and
the house stands empty, a silent testimony
to the power of the poltergeist.
Poltergeistic phenomena from their very
nature lend themselves to spurious reproduc-
tion and imitation, as witness the famous
case of Cock Lane and many other similar
stories. At least one well-known case
occurred in Ireland, and is interesting as
showing that where fraud is at work, close
investigation will discover it. It is related
that an old Royal Irish Constabulary pen-
sioner, who obtained a post as emergency
man during the land troubles, and who in
1892 was in charge of an evicted farm in
the Passage East district, was being con-
tinually disturbed by furniture and crockery
being thrown about in a mysterious manner.
Reports were brought to the police, and
they investigated the matter ; but nothing
was heard or seen beyond knocking on an
inside wall of a bedroom in which one of
the sons was sleeping ; this knocking ceased
when the police were in the bedroom, and
no search was made in the boy's bed to see
if he had a stick. The police therefore
119
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
could find no explanation, the noises con-
tinued night after night, and eventually the
family left and went to live in Waterford.
A great furore was raised when it was learnt
that the hauntings had followed them, and
again investigation was made, but it seems
to have been more careful this time : an
eye was kept on the movements of the
young son, and at least two independent
witnesses saw him throwing things about
fireirons and jam-pots when he thought
his father was not looking. It seems to
have been a plot between the mother and
son owing to the former's dislike to her
husband's occupation, which entailed great
unpopularity and considerable personal risk.
Fearing for her own and her family's safety,
the wife conceived of this plan to force her
husband to give up his post. Her efforts
were successful, as the man soon resigned
his position and went to live elsewhere. 1
1 Proceedings, S.P.R.
I 2O
CHAPTER V
HAUNTED PLACES
THAT houses are haunted and apparitions
frequently seen therein are pretty well
established facts. The preceding chapters
have dealt with this aspect of the subject,
and, in view of the weight of evidence to
prove the truth of the stories told in them,
it would be hard for anyone to doubt that
there is such a thing as a haunted house,
whatever explanation maybe given of "haunt-
ing." We now turn to another division of
the subject the outdoor ghost who haunts
the roadways, country lanes, and other
places. Sceptics on ghostly phenomena
are generally pretty full of explanations
when they are told of a ghost having been
seen in a particular spot, and the teller may
be put down as hyper-imaginative, or as
having been deluded by moonlight playing
through the trees ; while cases are not
wanting where a reputation for temperance
121
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
has been lost by a man telling his experi-
ences of a ghost he happens to have met
along some country lane ; and the fact that
there are cases where an imaginative and
nervous person has mistaken for a ghost a
white goat or a sheet hanging on a bush
only strengthens the sceptic's disbelief and
makes him blind to the very large weight
of evidence that can be arrayed against
him. Some day, no doubt, psychologists and
scientists will be able to give us a complete
and satisfactory explanation of these abnor-
mal apparitions, but at present we are very
much in the dark, and any explanation that
may be put forward is necessarily of a tenta-
tive nature.
The following story is sent us by Mr. J.
J. Crowley, of the Munster and Leinster
Bank, who writes as follows : " The scene
is outside Clonmel, on the main road leading
up to a nice old residence on the side of the
mountains called Lodge. I happened
to be visiting my friends, two other bank
men. It was night, about eight o'clock,
moonless, and tolerably dark, and when
within a quarter of a mile or perhaps less of
a bridge over a small stream near the house
122
HAUNTED PLACES
I saw a girl, dressed in white, wearing a
black sash and long flowing hair, walk in
the direction from me up the culvert of the
bridge and disappear down the other side.
At the time I saw it I thought it most
peculiar that I could distinguish a figure so
far away, and thought a light of some sort
must be falling on the girl, or that there
were some people about and that some of
them had struck a match. When I got to
the place I looked about, but could find no
person there.
" I related this story to my friends some
time after arriving, and was then told that
one of them had wakened up in his sleep a
few nights previously, and had seen an iden-
tical figure standing at the foot of his bed,
and rushed in fright from his room, taking
refuge for the night with the other lodger.
They told the story to their landlady, and
learned from her that this apparition had
frequently been seen about the place, and
was the spirit of one of her daughters who
had died years previously rather young, and
who, previous to her death, had gone about
just as we described the figure we had seen. I
had heard nothing of this story until after I
123
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
had seen the ghost, and consequently it could
not be put down to hallucination or over-
imagination on my part."
The experiences of two constables of the
Royal Irish Constabulary while on despatch
duty one winter's night in the early eighties
has been sent us by one of the men concerned,
and provides interesting reading. It was a
fine moonlight night, with a touch of frost
in the air, when these two men set out to
march the five miles to the next barrack.
Brisk walking soon brought them near their
destination. The barrack which they were
approaching was on the left side of the road,
and facing it on the other side was a white-
thorn hedge. The road at this point was
wide, and as the two constables got within
fifty yards of the barrack, they saw a police-
man step out from this hedge and move
across the road, looking towards the two
men as he did so. He was plainly visible
to them both. " He was bare-headed " (runs
the account), " with his tunic opened down
the front, a stout-built man, black-haired,
pale, full face, and short mutton-chop
whiskers." They thought he was a newly-
joined constable who was doing " guard "
124
HAUNTED PLACES
and had come out to get some fresh air
while waiting for a patrol to return. As
the two men approached, he disappeared
into the shadow of the barrack, and appar-
ently went in by the door ; to their amaze-
ment, when they came up they found the
door closed and bolted, and it was only after
loud knocking that they got a sleepy " All
right " from some one inside, and after the
usual challenging were admitted. There
was no sign of the strange policeman when
they got in, and on inquiry they learnt that
no new constable had joined the station.
The two men realised then that they had
seen a ghost, but refrained from saying any-
thing about it to the men at the station a
very sensible precaution, considering the
loneliness of the average policeman's life in
this country.
Some years afterwards the narrator of the
above story learnt that a policeman had been
lost in a snow-drift near this particular
barrack. Whether this be the explanation
we leave to others : the facts as stated
are well vouched for. There is no evidence
to support the theory of hallucination, for
the apparition was so vivid that the idea of
125
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
its being other than normal never entered
the constables' heads till they had got into the
barrack. When they found the door shut
and bolted, their amazement was caused by
indignation against an apparently unsociable
or thoughtless comrade, and it was only
afterwards, while discussing the whole thing
on their homeward journey, that it occurred
to them that it would have been impossible
for any ordinary mortal to shut, bolt, and bar
a door without making a sound.
In the winter of 18401, in the days
when snow and ice and all their attendant
pleasures were more often in evidence than
in these degenerate days, a skating party was
enjoying itself on the pond in the grounds
of the Castle near Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin.
Among the skaters was a man who had with
him a very fine curly-coated retriever dog.
The pond was thronged with people enjoy-
ing themselves, when suddenly the ice gave
way beneath him, and the man fell into the
water ; the dog went to his rescue, and
both were drowned. A monument was
erected to perpetuate the memory of the
dog's heroic self-sacrifice, but only the
pedestal now remains. The ghost of the
126
HAUNTED PLACES
dog is said to haunt the grounds and the
public road between the castle gate and the
Dodder Bridge. Many people have seen
the phantom dog, and the story is well
known locally.
The ghost of a boy who was murdered
by a Romany is said to haunt one of the
lodge gates of the Castle demesne, and the
lodge-keeper states that he saw it only a
short time ago. The Castle, however, is
now in possession of Jesuit Fathers, and
the Superior assures us that there has been
no sign of a ghost for a long time, his ex-
planation being that the place is so crowded
out with new buildings " that even a ghost
would have some difficulty in finding a
comfortable corner."
It is a fairly general belief amongst students
of supernatural phenomena that animals
have the psychic faculty developed to a
greater extent than we have. There are
numerous stories which tell of animals being
scared and frightened by something that is
invisible to a human being, and the explana-
tion given is that the animal has seen a
ghost which we cannot see. A story that
is told of a certain spot near the village of
127
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
G , in Co. Kilkenny, supports this theory.
The account was sent us by the eye-witness
of what occurred, and runs as follows : " I
was out for a walk one evening near the town
of G about 8.45 P.M., and was crossing
the bridge that leads into the S. Carlow
district with a small wire-haired terrier dog.
When we were about three-quarters of a
mile out, the dog began to bark and yelp in
a most vicious manner at ' nothing ' on the
left-hand side of the roadway and near to a
straggling hedge. I felt a bit creepy and
that something was wrong. The dog kept
on barking, but I could at first see nothing,
but on looking closely for a few seconds I
believe I saw a small grey-white object
vanish gradually and noiselessly into the
hedge. No sooner had it vanished than the
dog ceased barking, wagged his tail, and
seemed pleased with his successful efforts."
The narrator goes on to say that he made
inquiries when he got home, and found that
this spot on the road had a very bad reputa-
tion, as people had frequently seen a ghost
there, while horses had often to be beaten,
coaxed, or led past the place. The explana-
tion locally current is that a suicide was
128
HAUNTED PLACES
buried at the cross-roads near at hand, or
that it may be the ghost of a man who is
known to have been killed at the spot.
The following story has been sent us by
the Rev. H. R. B. Gillespie, to whom it was
told by one of the witnesses of the incidents
described therein. One bright moonlight
night some time ago a party consisting of a
man, his two daughters, and a friend were
driving along a country road in County
Leitrim. They came to a steep hill, and all
except the driver got down to walk. One
of the two sisters walked on in front, and
after her came the other two, followed closely
by the trap. They had not gone far, when
those in rear saw a shabbily-dressed man
walking beside the girl who was leading.
But she did not seem to be taking any notice
of him, and, wondering what he could be,
they hastened to overtake her. But just
when they were catching her up the figure
suddenly dashed into the shadow of a dis-
used forge, which stood by the side of the
road, and as it did so the horse, which up to
this had been perfectly quiet, reared up and
became unmanageable. The girl beside
whom the figure had walked had seen and
129 i
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
heard nothing. The road was not bordered
by trees or a high hedge, so that it could not
have been some trick of the moonlight. One
of the girls described the appearance of the
figure to a local workman, who said, " It is
very like a tinker who was found dead in
that forge about six months ago."
Here is another story of a haunted spot
on a road, where a " ghost " was seen, not
at the witching hour of night, not when
evening shadows lengthen, but in broad
daylight. It is sent to us by the percipient,
a lady, who does not desire to have her name
mentioned. She was walking along a country
road in the vicinity of Cork one afternoon,
and passed various people. She then saw
coming towards her a country-woman dressed
in an old-fashioned style. This figure ap-
proached her, and when it drew near, sud-
denly staggered, as if under the influence of
drink, and disappeared ! She hastened to
the spot, but searched in vain for any clue
to the mystery ; the road was bounded by
high walls, and there was no gateway or
gap through which the figure might slip.
Much mystified, she continued on her way,
and arrived at her destination. She there
130
HAUNTED PLACES
mentioned what had occurred, and was then
informed by an old resident in the neighbour-
hood that that woman had constantly been
seen up to twenty years before, but not since
that date. By the country-people the road
was believed to be haunted, but the per-
cipient did not know this at the time.
The following is sent us by Mr. T. J.
Westropp, and has points of its own which
are interesting ; he states : " On the road
from Bray to Windgates, at the Deerpark of
Kilruddy, is a spot which, whatever be the
explanation, is distinguished by weird sounds
and (some say) sights. I on one occasion
was walking with a friend to catch the
train at Bray about eleven o'clock one even-
ing some twenty-five years ago, when we
both heard heavy steps and rustling of bracken
in the Deerpark ; apparently some one got
over the gate, crossed the road with heavy
steps and fell from the wall next Bray Head,
rustling and slightly groaning. The night
was lightsome, though without actual moon-
light, and we could see nothing over the
wall where we had heard the noise.
" For several years after I dismissed the
matter as a delusion ; but when I told the
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
story to some cousins, they said that another
relative (now a Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin) had heard it too, and that there was
a local belief that it was the ghost of a
poacher mortally wounded by gamekeepers,
who escaped across the road and died beyond
it." Mr. Westropp afterwards got the rela-
tive mentioned above to tell his experience,
and it corresponded with his own, except
that the ghost was visible. " The clergyman
who was rector of Greystones at that time
used to say that he had heard exactly similar
noises though he had seen nothing."
The following story of an occurrence near
Dublin is sent us by a lady who is a very
firm believer in ghosts. On a fine night
some years ago two sisters were returning
home from the theatre. They were walking
along a very lonely part of the Kimmage
Road about two miles beyond the tram
terminus, and were chatting gaily as they
went, when suddenly they heard the " clink,
clink " of a chain coming towards them.
At first they thought it was a goat or a
donkey which had got loose, and was drag-
ging its chain along the ground. But they
could see nothing, and could hear no noise
132
HAUNTED PLACES
but the clink of the chain, although the road
was clear and straight. Nearer and nearer
came the noise, gradually getting louder, and
as it passed them closely they distinctly felt
a blast or whiff of air. They were paralysed
with an indefinable fear, and were scarcely
able to drag themselves along the remaining
quarter of a mile to their house. The elder
of the two was in very bad health, and the
other had almost to carry her. Immediately
she entered the house she collapsed, and had
to be revived with brandy.
An old woman, it seems, had been mur-
dered for her savings by a tramp near the
spot where this strange occurrence took
place, and it is thought that there is a con-
nection between the crime and the haunting
of this part of the Kimmage Road. What-
ever the explanation may be, the whole story
bears every evidence of truth, and it would
be hard for anyone to disprove it.
Churchyards are generally considered to
be the hunting-ground of all sorts and con-
ditions of ghosts. People who would on
all other occasions, when the necessity arises,
prove themselves to be possessed of at any
rate a normal amount of courage, turn pale
133
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
and shiver at the thought of having to pass
through a churchyard at dead of night.
It may be some encouragement to such to
state that out of a fairly large collection of
accounts of haunted places, only one relates
to a churchyard. The story is told by Mr.
G. H. Millar of Edgeworthstown : " During
the winter of 1875," he writes, " I attended
a soiree about five miles from here. I was
riding, and on my way home about 11.30
P.M. I had to pass by the old ruins and
burial-ground of Abbeyshrule. The road
led round by two sides of the churchyard.
It was a bright moonlight night, and as my
girth broke I was walking the horse quite
slowly. As I passed the ruin, I saw what I
took to be a policeman in a long overcoat ;
he was walking from the centre of the
churchyard towards the corner, and, as far
as I could see, would be at the corner by
the time I would reach it, and we would
meet. Quite suddenly, however, he dis-
appeared, and I could see no trace of him.
Soon after I overtook a man who had left
the meeting long before me. I expressed
wonder that he had not been farther on,
and he explained that he went a ' round-
HAUNTED PLACES
about ' way to avoid passing the old abbey,
as he did not want to see ' The Monk.' On
questioning him, he told me that a monk
was often seen in the churchyard."
A story told of a ghost which haunts a
certain spot on an estate near the city of
Waterford, bears a certain resemblance to
the last story for the reason that it was only
after the encounter had taken place in both
cases that it was known that anything out
of the ordinary had been seen. In the
early eighties of last century Court, near
Waterford, was occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
S and their family of two young boys and
a girl of twenty-one years of age. Below
the house is a marshy glen with a big open
drain cut through it. Late one evening the
daughter was out shooting rabbits near this
drain and saw, as she thought, her half-
brother standing by the drain in a sailor
suit, which like other small boys he wore.
She called to him once or twice, and to
her surprise got no reply. She went to-
wards him, and when she got close he
suddenly disappeared. The next day she
asked an old dependent, who had lived
many years in the place, if there was any-
135
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
thing curious about the glen. He replied
at once : " Oh ! you mean the little sailor
man. Sure, he won't do you any harm."
This was the first she had heard of anything
of the sort, but it was then found that none
of the country-people would go through
the glen after dusk.
Some time afterwards two sons of the
clergyman of the parish in which Court
stands were out one evening fishing in the
drain, when one of them suddenly said,
" What's that sailor doing there ? " The other
saw nothing, and presently the figure van-
ished. At the time of the appearance
neither had heard of Miss S 's experience,
and no one has been able to explain it, as
there is apparently no tradition of any " little
sailor man " having been there in the flesh.
Mr. Joseph M'Crossan, a journalist on
the staff of the Strabane Chronicle^ has sent
us a cutting from that paper describing a
ghost which appeared to men working in
an engine-house at Strabane railway station
on two successive nights in October 1913.
The article depicts very graphically the
antics of the ghost and the fear of the men
who saw it. Mr. M'Crossan interviewed
136
HAUNTED PLACES
one of these men (Pinkerton by name), and
the story as told in his words is as follows :
"Michael Madden, Fred Oliphant, and I
were engaged inside a shed cleaning engines,
when, at half-past twelve (midnight), a knock-
ing came to all the doors, and continued
without interruption, accompanied by un-
earthly yells. The three of us went to one
of the doors, and saw I could swear to
it without doubt the form of a man of
heavy build. I thought I was about to faint.
My hair stood high on my head. We all
squealed for help, when the watchman and
signalman came fast to our aid. Armed
with a crowbar, the signalman made a dash
at the c spirit,' but was unable to strike
down the ghost, which hovered about our
shed till half-past two. It was moonlight,
and we saw it plainly. There was no imagi-
nation on our part. We three cleaners
climbed up the engine, and hid on the roof
of the engine, lying there till morning at
our wit's end. The next night it came at
half-past one. Oliphant approached the
spirit within two yards, but he then collapsed,
the ghost uttering terrible yells. I com-
menced work, but the spirit ' gazed ' into
137
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
my face, and I fell forward against the
engine. Seven of us saw the ghost this
time. Our clothes and everything in the
shed were tossed and thrown about."
