Haunted Derry E-Book

Madeline McCully

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 219

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

From the Admore Banshee to the ghost in the Bog of Lettermuck, this collection of spine-chilling tales from across County Derry is guaranteed to make your blood run cold. This spooky selection features stories of unexplained phenomena, ghostly apparitions, death knocks and poltergeist activity and includes the tale of the phantom coach said to return to the White Horse Inn every seven years; the helpful ghost that inhabits Derry Opera House; the spirit children said to haunt Rosemount's By-Wash and even a photograph of the Old Covent taken by a ghost. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources and including many first-hand experiences and previously unpublished tales, Haunted Derry will enthrall anyone interested in the unexplained.

Leseprobe

To my husband Thomas for his love, support and encouragement and the endless cups of tea.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have so many people to thank that I apologise in advance if I leave out anyone.

I would like to thank Doreen McBride for pointing me in the direction of writing this book and Beth Amphlett and Ronan Colgan for their belief that it could actually be done in the time available.

Thanks to Jim McCallion of the North-West Regional College for his endless patience and knowledge in preparing the photographs and to all of those who supplied photographs and research items: the McDonald/Bigger Collection, National Trust, Springhill House, Limavady Council Development Initiative, Colin Knox of Prehen House and all the other contributors.

I would particularly like to thank Maura Craig, Linda Ming and Jane Nicholson of the Central Library for their encouragement and support all the way through. The Shantallow Library staff in Derry were ever happy to help; my gratitude also goes to Ken McCormack for his words of wisdom and to the Derry Playhouse Writers, my nurture group, for believing in me.

Thanks to Derry City Council and their staff at the Tower Museum for their courtesy and interest.

I wish also to thank the Arts Council, NI, for the many ways in which they helped me fund my ‘gathering of stories’ over the years.

Many of those who contributed stories wished to remain anonymous and I respect that, therefore I will thank all of you for taking the time to tell me your tales and allowing me to use them. I hope that I have done them justice.

I must mention three wonderful people: Bertie Bryce, one of the truly amazing storytellers of Ireland, Sheila Quigley, founder of the Derry Yarnspinners and Pat Mulkeen, a storyteller, writer and dramatist. They greatly influenced me and gave me a love of storytelling. All unfortunately have passed on but they are not forgotten.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

one

    The Big Houses

two

    Hotel Spirits

three

   Bar Spirits

four

   Haunted Houses

five

    Haunted Buildings

six

    Haunted Places

seven

    Portents of Death

eight

   Death Knocks

nine

   Poltergeists

Bibliography and Further Reading

Copyright

FOREWORD

AS a contributor to this book, with a recent tale of my own to tell, I am glad to provide this preface to Madeline McCully’s excellent Haunted Derry.

Reading through these accounts of supernatural sightings, I’m struck by the way the past still eerily echoes in our present. Madeline has done a lot of digging into background detail and the supporting chapter and verse she includes here vividly enliven