The other engine-cleaners were inter-
viewed and corroborated Pinkerton's ac-
count. One of them stated that he saw
the ghost run up and down a ladder leading
to a water tank and disappear into it,
while the signalman described how he struck
at the ghost with a crowbar, but the
weapon seemed to go through it. The
spirit finally took his departure through
the window.
The details of this affair are very much
on the lines of the good old-fashioned ghost
yarns. But it is hard to see how so many
men could labour under the same delusion.
The suggestion that the whole thing was
a practical joke may also be dismissed, for
if the apparition had flesh and bones the
crowbar would have soon proved it. The
story goes that a man was murdered near
the spot some time ago ; whether there is
any connection between this crime and the
apparition it would be hard to say. How-
ever, we are not concerned with explan-
138
HAUNTED PLACES
ations (for who, as yet, can explain the
supernatural ?) ; the facts as stated have all
the appearance of truth.
Mr. Patrick Ryan, of P , Co. Limerick,
gives us two stories as he heard them related
by Mr. Michael O'Dwyer of the same place.
The former is evidently a very strong believer
in supernatural phenomena, but he realises
how strong is the unbelief of many, and in
support of his stories he gives names of
several persons who will vouch for the truth
of them. With a few alterations, we give
the story in his own words : " Mr. O'Dwyer
has related how one night, after he had
carried the mails to the train, he went with
some fodder for a heifer in a field close to
the railway station near to which was a
creamery. He discovered the animal graz-
ing near the creamery although how she came
to be there was a mystery, as a broad trench
separated it from the rest of the field, which
is only spanned by a plank used by pedes-
trians when crossing the field. ' Perhaps,'
he said in explanation, ' it was that he should
go there to hear.' It was about a quarter
to twelve (midnight), and, having searched
the field in vain, he was returning home,
139
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
when, as he crossed the plank, he espied the
heifer browsing peacefully in the afore-
mentioned part of the field which was near
the creamery. He gave her the fodder and
Heavens ! was he suffering from delusions?
Surely his ears were not deceiving him
from the creamery funnel there arose a dense
volume of smoke mingled with the sharp his-
sing of steam and the rattling of cans, all as
if the creamery were working, and it were
broad daylight. His heifer became startled
and bellowed frantically. O'Dwyer, him-
self a man of nerves, yet possessing all the
superstitions of the Celt, was startled and ran
without ceasing to his home near by, where
he went quickly to bed.
" O'Dwyer is not the only one who has
seen this, as I have been told by several of
my friends how they heard it. Who knows
the mystery surrounding this affair ! "
The second story relates to a certain rail-
way station in the south of Ireland ; again
we use Mr. Ryan's own words: "A near
relative of mine" (he writes) "once had occa-
sion to go to the mail train to meet a friend.
While sitting talking to O'Dwyer, whom he
met on the platform, he heard talking going
140
HAUNTED PLACES
on in the waiting-room. O'Dwyer heard it
also, and they went to the door, but saw
nothing save for the light of a waning moon
which filtered in through the window.
Uncertain, they struck matches, but saw
nothing. Again they sat outside, and again
they heard the talking, and this time they
did not go to look, for they knew about it.
In the memory of the writer a certain un-
fortunate person committed suicide on the
railway, and was carried to the waiting-
room pending an inquest. He lay all night
there till the inquest was held next day.
' Let us not look further into the matter,' said
O'Dwyer, and my relative having acquiesced,
he breathed a shuddering prayer for the re-
pose of the dead."
The following story, which has been sent
as a personal experience by Mr. William
Mackey of Strabane, is similar in many ways
to an extraordinary case of retro-cognitive
vision which occurred some years ago to
two English ladies who were paying a visit
to Versailles ; and who published their ex-
periences in a book entitled, *An Adventure
(London, 191 1). Mr. Mackey writes : "It
was during the severe winter of the Crimean
141
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
War, when indulging in my favourite sport
of wild-fowl shooting, that I witnessed the
following strange scene. It was a bitterly
cold night towards the end of November or
beginning of December ; the silvery moon
had sunk in the west shortly before midnight;
the sport had been all that could be desired,
when I began to realise that the blood was
frozen in my veins, and I was on the point
of starting for home, when my attention
was drawn to the barking of a dog close by,
which was followed in a few seconds by the
loud report of a musket, the echo of which
had scarcely died away in the silent night,
when several musket-shots went off in
quick succession ; this seemed to be the
signal for a regular fusillade of musketry,
and it was quite evident from the nature of
the firing that there was attack and defence.
" For the life of me I could not under-
stand what it all meant ; not being super-
stitious I did not for a moment imagine it
was supernatural, notwithstanding that my
courageous dog was crouching in abject
terror between my legs ; beads of perspira-
tion began to trickle down from my fore-
head, when suddenly there arose a flame as
142
HAUNTED PLACES
if a house were on fire, but I knew from
the position of the blaze (which was only a
few hundred yards from where I stood),
that there was no house there, or any com-
bustible that would burn, and what per-
plexed me most was to see pieces of burning
thatch and timber sparks fall hissing into
the water at my feet. When the fire seemed
at its height the firing appeared to weaken,
and when the clear sound of a bugle floated
out on the midnight air, it suddenly ceased,
and I could hear distinctly the sound of
cavalry coming at a canter, their accoutre-
ments jingling quite plainly on the frosty
air ; in a very short time they arrived at the
scene of the fight. I thought it an eternity
until they took their departure, which they
did at the walk.
" It is needless to say that, although the
scene of this tumult was on my nearest
way home, I did not venture that way, as,
although there are many people who would
say that I never knew what fearwas, I must
confess on this occasion I was thoroughly
frightened.
" At breakfast I got a good sound rating
from my father for staying out so late.
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
My excuse was that I fell asleep and had
a horrible dream, which I related. When
I finished I was told I had been dreaming
with my eyes open ! that I was not the
first person who had witnessed this strange
sight. He then told me the following
narrative : ' It was towards the end of the
seventeenth century that a widow named
Sally Mackey and her three sons lived on
the outskirts of the little settlement of the
Mackeys. A warrant was issued by the
Government against the three sons for high
treason, the warrant being delivered for
execution to the officer in command of the
infantry regiment stationed at Liffbrd. A
company was told off* for the purpose of
effecting the arrest, and the troops set out
from Liffbrd at 1 1 P.M.
" ' The cottage home of the Mackeys
was approached by a bridle-path, leading
from the main road to Derry, which only
permitted the military to approach in single
file ; they arrived there at midnight, and
the first intimation the inmates had of
danger was the barking, and then the shoot-
ing, of the collie dog. Possessing as they
did several stand of arms, they opened fire
144
HAUNTED PLACES
on the soldiers as they came in view and
killed and wounded several ; it was the
mother, Sally Mackey, who did the shoot-
ing, the sons loading the muskets. Whether
the cottage went on fire by accident or
design was never known ; it was only when
the firing from the cottage ceased and the
door was forced open that the officer in
command rushed in and brought out the
prostrate form of the lady, who was severely
wounded and burned. All the sons perished,
but the soldiers suffered severely, a good
many being killed and wounded.
" ' The firing was heard by the sentries
at Lifford, and a troop of cavalry was de-
spatched to the scene of conflict, but only
arrived in time to see the heroine dragged
from the burning cottage. She had not,
however, been fatally wounded, and lived
for many years afterwards with a kinsmen.
My father remembered conversing with old
men, when he was a boy, who remembered
her well. She seemed to take a delight in
narrating incidents of the fight to those
who came to visit her, and would always
finish up by making them feel the pellets
between the skin and her ribs.' '
145 K
CHAPTER VI
APPARITIONS AT OR AFTER DEATH
IT has been said by a very eminent literary
man that the accounts of the appearance of
people at or shortly after the moment of
death make very dull reading as a general
rule. This may be ; they are certainly not
so lengthy, or full of detail, as the accounts
of haunted houses nor could such be ex-
pected. In our humble opinion, however,
they are full of interest, and open up problems
of telepathy and thought-transference to
which the solutions may not be found for
years to come. That people have seen the
image of a friend or relative at the moment
of dissolution, sometimes in the ordinary
garb of life, sometimes with symbolical ac-
companiments, or that they have been made
acquainted in some abnormal manner with
the fact that such a one has passed away,
seems to be demonstrated beyond all reason-
able doubt. But we would hasten to add that
146
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
such appearances are not a proof of existence
after death, nor can they be regarded in the
light of special interventions of a merciful
Providence. Were they either they would
surely occur far oftener. The question is,
Why do they occur at all ? As it is, the
majority of them seem to happen for no par-
ticular reason, and are often seen by persons
who have little or no connection with the de-
ceased, not by their nearest and dearest, as one
might expect. It is supposed they are veri-
dical hallucinations, i.e. ones which corre-
spond with objective events at a distance,
and are caused by a telepathic impact con-
veyed from the mind of an absent agent to
the mind of the percipient.
From their nature they fall under different
heads. The majority of them occur at what
may most conveniently be described as the
time of death, though how closely they ap-
proximate in reality to the instant of the
Great Change it is impossible to say. So we
have divided this chapter into three groups :
(1) Appearances at the time of death (as
explained above).
(2) Appearances clearly after the time of
death,
H7
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
(3) In this third group we hope to give
three curious tales of appearances some time
before death.
GROUP I
We commence this group with stories in
which the phenomena connected with the
respective deaths were not perceived as repre-
sentations of the human form. In the first
only sounds were heard. It is sent as a
personal experience by the Archdeacon of
Limerick, Very Rev. J. A. Haydn, LL.D.
" In the year 1 879 there lived in the pictur-
esque village of Adare, at a distance of about
eight or nine miles from my residence, a
District Inspector named , with whom
I enjoyed a friendship of the most intimate
and fraternal kind. At the time I write of,
Mrs. was expecting the arrival of their
third child. She was a particularly tiny and
fragile woman, and much anxiety was felt
as to the result of the impending event.
He and she had very frequently spent pleasant
days at my house, with all the apartments
of which they were thoroughly acquainted
a fact of importance in this narrative.
148
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
"On Wednesday, October 17, 1879, I
had a very jubilant letter from my friend,
announcing that the expected event had suc-
cessfully happened on the previous day, and
that all was progressing satisfactorily. On
the night of the following Wednesday,
October 22, I retired to bed at about ten
o'clock. My wife, the children, and two
maid-servants were all sleeping upstairs, and
I had a small bed in my study, which was
on the ground floor. The house was shrouded
in darkness, and the only sound that broke
the silence was the ticking of the hall-
clock.
" I was quietly preparing to go to sleep,
when I was much surprised at hearing, with
the most unquestionable distinctness, the
sound of light, hurried footsteps, exactly sug-
gestive of those of an active, restless young
female, coming in from the hall door and
traversing the hall. They then, apparently
with some hesitation, followed the passage
leading to the study door, on arriving at
which they stopped. I then heard the sound
of a light, agitated hand apparently searching
for the handle of the door. By this time,
being quite sure that my wife had come
149
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
down and wanted to speak to me, I sat up
in bed, and called to her by name, asking
what was the matter. As there was no
reply, and the sounds had ceased, I struck a
match, lighted a candle, and opened the
door. No one was visible or audible. I
went upstairs, found all the doors shut and
everyone asleep. Greatly puzzled, I returned
to the study and went to bed, leaving the
candle alight. Immediately the whole per-
formance was circumstantially repeated, but
this time the handle of the door was grasped
by the invisible hand, and partly turned,
then relinquished. I started out of bed and
renewed my previous search, with equally
futile results. The clock struck eleven, and
from that time all disturbances ceased.
" On Friday morning I received a letter
stating that Mrs. had died at about
midnight on the previous Wednesday. I
hastened off to Adare and had an interview
with my bereaved friend. With one item
of our conversation I will close. He told
me that his wife sank rapidly on Wednesday,
until when night came on she became deliri-
ous. She spoke incoherently, as if revisiting
scenes and places once familiar. ' She thought
150
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
she was in your house,' he said, ' and was ap-
parently holding a conversation with you, as
she used to keep silence at intervals as if
listening to your replies.' I asked him if he
could possibly remember the hour at which
the imaginary conversation took place. He
replied that, curiously enough, he could tell
it accurately, as he had looked at his watch,
and found the time between half-past ten
and eleven o'clock the exact time of the
mysterious manifestations heard by me."
A lady sends the following personal experi-
ence : " I had a cousin in the country who
was not very strong, and on one occasion
she desired me to go to her, and accompany
her to K . I consented to do so, and
arranged a day to go and meet her : this
was in the month of February. The even-
ing before I was to go, I was sitting by the
fire in my small parlour about 5 P.M.
There was no light in the room except
what proceeded from the fire. Beside the
fireplace was an armchair, where my cousin
usually sat when she was with me. Sud-
denly that chair was illuminated by a light
so intensely bright that it actually seemed
to heave under it, though the remainder of
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
the room remained in semi-darkness. I
called out in amazement, c What has hap-
pened to the chair ? ' In a moment the
light vanished, and the chair was as before.
In the morning I heard that my cousin had
died about the same time that I saw the
We now come to the ordinary type, i.e.
where a figure appears. The following tale
illustrates a point we have already alluded
to, namely, that the apparition is sometimes
seen by a disinterested person, and not by
those whom one would naturally expect
should see it. A lady writes as follows :
" At Island Magee is the Knowehead Lonan,
a long, hilly, narrow road, bordered on
either side by high thorn-hedges and fields.
Twenty years ago, when I was a young
girl, I used to go to the post-office at the
Knowehead on Sunday mornings down the
Lonan, taking the dogs for the run. One
Sunday as I had got to the top of the hill
on my return journey, I looked back, and
saw a man walking rapidly after me, but
still a good way off. I hastened my steps,
for the day was muddy, and I did not want
him to see me in a bedraggled state. But
152
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
he seemed to come on so fast as to be soon
close behind me, and I wondered he did not
pass me, so on we went, I never turning to
look back. About a quarter of a mile
farther on I met A. B. on ' Dick's Brae,' on
her way to church or Sunday school, and
stopped to speak to her. I wanted to ask
who the man was, but he seemed to be so
close that I did not like to do so, and ex-
pected he had passed. When I moved on,
I was surprised to find he was still following
me, while my dogs were lagging behind
with downcast heads and drooping tails.
" I then passed a cottage where C. D.
was out feeding her fowls. I spoke to her,
and then feeling that there was no longer
anyone behind, looked back, and saw the
man standing with her. I would not have
paid any attention to the matter had not
A. B. been down at our house that after-
noon, and I casually asked her :
" ' Who was the man who was just
behind me when I met you on Dick's
Brae ? '
" ' What man ? ' said she ; and noting my
look of utter astonishment, added, ' I give
you my word I never met a soul but your-
153
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
self from the time I left home till I went
down to Knowehead Lonan.'
" Next day C. D. came to work for us,
and I asked her who was the man who was
standing beside her after I passed her on
Sunday.
" ' Naebody ! ' she replied, ' I saw naebody
but yourselV
" It all seemed very strange, and so they
thought too. About three weeks later news
came that C. D.'s only brother, a sailor, was
washed overboard that Sunday morning."
The following story is not a first-hand
experience, but is sent by the gentleman to
whom it was related by the percipient. The
latter said to him :
" I was sitting in this same chair I am in
at present one evening, when I heard a
knock at the front door. I went myself to
see who was there, and on opening the door
saw my old friend P. Q. standing outside
with his gun in his hand. I was surprised
at seeing him, but asked him to come in and
have something. He came inside the porch
into the lamplight, and stood there for a
few moments ; then he muttered something
about being sorry he had disturbed me, and
154
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
that he was on his way to see his brother,
Colonel Q., who lived about a mile farther
on. Without any further explanation he
walked away towards the gate into the dusk.
" I was greatly surprised and perplexed,
but as he had gone I sat down again by the
fire. About an hour later another knock
came to the door, and I again went out to
see who was there. On opening it I found
P. Q.'s groom holding a horse, and he asked
me where he was, as he had missed his way
in the dark, and did not know the locality.
I told him, and then asked him where he
was going, and why, and he replied that his
master was dead (at his own house about
nine miles away), and that he had been sent
to announce the news to Colonel Q."
Miss Grene, of Grene Park, Co. Tipperary,
relates a story which was told her by the
late Miss , sister of a former Dean of
Cashel. The latter, an old lady, stated that
one time she was staying with a friend in a
house in the suburbs of Dublin. In front
of the house was the usual grass plot, divided
into two by a short gravel path which led
down to a gate which opened on to the
street. She and her friend were one day
155
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
engaged in needlework in one of the front
rooms, when they heard the gate opening,
and on looking out the window they saw an
elderly gentleman of their acquaintance com-
ing up the path. As he approached the
door both exclaimed : " Oh, how good
of him to come and see us ! " As he was
not shown into the sitting-room, one of them
rang the bell, and said to the maid when
she appeared, " You have not let Mr. So-and-
so in ; he is at the door for some little time."
The maid went to the hall door, and re-
turned to say that there was no one there.
Next day they learnt that he had died just
at the hour that they had seen him coming
up the path.
The following tale contains a curious point.
A good many years ago the Rev. Henry
Morton, now dead, held a curacy in Ireland.
He had to pass through the graveyard when
leaving his house to visit the parishioners.
One beautiful moonlight night he was sent
for to visit a sick person, and was accom-
panied by his brother, a medical man, who
was staying with him. After performing
the religious duty they returned through
the churchyard, and were chatting about
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
various matters when to their astonishment
a figure passed them, both seeing it. This
figure left the path, and went in among the
gravestones, and then disappeared. They
could not understand this at all, so they
went to the spot where the disappearance
took place, but, needless to say, could find
nobody after the most careful search. Next
morning they heard that the person visited
had died just after their departure, while
the most marvellous thing of all was that
the burial took place at the very spot where
they had seen the phantom disappear.
The Rev. D. B. Knox communicates the
following : In a girls' boarding-school several
years ago two of the boarders were sleeping
in a large double-bedded room with two
doors. About two o'clock in the morning
the girls were awakened by the entrance of
a tall figure in clerical attire, the face of
which they did not see. They screamed
in fright, but the figure moved in a slow
and stately manner past their beds, and out
the other door. It also appeared to one
or two of the other boarders, and seemed
to be looking for some one. At length it
reached the bed of one who was evidently
157
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
known to it. The girl woke up and recog-
nised her father. He did not speak, but
gazed for a few moments at his daughter,
and then vanished. Next morning a tele-
gram was handed to her which communi-
cated the sad news that her father had
died on the previous evening at the hour
when he appeared to her.
Here is a story of a very old type. It
occurred a good many years ago. A gentle-
man named Miller resided in Co. Wexford,
while his friend and former schoolfellow
lived in the North of Ireland. This long
friendship led them to visit at each other's
houses from time to time, but for Mr.
Miller there was a deep shadow of sorrow
over these otherwise happy moments, for,
while he enjoyed the most enlightened re-
ligious opinions, his friend was an unbeliever.
The last time they were together Mr. Scott
said, "My dear friend, let us solemnly promise
that whichever of us shall die first shall
appear to the other after death, if it be
possible." "Let it be so, if God will,"
replied Mr. Miller. One morning some
time after, about three o'clock, the latter was
awakened by a brilliant light in his bed-
158
APPARITIONS AT DEATH
room ; he imagined that the house must
be on fire, when he felt what seemed to be
a hand laid on him, and heard his friend's
voice say distinctly, "There is a God, just
but terrible in His judgments," and all again
was dark. Mr. Miller at once wrote down
this remarkable experience. Two days later
he received a letter announcing Mr. Scott's
death on the night, and at the hour, that
he had seen the light in his room.
The above leads us on to the famous
" Beresford Ghost," which is generally re-
garded as holding the same position relative
to Irish ghosts that Dame Alice Kyteler
used to hold with respect to Irish witches
and wizards. The story is so well known,
and has been published so often, that only
a brief allusion is necessary, with the added
information that the best version is to be
found in Andrew Lang's Dreams and Ghosts,
chapter viii. (Silver Library Edition).
Lord Tyrone appeared after death one night
to Lady Beresford at Gill Hall, in accord-
ance with a promise (as in the last story)
made in early life. He assured her that
the religion as revealed by Jesus Christ was
the only true one (both he and Lady Beres-
159
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
ford had been brought up Deists), told her
that she was enceinte and would bear a son,
and also foretold her second marriage, and
the time of her death. In proof whereof
he drew the bed-hangings through an iron
hook, wrote his name in her pocket-book,
and finally placed a hand cold as marble on
her wrist, at which the sinews shrunk up.
To the day of her death Lady Beresford
wore a black ribbon round her wrist ; this
was taken off before her burial, and it was
found the nerves were withered, and the
sinews shrunken, as she had previously de-
scribed to her children.
GROUP II
We now come to some stories of appari-
tions seen some time after the hour of death.
Canon Ross-Lewin, of Limerick, furnishes
the following incident in his own family.
" My uncle, John Dillon Ross-Lewin, lieu-
tenant in the 3Oth Regiment, was mortally
wounded at Inkerman on November 5,
1854, and died on the morning of the 6th.
He appeared that night to his mother, who
was then on a visit in Co. Limerick, in-
160
APPARITIONS AFTER DEATH
timating his death, and indicating where
the wound was. The strangest part of the
occurrence is, that when news came later on
of the casualties at Inkerman, the first ac-
count as to the wound did not correspond
with what the apparition indicated to his
mother, but the final account did. Mrs.
Ross-Lewin was devoted to her son, and he
was equally attached to her ; she, as the
widow of a field officer who fought at
Waterloo, would be able to comprehend
the battle scene, and her mind at the time
was centred on the events of the Crimean
War."
A clergyman, who desires that all names
be suppressed, sends the following : " In my
wife's father's house a number of female
servants were kept, of whom my wife,
before she was married, was in charge.
On one occasion the cook took ill with
appendicitis, and was operated on in the
Infirmary, where I attended her as hospital
chaplain. She died, however, and was
buried by her friends. Some days after the
funeral my wife was standing at a table in
the kitchen which was so placed that any
person standing at it could see into the
161 L
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
passage outside the kitchen, if the door
happened to be open. [The narrator en-
closed a rough plan which made the whole
story perfectly clear.] She was standing
one day by herself at the table, and the
door was open. This was in broad daylight,
about eleven o'clock in the morning in the
end of February or beginning of March. She
was icing a cake, and therefore was hardly
thinking of ghosts. Suddenly she looked
up from her work, and glanced through the
open kitchen door into the passage leading
past the servants' parlour into the dairy.
She saw quite distinctly the figure of the
deceased cook pass towards the dairy ; she
was dressed in the ordinary costume she
used to wear in the mornings, and seemed
in every respect quite normal. My wife
was not, at the moment, in the least shocked
or surprised, but on the contrary she followed,
and searched in the dairy, into which she
was just in time to see her skirts disappear-
ing. Needless to say, nothing was visible."
Canon Courtenay Moore, M.A., Rector
of Mitchelstown, contributes a personal ex-
perience. " It was about eighteen years ago
I cannot fix the exact date that Samuel
162
APPARITIONS AFTER DEATH
Penrose returned to this parish from the
Argentine. He was getting on so well
abroad that he would have remained there,
but his wife fell ill, and for her sake he
returned to Ireland. He was a carpenter
by trade, and his former employer was glad
to take him into his service again. Sam
was a very respectable man of sincere re-
ligious feelings. Soon after his return he
met with one or two rather severe accidents,
and had a strong impression that a fatal one
would happen him before long ; and so it
came to pass. A scaffolding gave way one
day, and precipitated him on to a flagged
stone floor. He did not die immediately,
but his injuries proved fatal. He died in
a Cork hospital soon after his admission :
I went to Cork to officiate at his funeral.
About noon the next day I was standing
at my hall door, and the form of poor Sam,
the upper half of it, seemed to pass before
me. He looked peaceful and happy it was
a momentary vision, but perfectly distinct.
The truncated appearance puzzled me very
much, until some time after I read a large
book by F. W. H. Myers, in which he
made a scientific analysis and induction of
163
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
such phenomena, and said that they were
almost universally seen in this half-length
form. I do not profess to explain what I
saw : its message, if it had a message, seemed
to be that poor Sam was at last at rest and
in peace."
A story somewhat similar to the above
was related to us, in which the apparition
seems certainly to have been sent with a
definite purpose. Two maiden ladies,
whom we shall call Miss A. X. and Miss
B. Y., lived together for a good many years.
As one would naturally expect, they were
close friends, and had the most intimate
relations with each other, both being ex-
tremely religious women. In process of
time Miss B. Y. died, and after death Miss
A. X. formed the impression, for some
unknown reason, that all was not well with
her friend that, in fact, her soul was not at
rest. This thought caused her great un-
easiness and trouble of mind. One day she
was sitting in her armchair thinking over
this, and crying bitterly. Suddenly she
saw in front of her a brilliant light, in the
midst of which was her friend's face, easily
recognisable, but transfigured, and wearing
164
APPARITIONS AFTER DEATH
a most beatific expression. She rushed to-
wards it with her arms outstretched, crying,
" Oh ! B., why have you come ? " At this
the apparition faded away, but ever after
Miss A. X. was perfectly tranquil in mind
with respect to her friend's salvation.
This group may be brought to a conclu-
si on by a story sent by Mr. T. MacFadden.
It is not a personal experience, but happened
to his father, and in an accompanying letter
he states that he often heard the latter
describe the incidents related therein, and
that he certainly saw the ghost.
" The island of Inishinny, which is the
scene of this story, is one of the most
picturesque islands on the Donegal coast.
With the islands of Gola and Inismaan it
forms a perfectly natural harbour and safe
anchorage for ships during storms. About
Christmas some forty or fifty years ago a
small sailing-ship put into Gola Roads (as
this anchorage is called) during a prolonged
storm, and the captain and two men had to
obtain provisions from Bunbeg, as, owing to
their being detained so long, their supply was
almost exhausted. They had previously
visited the island on several occasions, and
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
made themselves at home with the people
from the mainland who were temporarily
resident upon it.
" The old bar at its best was never very
safe for navigation, and this evening it was
in its element, as with every storm it pre-
sented one boiling, seething mass of foam.
The inhabitants of the island saw the frail
small boat from the ship securely inside the
bar, and prophesied some dire calamity
should the captain and the two sailors
venture to return to the ship that night.
But the captain and his companions, having
secured sufficient provisions, decided (as
far as I can remember the story), even in
spite of the entreaties of those on shore, to
return to the ship. The storm was increas-
ing, and what with their scanty knowledge
of the intricacies of the channel, and the
darkness of the night, certain it was the
next morning their craft was found washed
ashore on the island, and the body of the
captain was discovered by the first man who
made the round of the shore looking for
logs of timber, or other useful articles
washed ashore from wrecks. The bodies of
the two sailors were never recovered, and
166
APPARITIONS AFTER DEATH
word was sent immediately to the captain's
wife in Deny, who came in a few days and
gave directions for the disposal of her
husband's corpse.
" The island was only temporarily in-
habited by a few people who had cattle and
horses grazing there for some weeks in the
year, and after this catastrophe they felt
peculiarly lonely, and sought refuge from
their thoughts by all spending the evening
together in one house. This particular
evening they were all seated round the fire
having a chat, when they heard steps ap-
proaching the door. Though the approach
was fine, soft sand, yet the steps were aud-
ible as if coming on hard ground. They
knew there was no one on the island save
the few who were sitting quietly round the
fire, and so in eager expectation they faced
round to the door. What was their amaze-
ment when the door opened, and a tall,
broad-shouldered man appeared and filled
the whole doorway and that man the
captain who had been buried several days
previously. He wore the identical suit in
which he had often visited the island and
even the " cheese-cutter " cap, so common
167
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
a feature of sea-faring men's apparel, was
not wanting. All were struck dumb with
terror, and a woman who sat in a corner
opposite the door, exclaimed in Irish in a
low voice to my father :
" c O God ! Patrick, there's the captain.'
" My father, recovering from the first
shock, when he saw feminine courage find-
ing expression in words, said in Irish to the
apparition :
" ' Come in ! '
" They were so certain of the appearance
that they addressed him in his own language,
as they invariably talked Irish in the district
in those days. But no sooner had he
uttered the invitation than the figure, with-
out the least word or sign, moved back, and
disappeared from their view. They rushed
out, but could discover no sign of any living
person within the confines of the island.
Such is the true account of an accident,
by which three men lost their lives,
and the ghostly sequel, in which one of
them appeared to the eyes of four people,
two of whom are yet alive, and can
vouch for the accuracy of this narra-
tive."
168
APPARITIONS BEFORE DEATH
GROUP III
We now come to the third group of this
chapter, in which we shall relate two first-
hand experiences of tragedies being actually
witnessed some time before they happened,
as well as a reliable second-hand story of an
apparition being seen two days before the
death occurred. The first of these is sent
by a lady, the percipient, who desires that
her name be suppressed ; with it was en-
closed a letter from a gentleman who stated
that he could testify to the truth of the
following facts :
"The morning of May 18, 1902, was
one of the worst that ever dawned in
Killarney. All through the day a fierce
nor'-wester raged, and huge white-crested
waves, known locally as * The O'Donoghue's
white horses,' beat on the shores of Lough
Leane. Then followed hail-showers such
as I have never seen before or since. Hail-
stones quite as large as small marbles fell
with such rapidity, and seemed so hard that
the glass in the windows of the room in
which I stood appeared to be about to break
into fragments every moment. I remained
169
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
at the window, gazing out on the turbulent
waters of the lake. Sometimes a regular
fog appeared, caused by the terrible down-
pour of rain and the fury of the gale.
" During an occasional lull I could see the
islands plainly looming in the distance. In
one of these clear intervals, the time being
about 12.30 P.M., five friends of mine were
reading in the room in which I stood.
' Quick ! quick ! ' I cried. ' Is that a boat
turned over ? ' My friends all ran to the
windows, but could see nothing. I per-
sisted, however, and said, * It is on its side,
with the keel turned towards us, and it is
empty.' Still none of my friends could see
anything. I then ran out, and got one of
the men-servants to go down to a gate,
about one hundred yards nearer the lake
than where I stood. He had a powerful
telescope, and remained with great difficulty
in the teeth of the storm with his glass for
several minutes, but could see nothing.
When he returned another man took his
place, but he also failed to see anything.
" I seemed so distressed that those around
me kept going backwards and forwards to
the windows, and then asked me what was
170
APPARITIONS BEFORE DEATH
the size of the boat I had seen. I gave
them the exact size, measuring by land-
marks. They then assured me that I must
be absolutely wrong, as it was on rare oc-
casions that a ' party ' boat, such as the one
I described, could venture on the lakes on
such a day. Therefore there were seven
persons who thought I was wrong in what
I had seen. I still contended that I saw
the boat, the length of which I described,
as plainly as possible.
" The day wore on, and evening came.
The incident was apparently more or less
forgotten by all but me, until at 8 A.M. on
the following morning, when the maid
brought up tea, her first words were, ' Ah,
miss, is it not terrible about the accident ! '
Naturally I said, ' What accident, Mary ? '
She replied, ' There were thirteen people
drowned yesterday evening out of a four-
oared boat.' That proved that the boat I
had seen at 12.30 P.M. was a vision fore-
shadowing the wreck of the boat off Darby's
Garden at 5.30 P.M. The position, shape,
and size of the boat seen by me were
identical with the one that was lost on the
evening of May 18, 1902."
171
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
The second story relates how a lady wit-
nessed a vision (shall we call it) of a suicide
a week before the terrible deed was com-
mitted. This incident surely makes it clear
that such cannot be looked upon as special
interventions of Providence, for if the lady
had recognised the man, she might have
prevented his rash act. Mrs. MacAlpine
says: "In June 1889, I drove to Castle-
blaney, in Co. Monaghan, to meet my
sister : I expected her at three o'clock, but
as she did not come by that train, I put up
the horse and went for a walk in the
demesne. At length becoming tired, I sat
down on a rock by the edge of a lake. My
attention was quite taken up with the
beauty of the scene before me, as it was a
glorious summer's day. Presently I felt a
cold chill creep through me, and a curious
stiffness came over my limbs, as if I could
not move, though wishing to do so. I felt
frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as
if impelled to stare at the water straight
before me. Gradually a black cloud seemed
to rise, and in the midst of it I saw a tall
man, in a tweed suit, jump into the water,
and sink. In a moment the darkness was
172
APPARITIONS BEFORE DEATH
gone, and I again became sensible of the
heat and sunshine, but I was awed, and felt
eerie. This happened about June 25,
and on July 3 a Mr. , a bank clerk,
committed suicide by drowning himself in
the lake." 1
The following incident occurred in the
United States, but, as it is closely connected
with this country, it will not seem out of
place to insert it here. It is sent by Mr.
Richard Hogan as the personal experience
of his sister, Mrs. Mary Murnane, and is
given in her own words.
"On the 4th of August 1886, at 10.30
o'clock in the morning, I left my own
house, 21 Montrose St., Philadelphia, to do
some shopping. I had not proceeded more
than fifty yards when on turning the corner
of the street I observed my aunt approach-
ing me within five or six yards. I was
greatly astonished, for the last letter I had
from home (Limerick) stated that she was
dying of consumption, but the thought oc-
curred to me that she might have recovered
somewhat, and come out to Philadelphia.
This opinion was quickly changed as we
Proceedings S.P.R., x. 332.
173
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
approached each other, for our eyes met,
and she had the colour of one who had
risen from the grave. I seemed to feel my
hair stand on end, for just as we were about
to pass each other she turned her face to-
wards me, and I gasped, c My God, she is
dead, and is going to speak to me ! ' but no
word was spoken, and she passed on. After
proceeding a short distance I looked back,
and she continued on to Washington
Avenue, where she disappeared from me.
There was no other person near at the
time, and being so close, I was well able to
note what she wore. She held a sunshade
over her head, and the clothes, hat, &c.,
were those I knew so well before I left
Ireland. I wrote home telling what I had
seen, and asking if she was dead. I received
a reply saying she was not dead at the date
I saw her, but had been asking if a letter
had come from me for some days before
her death. It was just two days before she
actually died that I had seen her."
CHAPTER VII
BANSHEES, AND OTHER DEATH-WARNINGS
OF all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogles, the
Banshee (sometimes called locally the " Bo-
heentha " or " Bankeentha ") is the best
known to the general public : indeed, cross-
Channel visitors would class her with pigs,
potatoes, and other fauna and flora of Ire-
land, and would expect her to make mani-
fest her presence to them as being one of
the sights of the country. She is a spirit
with a lengthy pedigree how lengthy no
man can say, as its roots go back into the
dim, mysterious past. The most famous
Banshee of ancient times was that attached
to the kingly house of O'Brien, Aibhill,
who haunted the rock of Craglea above
Killaloe, near the old palace of Kincora.
In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of Clon-
tarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru,
knew that he would never come away alive,
for the previous night Aibhill had appeared
to him to tell him of his impending fate.
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
The Banshee's method of foretelling death
in olden times differed from that adopted
by her at the present day : now she wails
and wrings her hands, as a general rule, but
in the old Irish tales she is to be found
washing human heads and limbs, or blood-
stained clothes, till the water is all dyed
with human blood this would take place
before a battle. So it would seem that in
the course of centuries her attributes and
characteristics have changed somewhat.
Very different descriptions are given of
her personal appearance. Sometimes she is
young and beautiful, sometimes old and of a
fearsome appearance. One writer describes
her as " a tall, thin woman with uncovered
head, and long hair that floated round her
shoulders, attired in something which seemed
either a loose white cloak, or a sheet thrown
hastily around her, uttering piercing cries."
Another person, a coachman, saw her one
evening sitting on a stile in the yard ; she
seemed to be a very small woman, with blue
eyes, long light hair, and wearing a red cloak.
Other descriptions will be found in this
chapter. By the way, it does not seem to
be true that the Banshee exclusively follows
176
BANSHEES
families of Irish descent, for the last incident
had reference to the death of a member of
a Co. Galway family English by name and
origin.
One of the oldest and best-known Banshee
stories is that related in the Memoirs of
Lady Fanshaw. 1 In 1642 her husband, Sir
Richard, and she chanced to visit a friend,
the head of an Irish sept, who resided in his
ancient baronial castle, surrounded with a
moat. At midnight she was awakened by
a ghastly and supernatural scream, and
looking out of bed, beheld in the moon-
light a female face and part of the form
hovering at the window. The distance
from the ground, as well as the circum-
stance of the moat, excluded the possibility
that what she beheld was of this world.
The face was that of a young and rather
handsome woman, but pale, and the hair,
which was reddish, was loose and dis-
hevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's
terror did not prevent her remarking accu-
rately, was that of the ancient Irish.
This apparition continued to exhibit itself
for some time, and then vanished with two
1 Scott's Lady of the Lake, notes to Canto III (edition of
1811).
177 M
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
shrieks similar to that which had first
excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the
morning, with infinite terror, she communi-
cated to her host what she had witnessed,
and found him prepared not only to credit,
but to account for the superstition. " A
near relation of my family," said he, " ex-
pired last night in this castle. We dis-
guised our certain expectation of the event
from you, lest it should throw a cloud over
the cheerful reception which was your due.
Now, before such an event happens in this
family or castle, the female spectre whom
you have seen is always visible. She is be-
lieved to be the spirit of a woman of
inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors
degraded himself by marrying, and whom
afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done
to his family, he caused to be drowned in
the moat." In strictness this woman could
hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive
for the haunting is akin to that in the
tale of the Scotch " Drummer of Cortachy,"
where the spirit of the murdered man
haunts the family out of revenge, and
appears before a death.
Mr. T. J. Westropp, M.A., has furnished
178
BANSHEES
the following story : " My maternal grand-
mother heard the following tradition from
her mother, one of the Miss Ross-Lewins,
who witnessed the occurrence. Their father,
Mr. Harrison Ross-Lewin, was away in
Dublin on law business, and in his absence
the young people went off to spend the
evening with a friend who lived some miles
away. The night was fine and lightsome
as they were returning, save at one point
where the road ran between trees or high
hedges not far to the west of the old church
of Kilchrist. The latter, like many similar
ruins, was a simple oblong building, with
long side-walls and high gables, and at that
time it and its graveyard were unenclosed,
and lay in the open fields. As the party
passed down the long dark lane they
suddenly heard in the distance loud keening
and clapping of hands, as the country-
people were accustomed to do when lament-
ing the dead. The Ross-Lewins hurried
on, and came in sight of the church, on
the side wall of which a little gray-haired
old woman, clad in a dark cloak, was run-
ning to and fro, chanting and wailing, and
throwing up her arms. The girls were
179
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
very frightened, but the young men ran
forward and surrounded the ruin, and two
of them went into the church, the appari-
tion vanishing from the wall as they did
so. They searched every nook, and found
no one, nor did anyone pass out. All were
now well scared, and got home as fast as
possible. On reaching their home their
mother opened the door, and at once told
them that she was in terror about their
father, for, as she sat looking out the
window in the moonlight, a huge raven
with fiery eyes lit on the sill, and tapped
three times on the glass. They told her
their story, which only added to their
anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came
to the nearest window, and they saw the
bird again. A few days later news reached
them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly
in Dublin. This occurred about 1776."
Mr. Westropp also writes that the sister
of a former Roman Catholic Bishop told
his sisters that when she was a little girl
she went out one evening with some other
children for a walk. Going down the road,
they passed the gate of the principal demesne
near the town. There was a rock, or large
180
BANSHEES
stone, beside the road, on which they saw
something. Going nearer, they perceived
it to be a little dark, old woman, who
began crying and clapping her hands. Some
of them attempted to speak to her, but got
frightened, and all finally ran home as
quickly as they could. Next day the news
came that the gentleman, near whose gate
the Banshee had cried, was dead, and it was
found on inquiry that he had died at the
very hour at which the children had seen
the spectre.
A lady who is a relation of one of the
compilers, and a member of a Co. Cork
family of English descent, sends the two
following experiences of a Banshee in her
family. " My mother, when a young girl,
was standing looking out of the window in
their house at Blackrock, near Cork. She
suddenly saw a white figure standing on a
bridge which was easily visible from the
house. The figure waved her arms towards
the house, and my mother heard the bitter
wailing of the Banshee. It lasted some
seconds, and then the figure disappeared.
Next morning my grandfather was walking
as usual into the city of Cork. He acci-
181
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
dentally fell, hit his head against the curb-
stone, and never recovered consciousness.
"In March 1900, my mother was very
ill, and one evening the nurse and I were
with her arranging her bed. We suddenly
heard the most extraordinary wailing, which
seemed to come in waves round and under
her bed. We naturally looked everywhere
to try and find the cause, but in vain. The
nurse and I looked at one another, but made
no remark, as my mother did not seem to
hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting
with my father. She heard it, and thought
some terrible thing had happened to her
little boy, who was in bed upstairs. She
rushed up, and found him sleeping quietly.
My father did not hear it. In the house
next door they heard it, and ran downstairs,
thinking something had happened to the
servant ; but the latter at once said to them,
' Did you hear the Banshee ? Mrs. P
must be dying.' '
A few years ago (i.e. before 1894) a
curious incident occurred in a public school
in connection with the belief in the Banshee.
One of the boys, happening to become ill,
was at once placed in a room by himself,
182
BANSHEES
where he used to sit all day. On one
occasion, as he was being visited by the
doctor, he suddenly started up from his seat,
and affirmed that he heard somebody crying.
The doctor, of course, who could hear or
see nothing, came to the conclusion that
the illness had slightly affected his brain.
However, the boy, who appeared quite
sensible, still persisted that he heard some-
one crying, and furthermore said, " It is the
Banshee, as I have heard it before." The
following morning the head-master received
a telegram saying that the boy's brother
had been accidentally shot dead. 1
That the Banshee is not confined within
the geographical limits of Ireland, but that
she can follow the fortunes of a family
abroad, and there foretell their death, is
clearly shewn by the following story. A
party of visitors were gathered together on
the deck of a private yacht on one of the
Italian lakes, and during a lull in the con-
versation one of them, a Colonel, said to the
owner, " Count, who's that queer-looking
woman you have on board ? " The Count
replied that there was nobody except the
1 A. G. Bradley, Notes on some Irish Superstitions, p. 9.
183
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
ladies present, and the stewardess, but the
speaker protested that he was correct, and
suddenly, with a scream of horror, he placed
his hands before his eyes, and exclaimed,
" Oh, my God, what a face ! " For some
time he was overcome with terror, and at
length reluctantly looked up, and cried :
" Thank Heavens, it's gone ! "
" What was it ? " asked the Count.
" Nothing human," replied the Colonel
" nothing belonging to this world. It was
a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-
shaped, gleaming face, a mass of red hair,
and eyes that would have been beautiful but
for their expression, which was hellish.
She had on a green hood, after the fashion
of an Irish peasant."
An American lady present suggested that
the description tallied with that of the
Banshee, upon which the Count said :
" I am an O'Neill at least I am descended
from one. My family name is, as you
know, Neilsini, which, little more than a
century ago, was O'Neill. My great-
grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and
on its dissolution at the time of the French
Revolution had the good fortune to escape
184
BANSHEES
the general massacre of officers, and in
company with an O'Brien and a Maguire
fled across the frontier and settled in Italy.
On his death his son, who had been born
in Italy, and was far more Italian than
Irish, changed his name to Neilsini, by
which name the family has been known
ever since. But for all that we are Irish."
" The Banshee was yours, then ! " ejacu-
lated the Colonel. " What exactly does it
mean ? "
" It means," the Count replied solemnly,
" the death of some one very nearly as-
sociated with me. Pray Heaven it is not
my wife or daughter."
On that score, however, his anxiety was
speedily removed, for within two hours he
was seized with a violent attack of angina
pectoris, and died before morning. 1
Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, to whose article
on " Banshees" we are indebted for the above,
adds : " The Banshee never manifests itself
to the person whose death it is prognosti-
cating. Other people may see or hear it,
but the fated one never, so that when every-
one present is aware of it but one, the fate
1 Occult Review for September, 1913.
I8 5
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
of that one may be regarded as pretty well
certain."
We must now pass on from the subject
of Banshees to the kindred one of" Headless
Coaches," the belief in which is widespread
through the country. Apparently these
dread vehicles must be distinguished from
the phantom coaches, of which numerous
circumstantial tales are also told. The first
are harbingers of death, and in this con-
nection are very often attached to certain
families ; the latter appear to be spectral
phenomena pure and simple, whose appear-
ance does not necessarily portend evil or
death.
" At a house in Co. Limerick," writes
Mr. T. J. Westropp, " occurred the remark-
ably-attested apparition of the headless coach
in June 1806, when Mr. Ralph Westropp,
my great-grandfather, lay dying. The story
was told by his sons, John, William, and
Ralph, to their respective children, who told
it to me. They had sent for the doctor,
and were awaiting his arrival in the dusk.
As they sat on the steps they suddenly
heard a heavy rumbling, and saw a huge
dark coach drive into the paved court before
186
HEADLESS COACHES
the door. One of them went down to
meet the doctor, but the coach swept past
him, and drove down the avenue, which
went straight between the fences and hedges
to a gate. Two of the young men ran after
the coach, which they could hear rumbling
before them, and suddenly came full tilt
against the avenue gate. The noise had
stopped, and they were surprised at not
rinding the carriage. The gate proved to
be locked, and when they at last awoke the
lodge-keeper, he showed them the keys under
his pillow ; the doctor arrived a little later,
but could do nothing, and the sick man died
a few hours afterwards."
Two other good stories come from Co.
Clare. One night in April 1821, two
servants were sitting up to receive a son of
the family, Cornelius O'Callaghan, who had
travelled in vain for his health, and was re-
turning home. One of them, Halloran,
said that the heavy rumble of a coach
roused them. The other servant, Burke,
stood on the top of the long flight of steps
with a lamp, and sent Halloran down to
open the carriage door. He reached out
his hand to do so, saw a skeleton looking
187
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
out, gave one yell, and fell in a heap.
When the badly-scared Burke picked himself
up there was no sign or sound of any coach.
A little later the invalid arrived, so ex-
hausted that he died suddenly in the early
morning.
On the night of December n, 1876,
a servant of the MacNamaras was going
his rounds at Ennistymon, a beautiful spot
in a wooded glen, with a broad stream fall-
ing in a series of cascades. In the dark he
heard the rumbling of wheels on the back
avenue, and, knowing from the hour and
place that no mortal vehicle could be com-
ing, concluded that it was the death coach,
and ran on, opening the gates before it.
He had just time to open the third gate,
and throw himself on his face beside it,
when he heard a coach go clanking past.
On the following day Admiral Sir Burton
Macnamara died in London.
Mr. Westropp informs us that at sight
or sound of this coach all gates should be
thrown open, and then it will not stop at
the house to call for a member of the family,
but will only foretell the death of some
relative at a distance. We hope our readers
188
DEATH-WARNINGS
will carefully bear in mind this simple
method of averting fate.
We may conclude this chapter with some
account of strange and varied death-warnings,
which are attached to certain families and
foretell the coming of the King of Terrors.
In a Co. Wicklow family a death is pre-
ceded by the appearance of a spectre ; the
doors of the sitting-room open and a lady
dressed in white satin walks across the room
and hall. Before any member of a certain
Queen's Co. family died a looking-glass was
broken ; while in a branch of that family the
portent was the opening and shutting of the
avenue gate. In another Queen's Co.
family approaching death was heralded by
the cry of the cuckoo, no matter at what
season of the year it might occur. A Mrs.
F and her son lived near Clonaslee.
One day, in mid-winter, their servant heard
a cuckoo ; they went out for a drive, the
trap jolted over a stone, throwing Mrs.
F out, and breaking her neck. The
ringing of all the house-bells is another
portent which seems to be attached to
several families. In another the aeolian
harp is heard at or before death ; an ac-
189
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
count of this was given to the present writer
by a clergyman, who declares that he heard
it in the middle of the night when one of
his relatives passed away. A death-warning
in the shape of a white owl follows the
Westropp family. This last appeared, it
is said, before a death in 1909, but, as Mr.
T. J. Westropp remarks, it would be more
convincing if it appeared at places where
the white owl does not nest and fly out
every night. No doubt this list might be
drawn out to much greater length.
A lady correspondent states that her
cousin, a Sir Patrick Dun's nurse, was
attending a case in the town of Wicklow.
Her patient was a middle-aged woman, the
wife of a well-to-do shopkeeper. One
evening the nurse was at her tea in the
dining-room beneath the sick-room, when
suddenly she heard a tremendous crash
overhead. Fearing her patient had fallen
out of bed, she hurried upstairs, to find her
dozing quietly, and there was not the least
sign of any disturbance. A member of the
family, to whom she related this, told her
calmly that that noise was always heard in
their house before the death of any of them,
190
DEATH-WARNINGS
and that it was a sure sign that the invalid
would not recover. Contrary to the nurse's
expectations, she died the following day.
Knocking on the door is another species
of death-warning. The Rev. D. B. Knox
writes : " On the evening before the wife
of a clerical friend of mine died, the knocker
of the hall-door was loudly rapped. All in
the room heard it. The door was opened,
but there was no one there. Again the
knocker was heard, but no one was to be
seen when the door was again opened. A
young man, brother of the dying woman,
went into the drawing-room, and looked
through one of the drawing-room windows.
The full light of the moon fell on the door,
and as he looked the knocker was again
lifted and loudly rapped."
The following portent occurs in a Co.
Cork family. At one time the lady of the
house lay ill, and her two daughters were
aroused one night by screams proceeding
from their mother's room. They rushed
in, and found her sitting up in bed, staring
at some object unseen to them, but which,
from the motion of her eyes, appeared to be
moving across the floor. When she be-
191
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
came calm she told them, what they had
not known before, that members of the
family were sometimes warned of the death,
or approaching death, of some other member
by the appearance of a ball of fire, which
would pass slowly through the room ; this
phenomenon she had just witnessed. A
day or two afterwards the mother heard of
the death of her brother, who lived in the
Colonies.
A strange appearance, known as the
" Scanlan Lights," is connected with the
family of Scanlan of Ballyknockane, Co.
Limerick, and is seen frequently at the
death of a member. The traditional origin
of the lights is connected with a well-known
Irish legend, which we give here briefly.
Scanlan Mor (died A.D. 640), King of Ossory,
from whom the family claim descent, was
suspected of disaffection by Aedh mac Ain-
mire, Ard-Righ of Ireland, who cast him
into prison, and loaded him with fetters.
When St. Columcille attended the Synod
of Drom Ceat, he besought Aedh to free his
captive, but the Ard-Righ churlishly re-
fused ; whereupon Columcille declared that
he should be freed, and that that very night
192
DEATH-WARNINGS
he should unloose his (the Saint's) brogues.
Columcille went away, and that night a
bright pillar of fire appeared in the air, and
hung over the house where Scanlan was
imprisoned. A beam of light darted into
the room where he lay, and a voice called
to him, bidding him rise, and shake off his
fetters. In amazement he did so, and was
led out past his guards by an angel. He
made his way to Columcille, with whom
he was to continue that night, and as
the Saint stooped down to unloose his
brogues Scanlan anticipated him, as he had
prophesied. 1
Such appears to be the traditional origin
of the "Scanlan lights." Our correspond-
ent adds : " These are always seen at the
demise of a member of the family. We
have ascertained that by the present head
of the family (Scanlan of Ballyknockane)
they were seen, first, as a pillar of fire with
radiated crown at the top ; and secondly,
inside the house, by the room being lighted
up brightly in the night. By other members
of the family now living these lights have
1 Canon Carrigan, in his History of the Diocese of Ossory
(I. 32 intro.), shows that this legend should rather be connected
with Scanlan son of Ceannfaeladh.
193 N
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
been seen in the shape of balls of fire of
various sizes." The above was copied from
a private manuscript written some few years
ago. Our correspondent further states : " I
also have met with four persons in this
county [Limerick] who have seen the lights
on Knockfierna near Ballyknockane before
the death of a Scanlan, one of the four
being the late head of the family and
owner, William Scanlan, J.P., who saw the
flames on the hill-side on the day of his
aunt's death some years ago. The last
occasion was as late as 1913, on the eve of
the death of a Scanlan related to the present
owner of Ballyknockane."
In front of the residence of the G
family in Co. Galway there is, or formerly
was, a round ring of grass surrounded by a
low evergreen hedge. The lady who re-
lated this story to our informant stated that
one evening dinner was kept waiting for
Mr. G , who was absent in town on
some business. She went out on the hall-
door steps in order to see if the familiar
trot of the carriage horses could be heard
coming down the road. It was a bright
moonlight night, and as she stood there she
194
DEATH- WARNINGS
heard a child crying with a peculiar whining
cry, and distinctly saw a small childlike
figure running round and round the grass ring
inside the evergreen hedge, and casting a
shadow in the moonlight. Going into the
house she casually mentioned this as a peculiar
circumstance to Mrs. G , upon which, to
her great surprise, that lady nearly fainted,
and got into a terrible state of nervousness.
Recovering a little, she told her that this
crying and figure were always heard and
seen whenever any member met with an
accident, or before a death. A messenger
was immediately sent to meet Mr. G ,
who was found lying senseless on the road, as
the horses had taken fright and bolted, fling-
ing him out, and breaking the carriage-pole.
But of all the death-warnings in connec-
tion with Irish families surely the strangest
is the Gormanstown foxes. The crest of
that noble family is a running fox, while
the same animal also forms one of the
supporters of the coat-of-arms. The story
is, that when the head of the house is
dying the foxes not spectral foxes, but
creatures of flesh and blood leave the coverts
and congregate at Gormanstown Castle.
195
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Let us see what proof there is of this.
When Jenico, the I2th Viscount, was dying
in 1860, foxes were seen about the house
and moving towards the house for some
days previously. Just before his death three
foxes were playing about and making a
noise close to the house, and just in front
of the " cloisters," which are yew-trees
planted and trained in that shape. The
Hon. Mrs. Farrell states as regards the
same that the foxes came in pairs into the
demesne, and sat under the Viscount's bed-
room window, and barked and howled all
night. Next morning they were to be
found crouching about in the grass in front
and around the house. They walked through
the poultry and never touched them. After
the funeral they disappeared.
At the death of Edward, the i3th Vis-
count, in 1 876, the foxes were also there. He
had been rather better one day, but the foxes
appeared, barking under the window, and
he died that night contrary to expectation.
On October 28, 1907, Jenico, the i4th
Viscount, died in Dublin. About 8 o'clock
that night the coachman and gardener saw
two foxes near the chapel (close to the
196
DEATH-WARNINGS
house), five or six more round the front
of the house, and several crying in the
" cloisters." Two days later the Hon.
Richard Preston, R.F.A., was watching by
his father's body in the above chapel.
About 3 A.M. he became conscious of a
slight noise, which seemed to be that of a
number of people walking stealthily around
the chapel on the gravel walk. He went
to the side door, listened, and heard outside
a continuous and insistent snuffling or sniffing
noise, accompanied by whimperings and
scratchings at the door. On opening it he
saw a full-grown fox sitting on the path
within four feet of him. Just in the
shadow was another, while he could hear
several more moving close by in the dark-
ness. He then went to the end door,
opposite the altar, and on opening it saw
two more foxes, one so close that he
could have touched it with his foot. On
shutting the door the noise continued till
5 A.M., when it suddenly ceased. 1
1 New Ireland Review for April 1908, by permission of
the publishers, Messrs Sealy Bryers, & Walker.
I 9 7
CHAPTER VIII
MISCELLANEOUS SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
THE matter in this chapter does not seem,
strictly speaking, to come under the head of
any of the preceding ones : it contains no
account of houses or places permanently
haunted, or of warnings of impending death.
Rather we have gathered up in it a number
of tales relative to the appearance of the
" wraiths " of living men, or accounts of
visions, strange apparitions, or extraordinary
experiences ; some few of these have a pur-
pose, while the majority are strangely aim-
less and purposeless something is seen or
heard, that is all, and no results, good or bad,
follow.
We commence with one which, however,
certainly indicates a purpose which was ful-
filled. It is the experience of Mrs. Seymour,
wife to one of the compilers. When she
was a little girl she resided in Dublin ;
amongst the members of the family was
198
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
her paternal grandmother. This old lady
was not as kind as she might have been to
her grand-daughter, and consequently the
latter was somewhat afraid of her. In pro-
cess of time the grandmother died. Mrs.
Seymour, who was then about eight years
of age, had to pass the door of the room
where the death occurred in order to reach her
own bedroom, which was a flight higher up.
Past this door the child used to fly in terror
with all possible speed. On one occasion,
however, as she was preparing to make the
usual rush past, she distinctly felt a hand
placed on her shoulder, and became conscious
of a voice saying, " Don't be afraid, Mary ! "
From that day on the child never had the
least feeling of fear, and always walked
quietly past the door.
The Rev. D. B. Knox sends a curious
personal experience, which was shared by
him with three other people. He writes
as follows : " Not very long ago my wife
and I were preparing to retire for the night.
A niece, who was in the house, was in her
bedroom and the door was open. The maid
had just gone to her room. All four of
us distinctly heard the heavy step of a
199
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
man walking along the corridor, apparently
in the direction of the bathroom. We
searched the whole house immediately, but
no one was discovered. Nothing untoward
happened except the death of the maid's
mother about a fortnight later. It was a
detached house, so that the noise could not
have been made by the neighbours."
In the following tale the " double " or
*' wraith " of a living man was seen by three
different people, one of whom, our corre-
spondent, saw it through a telescope. She
writes: "In May 1883 the parish of
A was vacant, so Mr. D , the Dio-
cesan Curate, used to come out to take
service on Sundays. One day there were
two funerals to be taken, the one at a grave-
yard some distance off, the other at A
churchyard. My brother was at both, the
far-off one being taken the first. The house
we then lived in looked down towards A
churchyard, which was about a quarter of
a mile away. From an upper window my
sister and I saw two surpliced figures going
out to meet the coffin, and said, c Why,
there are two clergy ! ' having supposed
that there would be only Mr. D . I,
200
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
being short-sighted, used a telescope, and saw
the two surplices showing between the
people. But when my brother returned he
said, 'A strange thing has happened. Mr.
D and Mr. W (curate of a neigh-
bouring parish) took the far-off funeral. I
saw them both again at A , but when I
went into the vestry I only saw Mr. W .
I asked where Mr. D was, and he re-
plied that he had left immediately after the
first funeral, as he had to go to Kilkenny,
and that he (Mr. W ) had come on alone
to take the funeral at A .' "
Here is a curious tale from the city of
Limerick of a lady's " double " being seen,
with no consequent results. It is sent by
Mr. Richard Hogan as the personal experi-
ence of his sister, Mrs. Mary Murnane.
On Saturday, October 25, 1913, at half-
past four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
Hogan left the house in order to purchase
some cigarettes. A quarter of an hour after-
wards Mrs. Murnane went down the town
to do some business. As she was walking
down George Street she saw a group of four
persons standing on the pavement engaged
in conversation. They were : her brother,
201
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
a Mr. O'S , and two ladies, a Miss P.
O'D , and her sister, Miss M. O'D .
She recognised the latter, as her face was
partly turned towards her, and noted that
she was dressed in a knitted coat, and light
blue hat, while in her left hand she held a
bag or purse ; the other lady's back was
turned towards her. As Mrs. Murnane was
in a hurry to get her business done she de-
termined to pass them by without being
noticed, but a number of people coming in
the opposite direction blocked the way, and
compelled her to walk quite close to the
group of four ; but they were so intent on
listening to what one lady was saying that
they took no notice of her. The speaker
appeared to be Miss M. O'D , and,
though Mrs. Murnane did not actually hear
her speak as she passed her, yet from their
attitudes the other three seemed to be listen-
ing to what she was saying, and she heard
her laugh when right behind her not the
laugh of her sister P. and the laugh was
repeated after she had left the group a little
behind.
So far there is nothing out of the common.
When Mrs. Murnane returned to her house
202
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
about an hour later she found her brother
Richard there before her. She casually men-
tioned to him how she had passed him and
his three companions on the pavement. To
which he replied that she was quite correct
except in one point, namely that there were
only three in the group, as M. O'D was
not present^ as she had not come to Limerick at
all that day. She then described to him the
exact position each one of the four occupied,
and the clothes worn by them ; to all of
which facts he assented, except as to the
presence of Miss M. O'D . Mrs. Murnane
adds, " That is all I can say in the matter,
but most certainly the fourth person was in
the group, as I both saw and heard her. She
wore the same clothes I had seen on her
previously, with the exception of the hat ;
but the following Saturday she had on the
same coloured hat I had seen on her the
previous Saturday. When I told her about
it she was as much mystified as I was
and am. My brother stated that there
was no laugh from any of the three
present."
Mrs. G. Kelly sends an experience of a
" wraith," which seems in some mysterious
203
TRUE IRISH GPIOST STORIES
way to have been conjured up in her mind
by the description she had heard, and then
externalised. She writes : " About four
years ago a musical friend of ours was
staying in the house. He and my husband
were playing and singing Dvorak's Spectre's
Eride^ a work which he had studied with
the composer himself. This music appealed
very much to both, and they were excited
and enthusiastic over it. Our friend was giv-
ing many personal reminiscences of Dvorak,
and his method of explaining the way he
wanted his work done. I was sitting by, an
interested listener, for some time. On get-
ing up at last, and going into the drawing-
room, I was startled and somewhat frightened
to find a man standing there in a shadowy
part of the room. I saw him distinctly, and
could describe his appearance accurately. I
called out, and the two men ran in, but as
the apparition only lasted for a second, they
were too late. I described the man whom
I had seen, whereupon our friend exclaimed,
4 Why, that was Dvorak himself ! ' At
that time I had never seen a picture of
Dvorak, but when our friend returned to
London he sent me one which I recognised
204
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
as the likeness of the man whom I had seen
in our drawing-room."
A curious vision, a case of second sight,
in which a quite unimportant event, previ-
ously unknown, was revealed, is sent by the
percipient, who is a lady well known to both
the compilers, and a life-long friend of one
of them. She says : " Last summer I sent
a cow to the fair of Limerick, a distance of
about thirteen miles, and the men who took
her there the day before the fair left her in
a paddock for the night close to Limerick
city. I awoke up very early next morning,
and was fully awake when I saw (not with
my ordinary eyesight, but apparently inside
my head) a light, an intensely brilliant
light, and in it I saw the back gate being
opened by a red-haired woman and the cow
I had supposed in the fair walking through
the gate. I then knew that the cow must
be home, and going to the yard later on I
was met by the wife of the man who was
in charge in a great state of excitement.
' Oh law ! Miss,' she exclaimed, ' you'll be
mad ! Didn't Julia [a red-haired woman]
find the cow outside the lodge gate as she
was going out at 4 o'clock to the milking ! '
205
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
That's my tale perfectly true, and I would
give a good deal to be able to control that
light, and see more if I could."
Another curious vision was seen by a
lady who is also a friend of both the com-
pilers. One night she was kneeling at her
bedside saying her prayers (hers was the
only bed in the room), when suddenly she
felt a distinct touch on her shoulder. She
turned round in the direction of the touch
and saw at the end of the room a bed, with
a pale, indistinguishable figure laid therein,
and what appeared to be a clergyman stand-
ing over it. About a week later she fell
into a long and dangerous illness.
An account of a dream which implied an
extraordinary coincidence, if coincidence it
be and nothing more, was sent as follows by
a correspondent, who requested that no
names be published. " That which I am
about to relate has a peculiar interest for
me, inasmuch as the central figure in it was
my own grand-aunt, and moreover the
principal witness (if I may use such a term)
was my father. At the period during which
this strange incident occurred my father was
living with his aunt and some other relatives.
206
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
" One morning at the breakfast-table, my
grand-aunt announced that she had had a
most peculiar dream during the previous
night. My father, who was always very
interested in that kind of thing, took down
in his notebook all the particulars concern-
ing it. They were as follows.
" My grand-aunt dreamt that she was in
a cemetery, which she recognised as Glas-
nevin, and as she gazed at the memorials of
the dead which lay so thick around, one
stood out most conspicuously, and caught
her eye, for she saw clearly cut on the cold
white stone an inscription bearing her own
name :
CLARE . S . D
Died 14 th of March, 1873
Dearly loved and ever mourned.
while, to add to the peculiarity of it, the
date on the stone as given above was, from
the day of her dream, exactly a year in
advance.
" My grand-aunt was not very nervous,
and soon the dream faded from her mind.
Months rolled by, and one morning at
207
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
breakfast it was noticed that my grand-aunt
had not appeared, but as she was a very
religious woman it was thought that she
had gone out to church. However, as she
did not appear my father sent someone to
her room to see if she were there, and as
no answer was given to repeated knocking
the door was opened, and my grand-aunt
was found kneeling at her bedside, dead.
The day of her death was March 14,
1873, corresponding exactly with the date
seen in her dream a twelvemonth before.
My grand-aunt was buried in Glasnevin,
and on her tombstone (a white marble slab)
was placed the inscription which she had
read in her dream." Our correspondent
sent us a photograph of the stone and its
inscription.
The present Archdeacon of Limerick,
Ven. J. A. Haydn, LL.D., sends the
following experience: "In the year 1870
I was rector of the little rural parish of
Chapel Russell. One autumn day the rain
fell with a quiet, steady, and hopeless per-
sistence from morning to night. Wearied
at length from the gloom, and tired of
reading and writing, I determined to walk
208
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
to the church about half a mile away, and
pass a half-hour playing the harmo-
nium, returning for the lamp-light and
tea.
" I wrapped up, put the key of the
church in my pocket, and started. Arriv-
ing at the church, I walked up the straight
avenue, bordered with graves and tombs on
either side, while the soft, steady rain
quietly pattered on the trees. When I
reached the church door, before putting
the key in the lock, moved by some indefin-
able impulse, I stood on the doorstep, turned
round, and looked back upon the path I
had just trodden. My amazement may be
imagined when I saw, seated on a low,
tabular tombstone close to the avenue, a lady
with her back towards me. She was wear-
ing a black velvet jacket or short cape,
with a narrow border of vivid white : her
head, and luxuriant jet-black hair, were sur-
mounted by a hat of the shape and make
that I think used to be called at that time
a " turban " ; it was also of black velvet,
with a snow-white wing or feather at the
right-hand side of it. It may be seen how
deliberately and minutely I observed the
209 o
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
appearance, when I can thus recall it after
more than forty years.
" Actuated by a desire to attract the
attention of the lady, and induce her to look
towards me, I noisily inserted the key in
the door, and suddenly opened it with a
rusty crack. Turning round to see the
effect of my policy the lady was gone !
vanished ! Not yet daunted, I hurried to
the place, which was not ten paces away,
and closely searched the stone and the space
all round it, but utterly in vain ; there were
absolutely no traces of the late presence of
a human being ! I may add that nothing
particular or remarkable followed the singu-
lar apparition, and that I never heard any-
thing calculated to throw any light on the
mystery."
Here is a story of a ghost who knew
what it wanted and got it ! " In the part
of Co. Wicklow from which my people
come," writes a Miss D , " there was a
family who were not exactly related, but
of course of the clan. Many years ago a
young daughter, aged about twenty, died.
Before her death she had directed her
parents to bury her in a certain graveyard.
210
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
But for some reason they did not do so,
and from that hour she gave them no
peace. She appeared to them at all hours,
especially when they went to the well for
water. So distracted were they, that at
length they got permission to exhume the
remains and have them reinterred in the
desired graveyard. This they did by torch-
light a weird scene truly ! I can vouch
for the truth of this latter portion, at all
events, as some of my own relatives were
present."
Mr. T. J. Westropp contributes a tale of
a ghost of an unusual type, i.e. one which
actually did communicate matters of import-
ance to his family. " A lady who related
many ghost stories to me, also told me how,
after her father's death, the family could
not find some papers or receipts of value.
One night she awoke, and heard a sound
which she at once recognised as the foot-
steps of her father, who was lame. The
door creaked, and she prayed that she
might be able to see him. Her prayer was
granted : she saw him distinctly holding a
yellow parchment book tied with tape.
' F , child,' said he, c this is the book
211
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
your mother is looking for. It is in the
third drawer of the cabinet near the cross-
door ; tell your mother to be more careful
in future about business papers.' Incon-
tinent he vanished, and she at once awoke
her mother, in whose room she was sleep-
ing, who was very angry and ridiculed the
story, but the girl's earnestness at length
impressed her. She got up, went to the
old cabinet, and at once found the missing
book in the third drawer."
Here is another tale of an equally useful
and obliging ghost. " A gentleman, a
relative of my own," writes a lady, " often
received warnings from his dead father of
things that were about to happen. Besides
the farm on which he lived, he had another
some miles away which adjoined a large
demesne. Once in a great storm a fir-tree
was blown down in the demesne, and fell
into his field. The woodranger came to
him and told him he might as well cut up
the tree, and take it away. Accordingly
one day he set out for this purpose, taking
with him two men and a cart. He got
into the fields by a stile, while his men
went on to a gate. As he appoached a
212
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
gap between two fields he saw, standing in
it, his father as plainly as he ever saw him
in life, and beckoning him back warningly.
Unable to understand this, he still advanced,
whereupon his father looked very angry,
and his gestures became imperious. This
induced him to turn away, so he sent his
men home, and left the tree uncut. He
subsequently discovered that a plot had
been laid by the woodranger, who coveted
his farm, and who hoped to have him dis-
possessed by accusing him of stealing the
tree."
A clergyman in the diocese of Clogher
gave a personal experience of table-turning
to the present Dean of St. Patrick's, who
kindly sent the same to the writer. He said :
" When I was a young man, I met some
friends one evening, and we decided to
amuse ourselves with table-turning. The
local dispensary was vacant at the time, so
we said that if the table would work we
should ask who would be appointed as
medical officer. As we sat round it touch-
ing it with our hands it began to knock.
We said :
" c Who are you ? '
213
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
" The table spelt out the name of a Bishop
of the Church of Ireland. We asked, think-
ing that the answer was absurd, as we knew
him to be alive and well :
" 4 Are you dead ? '
" The table answered ' Yes.'
" We laughed at this and asked :
" ' Who will be appointed to the dis-
pensary ? '
" The table spelt out the name of a
stranger, who was not one of the candidates,
whereupon we left off, thinking that the
whole thing was nonsense.
" The next morning I saw in the papers
that the Bishop in question had died that
afternoon about two hours before our meet-
ing, and a few days afterwards I saw the
name of the stranger as the new dispensary
doctor. I got such a shock that I deter-
mined never to have anything to do with
table-turning again."
The following extraordinary personal ex-
perience is sent by a lady, well known to
the present writer, but who requests that all
names be omitted. Whatever explanation
we may give of it, the good faith of the tale
is beyond doubt.
214
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
" Two or three months after my father-
in-law's death my husband, myself, and three
small sons lived in the west of Ireland. As
my husband was a young barrister, he had
to be absent from home a good deal. My
three boys slept in my bedroom, the eldest
being about four, the youngest some months.
A fire was kept up every night, and with a
young child to look after, I was naturally
awake more than once during the night.
For many nights I believed I distinctly saw
my father-in-law sitting by the fireside.
This happened, not once or twice, but many
times. He was passionately fond of his
eldest grandson,who lay sleeping calmly in his
cot. Being so much alone probably made me
restless and uneasy, though I never felt afraid.
I mentioned this strange thing to a friend
who had known and liked my father-in-law,
and she advised me to c have his soul laid,'
as she termed it. Though I was a Protes-
tant and she was a Roman Catholic (as had
also been my father-in-law), yet I fell in
with her suggestion. She told me to give
a coin to the next beggar that came to the
house, telling him (or her) to pray for the rest
of Mr. So-and-so's soul. A few days later
215
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
a beggar-woman and her children came to
the door, to whom I gave a coin and stated
my desire. To my great surprise I learned
from her manner that such requests were not
unusual. Well, she went down on her knees
on the steps, and prayed with apparent
earnestness and devotion that his soul might
find repose. Once again he appeared, and
seemed to say to me, c Why did you do
that, E ? To come and sit here was the
only comfort I had.' Never again did he
appear, and strange to say, after a lapse of
more than thirty years I have felt regret
at my selfishness in interfering.
" After his death, as he lay in the house
awaiting burial, and I was in a house some
ten miles away, I thought that he came and
told me that I would have a hard life,
which turned out only too truly. I was
then young, and full of life, with every
hope of a prosperous future."
Of all the strange beliefs to be found in
Ireland that in the Black Dog is the most
widespread. There is hardly a parish in
the country but could contribute some tale
relative to this spectre, though the majority
of these are short, and devoid of interest.
216
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
There is said to be such a dog just outside
the avenue gate of Donohill Rectory, but
neither of the compilers have had the good
luck to see it. It may be, as some hold,
that this animal was originally a cloud or
nature-myth ; at all events, it has now
descended to the level of an ordinary haunt-
ing. The most circumstantial story that
we have met with relative to the Black
Dog is that related as follows by a clergy-
man of the Church of Ireland, who requests
us to refrain from publishing his name.
" In my childhood 1 lived in the country.
My father, in addition to his professional
duties, sometimes did a little farming in an
amateurish sort of way. He did not keep
a regular staff of labourers, and consequently
when anything extra had to be done, such
as hay-cutting or harvesting, he used to
employ day-labourers to help with the work.
At such times I used to enjoy being in the
fields with the men, listening to their con-
versation. On one occasion I heard a
labourer remark that he had once seen the
devil ! Of course I was interested and
asked him to give me his experience. He
said he was walking along a certain road,
217
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
and when he came to a point where there
was an entrance to a private place (the spot
was well known to me), he saw a black dog
sitting on the roadside. At the time he
paid no attention to it, thinking it was an
ordinary retriever, but after he had passed
on about two or three hundred yards he
found the dog was beside him, and then he
noticed that its eyes were blood-red. He
stooped down, and picked up some stones
in order to frighten it away, but though he
threw the stones at it they did not injure it,
nor indeed did they seem to have any effect.
Suddenly, after a few moments, the dog
vanished from his sight.
" Such was the labourer's tale. After
some years, during which time I had for-
gotten altogether about the man's story, some
friends of my own bought the place at the
entrance to which the apparition had been
seen. When my friends went to reside
there I was a constant visitor at their house.
Soon after their arrival they began to be
troubled by the appearance of a black dog.
Though I never saw it myself, it appeared
to many members of the family. The
avenue leading to the house was a long one,
218
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
and it was customary for the dog to appear
and accompany people for the greater por-
tion of the way. Such an effect had this
on my friends that they soon gave up the
house, and went to live elsewhere. This
was a curious corroboration of the labourer's
tale."
As we have already stated in Chapter VII,
a distinction must be drawn between the so-
called Headless Coach, which portends death,
and the ^Phantom Coach, which appears to
be a harmless sort of vehicle. With regard
to the latter we give two tales below, the
first of which was sent by a lady whose
father was a clergyman, and a gold medal-
list of Trinity College, Dublin.
" Some years ago my family lived in Co.
Down. Our house was some way out of
a fair-sized manufacturing town, and had a
short avenue which ended in a gravel sweep
in front of the hall door. One winter's
evening, when my father was returning from
a sick call, a carriage going at a sharp pace
passed him on the avenue. He hurried on,
thinking it was some particular friends, but
when he reached the door no carriage was
to be seen, so he concluded it must have
219
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
gone round to the stables. The servant
who answered his ring said that no visitors
had been there, and he, feeling certain that
the girl had made some mistake, or that
some one else had answered the door, came
into the drawing-room to make further
inquiries. No visitors had come, however,
though those sitting in the drawing-room
had also heard the carriage drive up.
" My father was most positive as to what
he had seen, viz. a closed carriage with
lamps lit ; and let me say at once that he
was a clergyman who was known through-
out the whole of the north of Ireland as a
most level-headed man, and yet to the day
of his death he would insist that he met
that carriage on our avenue.
" One day in July one of our servants
was given leave to go home for the day,
but was told she must return by a certain
train. For some reason she did not come
by it, but by a much later one, and rushed
into the kitchen in a most penitent frame
of mind. c I am so sorry to be late,' she
told the cook, ' especially as there were
visitors. I suppose they stayed to supper,
as they were so late going away, for I met
220
SUPERNORMAL EXPERIENCES
the carriage on the avenue.' The cook
thereupon told her that no one had been at
the house, and hinted that she must have
seen the ghost-carriage, a statement that
alarmed her very much, as the story was
well known in the town, and car-drivers
used to whip up their horses as they passed
our gate, while pedestrians refused to go
at all except in numbers. We have often
heard the carriage, but these are the only
two occasions on which I can positively
assert that it was seen."
The following personal experience of the
phantom coach was given to the present
writer by Mr. Matthias Fitzgerald, coach-
man to Miss Cooke, of Cappagh House,
Co. Limerick. He stated that one moon-
light night he was driving along the road
from Askeaton to Limerick when he heard
coming up behind him the roll of wheels,
the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the jingling
of the bits. He drew over to his own side
to let this carriage pass, but nothing passed.
He then looked back, but could see nothing,
the road was perfectly bare and empty,
though the sounds were perfectly audible.
This continued for about a quarter of an
221
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
hour or so, until he came to a cross-road,
down one arm of which he had to turn.
As he turned off he heard the phantom
carriage dash by rapidly along the straight
road. He stated that other persons had
had similar experiences on the same road.
222
CHAPTER IX
LEGENDARY AND ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
WHATEVER explanations may be given of
the various stories told in our previous
chapters, the facts as stated therein are in
almost every case vouched for on reliable
authority. We now turn to stories of a
different kind, most of which have no evid-
ence of any value in support of the facts,
but which have been handed down from
generation to generation, and deserve our
respect, if only for their antiquity. We
make no apology for giving them here, for,
in addition to the interesting reading they
provide, they also serve a useful purpose as
a contrast to authenticated ghost stories.
The student of folklore will find parallels
to some of them in the tales of other
nations.
Lord Walter Fitzgerald sends us the
following : " Garrett oge " (or Gerald the
younger) " Fitzgerald, i ith Earl of Kildare,
223
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
died in London on the i6th November
1585 ; his body was brought back to Ire-
land and interred in St. Brigid's Cathedral,
in Kildare. He was known as ' the Wizard
Earl ' on account of his practising the
black art, whereby he was enabled to
transform himself into other shapes, either
bird or beast according to his choice ; so
notorious was his supernatural power that
he became the terror of the countryside.
" His wife, the Countess, had long wished
to see some proof of his skill, and had
frequently begged him to transform himself
before her, but he had steadily refused to
do so, as he said if he did and she became
afraid, he would be taken from her, and she
would never see him again. Still she per-
sisted, and at last he said he would do as
she wished on condition that she should
first of all undergo three trials to test her
courage ; to this she willingly agreed. In
the first trial the river Greese, which flows
past the castle walls, at a sign from the
Earl overflowed its banks and flooded the
banqueting hall in which the Earl and
Countess were sitting. She showed no
sign of fear, and at the Earl's command the
224
LEGENDARY GHOSTS
river receded to its normal course. At the
second trial a huge eel-like monster appeared,
which entered by one of the windows,
crawled about among the furniture of the
banqueting hall, and finally coiled itself
round the body of the Countess. Still she
showed no fear, and at a nod from the Earl
the animal uncoiled itself and disappeared.
In the third test an intimate friend of the
Countess, long since dead, entered the room,
and passing slowly by her went out at the
other end. She showed not the slightest
sign of fear, and the Earl felt satisfied that
he could place his fate in her keeping, but
he again warned her of his danger if she
lost her presence of mind while he was in
another shape. He then turned himself
into a black bird, flew about the room, and
perching on the Countess's shoulder com-
menced to sing. Suddenly a black cat
appeared from under a chest, and made a
spring at the bird ; in an agony of fear for
its safety the Countess threw up her arms
to protect it and swooned away. When
she came to she was alone, the bird and
the cat had disappeared, and she never saw
the Earl again."
225 P
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
It is said that he and his knights lie in
an enchanted sleep, with their horses beside
them, in a cave under the Rath on the hill
of Mullaghmast, which stands, as the crow
flies, five miles to the north of Kilkea Castle.
Once in seven years they are allowed to
issue forth ; they gallop round the Curragh,
thence across country to Kilkea Castle, where
they re-enter the haunted wing, and then
return to the Rath of Mullaghmast. The
Earl is easily recognised as he is mounted
on a white charger shod with silver shoes ;
when these shoes are worn out the enchant-
ment will be broken, and he will issue
forth, drive the foes of Ireland from the
land, and reign for a seven times seven
number of years over the vast estates of
his ancestors.
Shortly before '98 he was seen on the
Curragh by a blacksmith who was crossing
it in an ass-cart from Athgarvan to Kildare.
A fairy blast overtook him, and he had just
time to say, " God speed ye Gentlemen "
to the invisible " Good People," when he
heard horses galloping up behind him ;
pulling to one side of the road he looked
back and was terrified at seeing a troop of
226
LEGENDARY GHOSTS
knights, fully armed, led by one on a white
horse. The leader halted his men, and
riding up to the blacksmith asked him to
examine his shoes. Almost helpless from
fear he stumbled out of the ass-cart and
looked at each shoe, which was of silver,
and then informed the knight that all the
nails were sound. The knight thanked
him, rejoined his troop, and galloped off.
The blacksmith in a half-dazed state hastened
on to Kildare, where he entered a public-
house, ordered a noggin of whisky, and
drank it neat. When he had thoroughly
come to himself he told the men that were
present what had happened to him on the
Curragh ; one old man who had listened
to him said : " By the mortial ! man, ye are
after seeing ' Gerod Earla.' ' This fully
explained the mystery. Gerod Earla, or
Earl Gerald, is the name by which the
Wizard Earl is known by the peasantry.
One other legend is told in connection
with the Wizard Earl of a considerably
later date. It is said that a farmer was
returning from a fair in Athy late one even-
ing in the direction of Ballintore, and when
passing within view of the Rath of Mullagh-
227
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
mast he was astonished to see a bright light
apparently issuing from it. Dismounting
from his car he went to investigate. On
approaching the Rath he noticed that the
light was proceeding from a cave in which
were sleeping several men in armour, with
their horses beside them. He cautiously
crept up to the entrance, and seeing that
neither man nor beast stirred he grew bolder
and entered the chamber ; he then examined
the saddlery on the horses, and the armour
of the men, and plucking up courage began
slowly to draw a sword from its sheath ; as
he did so the owner's head began to rise, and
he heard a voice in Irish say, " Is the time
yet come ? " In terror the farmer, as he
shoved the sword back, replied, " It is not,
your Honour," and then fled from the
place.
It is said that if the farmer had only
completely unsheathed the sword the en-
chantment would have been broken, and
the Earl would have come to his own
again.
In 1642 Wallstown Castle, the seat of
the Wall family, in County Cork, was burnt
down by the Cromwellian troops,and Colonel
228
LEGENDARY GHOSTS
Wall, the head of the family, was captured
and imprisoned in Cork jail, where he died.
One of the defenders during the siege was a
man named Henry Bennett, who was killed
while fighting. His ghost was often seen
about the place for years after his death.
His dress was of a light colour, and he wore
a white hat, while in his hand he carried a
pole, which he used to place across the
road near the Castle to stop travellers ; on
a polite request to remove the pole he would
withdraw it, and laugh heartily. A caretaker
in the place named Philip Coughlan used
frequently to be visited by this apparition.
He came generally about supper time, and
while Coughlan and his wife were seated
at table he would shove the pole through
the window ; Coughlan would beg him to
go away and not interfere with a poor
hard-worked man ; the pole would then be
withdrawn, with a hearty laugh from the
ghost.
In the Parish Church of Ardtrea, near
Cookstown, is a marble monument and in-
scription in memory of Thomas Meredith,
D.D., who had been a Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin, and for six years rector of
229
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
the parish. He died, according to the
words of the incription, on 2nd May 1819,
as a result of " a sudden and awful visita-
tion." A local legend explains this " visita-
tion," by stating that a ghost haunted the
rectory, the visits of which had caused his
family and servants to leave the house.
The rector had tried to shoot it but failed ;
then he was told to use a silver bullet ; he
did so, and next morning was found dead
at his hall-door while a hideous object like
a devil made horrid noises out of any window
the servant man approached. This man
was advised by some Roman Catholic neigh-
bours to get the priest, who would " lay "
the thing. The priest arrived, and with
the help of a jar of whisky the ghost became
quite civil, till the last glass in the jar,
which the priest was about to empty out
for himself, whereupon the ghost or devil
made himself as thin and long as a Lough
Neagh eel, and slipped himself into the jar
to get the last drops. But the priest put
the cork into its place and hammered it in,
and, making the sign of the Cross on it, he
had the evil thing secured. It was buried
in the cellar of the rectory, where on some
230
LEGENDARY GHOSTS
nights it can still be heard calling to be
let out.
A story of a phantom rat, which comes
from Limerick, is only one of many which
show the popular Irish belief in hauntings
by various animals. Many years ago, the
legend runs, a young man was making
frantic and unacceptable love to a girl. At
last, one day when he was following her in
the street, she turned on him and, pointing
to a rat which some boys had just killed,
said, " I'd as soon marry that rat as you."
He took her cruel words so much to heart
that he pined away and died. After his
death the girl was haunted at night by a
rat, and in spite of the constant watch of
her mother and sisters she was more than
once bitten. The priest was called in and
could do nothing, so she determined to
emigrate. A coasting vessel was about to
start for Queenstown, and her friends, col-
lecting what money they could, managed to
get her on board. The ship had just cast
off from the quay, when shouts and screams
were heard up the street. The crowd
scattered, and a huge rat with fiery eyes
galloped down to the quay. It sat upon
231
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
the edge screaming hate, sprang off, and did
not reappear. After that, we are told, the
girl was never again haunted.
A legend of the Tirawley family relates
how a former Lord Tirawley, who was a
very wild and reckless man, was taken from
this world. One evening, it is said, just as
the nobleman was preparing for a night's
carouse, a carriage drove up to his door, a
stranger asked to see him and, after a long
private conversation, drove away as mysteri-
ously as he had come. Whatever words
had passed they had a wonderful effect on
the gay lord, for his ways were immediately
changed, and he lived the life of a reformed
man. As time went on the effect of what-
ever awful warning the mysterious visitor
had given him wore off, and he began to
live a life even more wild and reckless than
before. On the anniversary of the visit he
was anxious and gloomy, but he tried to
make light of it. The day passed, and at
night there was high revelry in the banquet-
ing hall. Outside it was wet and stormy,
when just before midnight the sound of
wheels was heard in the courtyard. All
the riot stopped ; the servants opened the
232
LEGENDARY GHOSTS
door in fear and trembling : outside stood
a huge dark coach with four black horses.
The "fearful guest" entered and beckoned
to Lord Tirawley, who followed him to a
room off the hall. The friends, sobered by
fear, saw through the door the stranger
drawing a ship on the wall ; the piece of
wall then detached itself and the ship grew
solid, the stranger climbed into it, and Lord
Tirawley followed without a struggle. The
vessel then sailed away into the night, and
neither it nor its occupants were ever seen
again.
The above tale is a good example of how
a legend will rise superior to the ordinary
humdrum facts of life, for it strikes us at
once that the gloomy spectre went to un-
necessary trouble in constructing a ship,
even though the task proved so simple to
his gifted hands. But the coach was at the
door, and surely it would have been less
troublesome to have used it.
A strange legend is told of a house in the
Boyne valley. It is said that the occupant
of the guest chamber was always wakened
on the first night of his visit, then he would
see a pale light and the shadow of a skeleton
233
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
" climbing the wall like a huge spider." It
used to crawl out on to the ceiling, and
when it reached the middle would materi-
alise into apparent bones, holding on by its
hands and feet ; it would break in pieces,
and first the skull and then the other bones
would fall on the floor. One person had
the courage to get up and try to seize a
bone, but his hand passed through to the
carpet though the heap was visible for a
few seconds.
The following story can hardly be called
legendary r , though it may certainly be termed
ancestral. The writer's name is not given,
but he is described as a rector and Rural
Dean in the late Established Church of
Ireland, and a Justice of the Peace for two
counties. It has this added interest that
it was told to Queen Victoria by the
Marchioness of Ely.
" Loftus Hall, in County Wexford, was
built on the site of a stronghold erected by
Raymond, one of Strongbow's followers.
His descendants forfeited it in 1641, and
the property subsequently fell into the hands
of the Loftus family, one of whom built
the house and other buildings. About the
234
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
middle of the eighteenth century, there lived
at Loftus Hall Charles Tottenham, a member
of the Irish Parliament, known to fame as
'Tottenham and his Boots,' owing to his
historic ride to the Irish capital in order to
give the casting vote in a motion which
saved 80,000 to the Irish Treasury.
"The second son, Charles Tottenham,
had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, to
the latter of whom our story relates. He
came to live at Loftus Hall, the old baronial
residence of the family, with his second
wife and the two above-mentioned daughters
of his first wife. Loftus Hall was an old
rambling mansion, with no pretence to
beauty : passages that led nowhere, large
dreary rooms, small closets, various unneces-
sary nooks and corners, panelled or wains-
cotted walls, and a tapestry chamber. Here
resided at the time my story commences
Charles Tottenham, his second wife and
his daughter Anne : Elizabeth, his second
daughter, having been married. The father
was a cold austere man ; the stepmother
such as that unamiable relation is generally
represented to be. What and how great
the state of lonely solitude and depression
235
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
of mind of poor Anne must have been in
such a place, without neighbours or any
home sympathy, may easily be imagined.
" One wet and stormy night, as they sat
in the large drawing-room, they were startled
by a loud knocking at the outer gate, a most
surprising and unusual occurrence. Pre-
sently the servant announced that a young
gentleman on horseback was there requesting
lodging and shelter. He had lost his way,
his horse was knocked up, and he had been
guided by the only light which he had seen.
The stranger was admitted and refreshed,
and proved himself to be an agreeable com-
panion and a finished gentleman far too
agreeable for the lone scion of the House of
Tottenham, for a sad and mournful tale
follows, and one whose strange results con-
tinued almost to the present day.
" Much mystery has involved the story
at the present point, and in truth the matter
was left in such silence and obscurity, that,
but for the acts of her who was the chief
sufferer in it through several generations,
nothing would now be known. The fact,
I believe, was which was not unnatural
under the circumstances that this lonely
236
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
girl formed a strong attachment to this
gallant youth chance had brought to her
door, which was warmly returned. The
father, as was his stern nature, was ob-
durate, and the wife no solace to her as she
was a step-mother. It is only an instance
of the refrain of the old ballad, ' He loved,
and he rode away ' ; he had youth and
friends, and stirring scenes, and soon forgot
his passing attachment. Poor Anne's reason
gave way.
" The fact is but too true, she became a
confirmed maniac, and had to be confined
for the rest of her life in the tapestried
chamber before mentioned, and in which she
died. A strange legend was at once in-
vented to account for this calamity : it tells
how the horseman proved such an agreeable
acquisition that he was invited to remain
some days, and made himself quite at home,
and as they were now four in number whist
was proposed in the evenings. The stranger,
however, with Anne as his partner, invariably
won every point ; the old couple never had
the smallest success. One night, when poor
Anne was in great delight at winning so
constantly, she dropped a ring on the floor,
237
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
and, suddenly diving under the table to re-
cover it, was terrified to see that her agree-
able partner had an unmistakably cloven
foot. Her screams made him aware of her
discovery, and he at once vanished in a
thunder-clap leaving a brimstone smell be-
hind him. The poor girl never recovered
from the shock, lapsed from one fit into
another, and was carried to the tapestry
room from which she never came forth
alive.
"This story of his Satanic majesty got
abroad, and many tales are told of how he
continued to visit and disturb the house.
The noises, the apparitions, and disturbances
were innumerable, and greatly distressed old
Charles Tottenham, his wife, and servants.
It is said that they finally determined to call
in the services of their parish priest, a Father
Broders, who, armed with all the exorcisms
of the Church, succeeded in confining the
operations of the evil spirit to one room
the tapestry room.
" Here, then, we have traced from the date
of the unhappy girl's misfortune that the
house was disturbed by something super-
natural, and that the family sought the aid
238
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
of the parish priest to abate it, and further
that the tapestry room was the scene of this
visitation.
" But the matter was kept dark, all re-
ference to poor Anne was avoided, and the
belief was allowed to go abroad that it was
Satan himself who disturbed the peace of
the family. Her parents were ready to turn
aside the keen edge of observation from her
fate, preferring rather that it should be be-
lieved that they were haunted by the Devil,
so that the story of her wrongs should sink
into oblivion, and be classed as an old wives'
tale of horns and hoofs. The harsh father
and stepmother have long gone to the place
appointed for all living. The Loftus branch
of the family are in possession of the Hall.
Yet poor Anne has kept her tapestried cham-
ber by nearly the same means which com-
pelled her parents to call in the aid of the
parish priest so long ago.
" But to my tale : About the end of the
last century my father was invited by Mrs.
Tottenham to meet a large party at the
Hall. He rode, as was then the custom
in Ireland, with his pistols in his holsters.
On arriving he found the house full, and
239
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
Mrs. Tottenham apologised to him for
being obliged to assign to him the tapestry
chamber for the night, which, however, he
gladly accepted, never having heard any of
the stories connected with it.
" However, he had scarcely covered him-
self in the bed when suddenly something
heavy leaped upon it, growling like a dog.
The curtains were torn back, and the
clothes stripped from the bed. Suppos-
ing that some of his companions were play-
ing tricks, he called out that he would
shoot them, and seizing a pistol he fired
up the chimney, lest he should wound one
of them. He then struck a light and
searched the room diligently, but found
no sign or mark of anyone, and the door
locked as he had left it on retiring to rest.
Next day he informed his hosts how he
had been annoyed, but they could only say
that they would not have put him in that
room if they had had any other to offer
him.
" Years passed on, when the Marquis of
Ely went to the Hall to spend some time
there. His valet was put to sleep in the
tapestry chamber. In the middle of the
240
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
night the whole family was aroused by his
dreadful roars and screams, and he was
found lying in another room in mortal
terror. After some time he told them that,
soon after he had lain himself down in bed,
he was startled by the rattling of the curtains
as they were torn back, and looking up he
saw a tall lady by the bedside dressed in
stiff brocaded silk ; whereupon he rushed
out of the room screaming with terror.
" Years afterwards I was brought by my
father with the rest of the family to the
Hall for the summer bathing. Attracted
by the quaint look of the tapestry room,
I at once chose it for my bedroom, being
utterly ignorant of the stories connected
with it. For some little time nothing out
of the way happened. One night, however,
I sat up much later than usual to finish an
article in a magazine I was reading. The
full moon was shining clearly in through
two large windows, making all as clear as
day. I was just about to get into bed, and,
happening to glance towards the door, to
my great surprise I saw it open quickly
and noiselessly, and as quickly and noise-
lessly shut again, while the tall figure of a
241 Q
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
lady in a stiff dress passed slowly through
the room to one of the curious closets
already mentioned, which was in the oppo-
site corner. I rubbed my eyes. Every
possible explanation but the true one oc-
curred to my mind, for the idea of a ghost
did not for a moment enter my head. I
quickly reasoned myself into a sound sleep
and forgot the matter.
" The next night I again sat up late in
my bedroom, preparing a gun and ammuni-
tion to go and shoot sea-birds early next
morning, when the door again opened and
shut in the same noiseless manner, and the
same tall lady proceeded to cross the room
quietly and deliberately as before towards
the closet. I instantly rushed at her, and
threw my right arm around her, exclaiming
' Ha ! I have you now ! ' To my utter
astonishment my arm passed through her
and came with a thud against the bedpost,
at which spot she then was. The figure
quickened its pace, and as it passed the
skirt of its dress lapped against the curtain
and I marked distinctly the pattern of her
gown a stiff brocaded silk.
" The ghostly solution of the problem
242
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
did not yet enter my mind. However, I
told the story at breakfast next morning.
My father, who had himself suffered from
the lady's visit so long before, never said a
word, and it passed as some folly of mine.
So slight was the impression it made on me
at the time that, though I slept many a
night after in the room, I never thought
of watching or looking out for anything.
" Years later I was again a guest at the
Hall. The Marquis of Ely and his family,
with a large retinue of servants, filled the
house to overflowing. As I passed the
housekeeper's room I heard the valet say :
' What ! I to sleep in the tapestry chamber ?
Never ! I will leave my lord's service
before I sleep there ! ' At once my former
experience in that room flashed upon my
mind. I had never thought of it during
the interval, and was still utterly ignorant
of Anne Tottenham : so when the house-
keeper was gone I spoke to the valet and
said, c Tell me why you will not sleep in
the tapestry room, as I have a particu-
lar reason for asking.' He said, ' Is it
possible that you do not know that Miss
Tottenham passes through that room every
243
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
night, and, dressed in a stiff flowered silk
dress, enters the closet in the corner ? ' I
replied that I had never heard a word of
her till now, but that I had, a few years
before, twice seen a figure exactly like
what he had described, and passed my arm
through her body. 'Yes,' said he, '-that
was Miss Tottenham, and, as is well known,
she was confined mad in that room, and
died there, and, they say, was buried in
that closet.'
" Time wore on and another generation
arose, another owner possessed the property
the grandson of my friend. In the year
185, he being then a child came with
his mother, the Marchioness of Ely, and
his tutor, the Rev. Charles Dale, to the
Hall for the bathing season. Mr. Dale
was no imaginative person a solid, steady,
highly educated English clergyman, who
had never even heard the name of Miss
Tottenham. The tapestry room was his
bed-chamber. One day in the late autumn
of that year I received a letter from the
uncle of the Marquis, saying, ' Do tell me
what it was you saw long ago in the tapestry
chamber, for something strange must have
244
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
happened to the Rev. Charles Dale, as he
came to breakfast quite mystified. Some-
thing very strange must have occurred, but
he will not tell us, seems quite nervous, and,
in short, is determined to give up his tutor-
ship and return to England. Every year
something mysterious has happened to any
person who slept in that room, but they
always kept it close. Mr. D , a Wexford
gentleman, slept there a short while ago.
He had a splendid dressing-case, fitted with
gold and silver articles, which he left care-
fully locked on his table at night ; in the
morning he found the whole of its contents
scattered about the room.'
" Upon hearing this I determined to write
to the Rev. Charles Dale, then Incumbent
of a parish near Dover, telling him what
had occurred to myself in the room, and
that the evidence of supernatural appearances
there were so strong and continued for
several generations, that I was anxious to
put them together, and I would consider it
a great favour if he would tell me if any-
thing had happened to him in the room,
and of what nature. He then for the first
time mentioned the matter, and from his
245
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
letter now before me I make the following
extracts :
" 4 For three weeks I experienced no in-
convenience from the lady, but one night,
just before we were about to leave, I had
sat up very late. It was just one o'clock
when I retired to my bedroom, a very
beautiful moonlight night. I locked my
door, and saw that the shutters were pro-
perly fastened, as I did every night. I had
not lain myself down more than about five
minutes before something jumped on the
bed making a growling noise ; thebed-clothes
were pulled off though I strongly resisted
the pull. I immediately sprang out of
bed, lighted my candle, looked into the
closet and under the bed, but saw nothing.'
" Mr. Dale goes on to say that he en-
deavoured to account for it in some such
way as I had formerly done, having never
up to that time heard one word of the lady
and her doings in that room. He adds, ' I
did not see the lady or hear any noise but
the growling.'
" Here then is the written testimony of a
beneficed English clergyman, occupying the
responsible position of tutor to the young
246
ANCESTRAL GHOSTS
Marquis of Ely, a most sober-minded and
unimpressionable man. He repeats in
1867 almost the very words of my father
when detailing his experience in that
room in 1790 a man of whose existence
he had never been cognisant, and there-
fore utterly ignorant of Miss Tottenham's
doings in that room nearly eighty years
before.
" In the autumn of 1868 I was again in
the locality, at Dunmore, on the opposite
side of the Waterford Estuary. I went
across to see the old place and what altera-
tions Miss Tottenham had forced the pro-
prietors to make in the tapestry chamber.
I found that the closet into which the poor
lady had always vanished was taken away,
the room enlarged, and two additional
windows put in : the old tapestry had gone
and a billiard-table occupied the site of poor
Anne's bed. I took the old housekeeper
aside, and asked her to tell me how Miss
Tottenham bore these changes in her apart-
ment. She looked quite frightened and
most anxious to avoid the question, but at
length hurriedly replied, ' Oh, Master
George ! don't talk about her : last night
247
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
she made a horrid noise knocking the
billiard-balls about ! '
" I have thus traced with strict accuracy
this most real and true tale, from the days
of ' Tottenham and his Boots ' to those of
his great-great-grandson. Loftus Hall has
since been wholly rebuilt, but I have not
heard whether poor Anne Tottenham has
condescended to visit it, or is wholly banished
at last."
248
CHAPTER X
MISTAKEN IDENTITY CONCLUSION
WE have given various instances of ghostly
phenomena wherein the witnesses have failed
at first to realise that what they saw partook
in any way of the abnormal. There are
also many cases where a so-called ghost has
turned out to be something very ordinary.
Though more often than not such incidents
are of a very trivial or self-explanatory
nature (e.g. where a sheep in a churchyard
almost paralysed a midnight wayfarer till he
summoned up courage to investigate), there
are many which have an interest of their
own and which often throw into prominence
the extraordinary superstitions and beliefs
which exist in a country.
Our first story, which is sent us by Mr.
De Lacy of Dublin, deals with an incident
that occurred in the early part of last century.
An epidemic which was then rife in the
249
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
city was each day taking its toll of the
unhappy citizens. The wife of a man
living in Merrion Square was stricken down
and hastily buried in a churchyard in Donny-
brook which is now closed. On the night
after the funeral one of the city police, or
" Charlies " as they were then called, passed
through the churchyard on his rounds.
When nearing the centre he was alarmed to
hear a sound coming from a grave close at
hand, and turning, saw a white apparition
sit up and address him. This was all he
waited for ; with a shriek he dropped his
lantern and staff and made off as fast as his
legs would carry him. The apparition
thereupon took up the lamp and staff, and
walked to Merrion Square to the house of
mourning, was admitted by the servants, and
to the joy of the whole household was found
to be the object of their grief returned,
Alcestis-like, from the grave. It seems
that the epidemic was so bad that the bodies
of the victims were interred hastily and
without much care : the unfortunate lady
had really been in a state of coma or trance,
and as the grave was lightly covered, when
she came to she was able to force her way
250
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
up, and seeing the " Charlie " passing, she
called for assistance.
An occurrence which at first had all the
appearance of partaking of the supernormal,
and which was afterwards found to have a
curious explanation, is related by Dean
Ovenden of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
"At Dunluce Rectory, Co. Antrim," he
writes, " I had a strange experience. There
was a force-pump attached to the back wall
of the house, and many people drew water
from it, as it was better than any obtained
at that time in Bushmills. We used to notice,
when going to bed, the sound of someone
working the pump. All the servants denied
that they ever used the pump between 1 1
P.M. and 12 midnight. I often looked out
of the back window when I heard the
pump going, but could not see anyone. I
tied threads to the handle, but although
they were found unbroken in the morning
the pumping continued, sometimes only for
three or four moves of the handle. On
many nights no pumping was heard. The
man-servant sat up with a gun and the dog,
but he neither saw nor heard anything.
We gave it up as a bad job, and still the
251
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
pumping went on. After about two years
of this experience, I was one night alone
in the house. It was a calm and frosty
night and I went to bed about 11.30 P.M.
and lay awake ; suddenly the pump began
to work with great clearness, and mechani-
cally I counted the strokes : they were
exactly twelve. I exclaimed, ' The dining-
room clock ! ' I sprang from bed and went
down, and found that the clock was fast,
as it showed two minutes past twelve
o'clock. I set back the hands to 1 1.55 and
lay in bed again, and soon the pumper
began as usual. The explanation was that
the vibration of the rising and falling
hammer was carried up to the bedroom by
the wall, but the sound of the bell was
never heard. I found afterwards that the
nights when there was no pumping were
always windy."
A man was walking along a country
lane at night and as he was coming round
a bend he saw a coffin on the road in front
of him. At first he thought it was a
warning to him that he was soon to leave
this world ; but after some hesitation, he
finally summoned up courage to give the
252
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
thing a poke with his stick, when he found
that the coffin was merely an outline of
sea-weed which some passer-by had made.
Whereupon he went on his way much
relieved.
The unbeliever will state that rats or
mice are more often than not the cause of
so-called ghostly noises in a house. That,
at any rate, instances have happened where
one or other of these rodents has given rise
to fear and trepidation in the inmates of a
house or bedroom is proved by the follow-
ing story from a Dublin lady. She tells
how she was awakened by a most mysteri-
ous noise for which she could give no
explanation. Overcome by fear, she was
quite unable to get out of bed, and lay
awake the rest of the night. When light
came she got up : there was a big bath in
the room, and in it she found a mouse
which had been drowned in its efforts to
get out. So her haunting was caused by
what we may perhaps call a ghost in the
making.
The devil is very real to the average
countryman in Ireland. He has given his
name to many spots which for some reason
253
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
or other have gained some ill-repute the
Devil's Elbow, a very nasty bit of road
down in Kerry, is an instance in point.
The following story shows how prevalent
the idea is that the devil is an active agent
in the affairs of this world.
A family living at Ardee, Co. Louth,
were one night sitting reading in the
parlour. The two maids were amusing
themselves at some card game in the kitchen.
Suddenly there was a great commotion and
the two girls both from the country
burst into the sitting-room, pale with fright,
and almost speechless. When they had
recovered a certain amount, they were asked
what was the matter ; the cook immedi-
ately exclaimed, " Oh, sir ! the devil, the
devil, he knocked three times at the window
and frightened us dreadfully, and we had
just time to throw the cards into the fire
and run in here before he got us." One
of the family, on hearing this, immediately
went out to see what had caused all this
trepidation, and found a swallow with a
broken neck lying on the kitchen window-
sill. The poor bird had evidently seen the
light in the room, and in its efforts to get
254
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
near it had broken its neck against the
glass of the window.
An amusing account of a pseudo-haunting
comes from County Tipperary, and shows
how extraordinarily strong is the country-
man's belief in supernatural phenomena.
The incidents related occurred only a very
short time ago. A farmer in the vicinity
of Thurles died leaving behind him a young
widow. The latter lived alone after her
husband's death, and about three months
after the funeral she was startled one night
by loud knocking at the door. On opening
the door she was shocked at seeing the
outline of a man dressed in a shroud. In a
solemn voice he asked her did she know
who he was : on receiving a reply in the
negative, he said that he was her late
husband and that he wanted 10 to get
into heaven. The terrified woman said she
had not got the money, but promised to
have it ready if he would call again the
next night. The "apparition" agreed,
then withdrew, and the distracted woman
went to bed wondering how she was to
raise the money. When morning came
she did not take long in telling her friends
255
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
of her experience, in the hope that they
would be able to help her. Their advice,
however, was that she should tell the police,
and she did so. That night the " appari-
tion " returned at the promised hour, and
asked for his money. The amount was
handed to him, and in a low sepulchral
voice he said, " Now I leave this earth and
go to heaven." Unfortunately, as he was
leaving, a sergeant and a constable of the
R. I. Constabulary stopped him, questioned
him, and hauled him off to the barracks to
spend the remainder of the night in the
cell, where no doubt he decided that the
haunting game has its trials. 1
An occurrence of very much the same
description took place in County Clare
about three years ago. Again the departed
husband returns to his sorrowing wife, sits
by the fire with her, chatting no doubt of
old times, and before he leaves for the other
world is regaled with pig's head and
plenty of whisky. The visit is repeated
the next night, and a request made for
money to play cards with down below : the
wife willingly gives him the money. Again
1 Evening Telegraph for Dec. 10, 1913.
256
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
he comes, and again he borrows on the plea
that he had lost the night before, but hoped
to get better luck next time. On the
woman telling a neighbour a watch was
kept for the dead man's return, but he never
came near the place again.
An account of a police-court trial which
appeared in the Irish Times of 3ist
December 1913 emphasizes in a very
marked degree the extraordinary grip that
superstition has over some of the country
people. A young woman was on her trial
for stealing 3 from the brother of her
employer, Patrick McFaul of Armagh.
District Inspector Lowndes, in opening the
case for the Crown, told the bench that the
money had been taken out of the bank by
McFaul to buy a holding, for the purchase
of which negotiations were going on. The
money was carelessly thrown into a drawer
in a bedroom, and left there till it would be
wanted. A short time afterwards a fire
broke out in the room, and a heap of ashes
was all that was found in the drawer,
though little else in the room besides a few
clothes was injured. "The McFauls ap-
peared to accept their loss with a com-
257 R
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
placency, which could only be accounted
for by the idea they entertained that the
money was destroyed through spiritual
intervention that there were ghosts in the
question, and that the destruction of the
money was to be taken as a warning directed
against a matrimonial arrangement, into
which Michael McFaul was about to
enter." The accused girl was servant to
the McFauls, who discharged her a few
days after the fire : but before this she had
been into Derry and spent a night there ;
during her stay she tried to change three
20 notes with the help of a friend. But
change was refused, and she had to abandon
the attempt. " If some of the money was
burned, some of it was certainly in existence
three days later, to the amount of 60.
One thing was manifest, and that was that
an incredible amount of superstition ap-
peared to prevail amongst families in that
neighbourhood when the loss of such a sum
as this could be attributed to anything but
larceny, and it could for a moment be sug-
gested that it was due to spiritual interven-
tion to indicate that a certain course should
be abandoned."
258
CONCLUSION
The foregoing tales have been inserted,
not in order that they may throw ridicule
on the rest of the book, but that they may
act as a wholesome corrective. If all ghost
stories could be subjected to such rigid
examination it is probable that the mystery
in many of them would be capable of
equally simple solution yet a remnant
would be left.
And here, though it may seem somewhat
belated, we must offer an apology for the
use of the terms " ghost " and " ghost
story." The book includes such different
items as hauntings, death-warnings, visions,
and hallucinations, some of which obviously
can no more be attributed to discarnate
spirits than can the present writer's power
of guiding his pen along the lines of a
page ; whether others of these must be laid
to the credit of such unseen influences is
just the question. But in truth there was
no other expression than " ghost stories "
which we could have used, or which could
have conveyed to our readers, within
reasonable verbal limits, as they glanced at
its cover, or at an advertisement of it, a
general idea of the contents of this book.
259
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
The day will certainly come when, before
the steady advance of scientific investigation,
and the consequent influencing of public
opinion, the word " ghost " will be re-
legated to limbo, and its place taken by a
number of expressions corresponding to the
results obtained from the analysis of pheno-
mena hitherto grouped under this collective
title. That day is approaching. And so,
though we have used the term throughout
the pages of this book, it must not therefore
be assumed that we necessarily believe in
" ghosts," or that we are bound to the
theory that all, or any, of the unusual
happenings therein recorded are due to the
action of visitants from the Otherworld.
We may now anticipate one or two
possible points of criticism. It might be
alleged that the publication of such a book
as this would tend to show that the Irish
nation was enslaved in superstition. With-
out stopping to review the question as to
what should, or should not, be classed as
" superstition," we would rejoin by glee-
fully pointing to a leading article in the
Irish Times of Jan. 27, 1914, which gives
a short account of a lecture by Mr. Lovett
260
CONCLUSION
on the folklore of London. Folklore in
London ! in the metropolis of the stolid
Englishman ! The fact is that the Irish
people are not one whit more superstitious
than their cross-channel neighbours, while
they are surely on a far higher level in this
respect than many of the Continental
nations. They seem to be more superstitious
because (we speak without wishing to give
any offence) the popular religion of the
majority has incorporated certain elements
which may be traced back to pre-Christian
times ; but that they are actually more
superstitious we beg leave to doubt.
Another and more important series of
objections is stated by one of our corre-
spondents as follows. " I must confess that
I can never reconcile with my conception
of an All-Wise Creator the type of ' ghost '
you are at present interested in ; it seems to
me incredible that the spirits of the departed
should be permitted to return and indulge
in the ghostly repertoire of jangling chains,
gurgling, &c., apparently for the sole pur-
pose of scaring housemaids and other timid
or hysterical people." The first and most
obvious remark on this is, that our corre-
261
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
spondent has never read or heard a ghost
story, save of the Christmas magazine type,
else he would be aware that the above
theatrical display is not an integral part of
the " ghostly repertoire " ; and also that
persons, who are not housemaids, and who
can not be classed as timid or hysterical, but
who, on the other hand, are exceedingly
sober-minded, courageous, and level-headed,
have had experiences (and been frightened
by them too !) which cannot be explained
on ordinary grounds. But on the main
point our correspondent is begging the
question, or at least assuming as fully proved
a conclusion which is very far from being
so. Is he quite sure that the only explana-
tion of these strange sights and weird noises
is that they are brought about by the action
of departed spirits (we naturally exclude
cases of deliberate fraud, which in reality are
very unusual) ? And if so, what meaning
would he put upon the word " spirits " ?
And even if it be granted that the pheno-
mena are caused by the inhabitants of an-
other world, why should it be impossible to
accept such a theory, because of its apparent
incompatibility with any conception of an
262
CONCLUSION
All- Wise Creator, of whose workings we are
so profoundly ignorant ? Are there not
many things in the material world which to
the limited human mind of our correspondent
must seem puzzling, meaningless, useless,
and even harmful ? He does not therefore
condemn these offhand ; he is content to
suspend judgment, is he not ? Why cannot
he adopt the same attitude with respect to
psychic phenomena ? Our correspondent
might here make the obvious retort that it
is we who are begging the question, not he,
because such happenings as are described in
this book have no existence apart from the
imaginative or inventive faculties of certain
persons. This would be equivalent to say-
ing bluntly that a considerable number of
people in Ireland are either liars or fools, or
both. This point we shall deal with later on.
Our correspondent belongs to a type which
knows nothing at all about psychical research,
and is not aware that some of the cleverest
scientists and deepest thinkers of the day
have interested themselves in such problems.
They have not found the answer to many of
them goodness knows if they ever will this
side of the grave but at least they have
263
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
helped to broaden and deepen our knowledge
of ourselves, our surroundings, and our God.
They have revealed to us profundities in
human personality hitherto unsuspected, they
have suggested means of communication
between mind and mind almost incredible,
and (in the writer's opinion at least) these
points have a very important bearing on our
conceptions of the final state of mankind in
the world to come, and so they are preparing
the way for that finer and more ethical con-
ception of God and His Creation which will
be the heritage of generations yet unborn.
The materialist's day is far spent, and its
sun nears the horizon.
Another objection to the study of the
subjects dealt with in this book is that we
are designedly left in ignorance of the un-
seen world by a Wise Creator, and therefore
that it is grossly presumptuous, not to say
impious, on the part of man to make any
attempt to probe into questions which he
has not been intended to study. Which is
equivalent to saying that it is impious to
ride a bicycle, because man was obviously
created a pedestrian. This might be true if
we were confined within a self-contained
264
CONCLUSION
world which had, and could have, no con-
nection with anything external to itself.
But the very essence of our existence here
is that the material and spiritual worlds in-
terpenetrate, or rather that our little planet
forms part of a boundless universe teeming
with life and intelligence, yet lying in the
hollow of God's hand. He alone is " Super-
natural," and therefore Transcendent and
Unknowable ; all things in the universe
are " natural," though very often they are
beyond our normal experience, and as such
are legitimate objects for man's research.
Surely the potential energy in the human
intellect will not allow it to remain at its
present stage, but will continually urge it
onwards and upwards. What limits God in
His Providence has seen fit to put upon us
we cannot tell, for every moment the horizon
is receding, and our outlook becoming
larger, though some still find it difficult to
bring their eyesight to the focus conse-
quently required. The marvellous of to-day
is the commonplace of to-morrow : " our
notion of what is natural grows with our
greater knowledge."
Throughout the pages of this book we have,
265
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
in general, avoided offering explanations of, or
theories to account for, the different stories.
Here something may be said on this point.
As we have already pointed out, the expres-
sion " ghost stories " covers a multitude of
different phenomena. Many of these may
be explained as " hallucinations," which does
not imply that they are simply the effect of
imagination and nothing more. " The mind
receives the hallucination as if it came
through the channels of sense, and accord-
ingly externalises the impression, seeking its
source in the world outside itself, whereas in
all hallucinations the source is within the
mind, and is not derived from an impression
received through the recognised organ of
sense." *
Many of these hallucinations are termed
veridical i or truth-telling, because they coin-
cide with real events occurring to another
person. Illustrations of this will be found
in Chapter VI, from which it would appear
that a dying person (though the power is
not necessarily confined to such) occasionally
has the faculty of telepathically communi-
cating with another ; the latter receives the
1 Prof. Sir W. Barrett, Psychical Research, p. in.
266
CONCLUSION
impression, and externalises it, and so " sees
a ghost," to use the popular expression.
Some hallucinations are auditory ', i.e. sounds
are heard which apparently do not corre-
spond to any objective reality. Incompre-
hensible though it may appear, it may be
possible for sounds, and very loud ones too,
to be heard by one or more persons, the
said sounds being purely hallucinatory, and
not causing any disturbance in the atmo-
sphere.
Some of the incidents may be explained
as due to telepathy, that mysterious power
by which mind can communicate with mind,
though what telepathy is, or through what
medium it is propagated, no one can tell as
yet. Belief in this force is increasing, be-
cause, as Professor Sir W. Barrett remarks :
" Hostility to a new idea arises largely from
its being unrelated to existing knowledge,"
and, as telepathy seems to the ordinary
person to be analogous to wireless telegraphy,
it is therefore accepted, or at least not
laughed at, though how far the analogy
really holds good is not at all certain.
Again there is the question of haunted
houses and places, to accounts of which the
267
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
first five chapters of this book are devoted.
The actual evidence for many of these may
not come up to the rigorous standard set by
the S.P.R., but it is beyond all doubt that
persons who are neither fools, liars, nor
drunkards firmly believe that they have seen
and heard the things related in these chapters
(not to speak of Chapters VI-VIII), or that
they have been told such by those in whose
statements they place implicit confidence ;
while so certain are they that they are
telling the truth that they have not only
written down the stories for the compilers,
but have given their names and addresses as
well, though not always for publication.
Can we contemptuously fling aside such a
weight of evidence as unworthy of even a
cursory examination ? This would hardly
be a rational attitude to adopt. Various
theories to account for these strange haunt-
ings have been formulated, which may be
found on pp. 199200 of Sir William
Barrett's Psychical -Research, and so need not
be given here.
Yet, when all is said and done, the very
formulating of theories, so far from solving
problems, only raises further and more com-
268
CONCLUSION
plex ones, perhaps the greatest of which is,
Have the spirits of the departed anything to
do with the matter ? As we have shown,
we hope with success, in the preceding
paragraphs, many " ghosts " have no neces-
sary connection with the denizens of the
unseen world, but may be explained as being
due to laws of nature which at present are
very obscure. Does this hold good of all
" ghosts," or are some of them to be placed
to the credit of those who have passed
beyond the veil, or perhaps to spirits, good
or evil, which have never been incarnate ?
That is the problem for the future, for in
the present state of our knowledge it would
be premature to give a direct answer, either
positive or negative.
This book was written with a twofold
purpose : first, that of entertaining our
readers, in which we trust we have been
successful ; secondly, to stimulate thought.
For, strange though it may seem, authenti-
cated " ghost stories " have a certain edu-
cative value. Taking them at their lowest
they suggest inquiry into the strange work-
ings of the human mind : at their highest
how many strange lines of inquiry do they
269
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
not suggest ? For it is obvious that we
have now arrived at one of those interesting
periods in the history of human thought
which might be described as the return of
the pendulum. We are in the process of
emerging from a very materialistic age,
when men either refused to believe anything
that was contrary to their normal experi-
ence, or else leavened their spiritual doctrines
and beliefs with the leaven of materialism.
The pendulum has swung to its highest
point in this respect, and is now commenc-
ing to return, so perhaps the intellectual
danger of the future will be that men,
instead of believing too little, will believe
too much. Now is the time for laying a
careful foundation. Psychical research,
spiritualism, and the like, are not ends in
themselves, they are only means to an end.
At the present state of thought, the transi-
tion from the old to the new, from the
lower to the higher, it is inevitable that
there must be confusion and doubt, and
the earnest thinker must be prepared to
suspend judgment on many points ; but
at a later stage, when all absurdity, error,
and fraud, now so closely connected with
270
CONCLUSION
psychical research in its various branches,
will have been swept away, Truth will
emerge and lift the human race to a purer
and loftier conception of God and His
universe.
271
INDEX OF PLACE NAMES
ABBEYSHRULE, 134
Ardee, 254
Ardtrea, 229
Armagh, 257
BLACKROCK, near Cork, 181
Blanchardstown, 27
Boyne valley, 233
Bray, 131
CASTLEBLANEY, 172
Cavan, Co., 39
Charles Fort, 65
Clare, Co., 75> 77, 179, 187,
256
Clogher, Div. of, 213
Clonmel, 122
Cork, Co., 130, 191
DONEGAL, Co., 51
Down, Co., 219
Drogheda, 48
Dublin city, 4ff., 198, 250
Dunluce, 251
ENNISCORTHY, 101
Ennistymon, 188
FERMANAGH, Co., 109
GALWAY, Co., 194
town of, 47
Gill Hall, 159
Glasnevin, 207
Gormanstown Castle, 195
INISHINNY, island of, 165
Island Magee, 152
K CASTLE, 91
Kildare, Co., 224
Kilkenny, Co., 60, 128
Killarney, 169
" Kilman " Castle, 94
Kimmage Road, near Dublin,
132
Kingstown, 28
LARNE, 113
Leitrim, Co., 129
Lifford, near town of, 145
Limerick, Co., 73, 79, *39, 148,
1 60, 1 86, 192, 205, 208, 221,
Limerick, city of, 173, 201,231
Loftus Hall, 234
273
TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES
MARSH'S LIBRARY, 15
Mitchelstown, 162
Monaghan, Co., 50
Mullaghmast,Rath of, 226,227
NORTH OF IRELAND, 35, 37
PASSAGE EAST, 119
Portarlington, 55, 57, 118
QUEEN'S Co., 58, 189
RATHFARNHAM CASTLE, 126
Rathgar, 18
Rathmines, 19
STRABANE, 136
TIPPERARY, Co., 85, 155, 255
WALLSTOWN CASTLE, 228
Waterford, Co., 135
Westmeath, Co., 32
Wexford, Co., 115, 158
Wicklow, Co., 189, 210
town of, 190
THE END
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &* Co.
f.t Paul's Work, Edinburgh
PRINTED IN ENGLANB.
BY ST. J. D. SEYMOUR
IRISH WITCHCRAFT AND
DEMONOLOGY
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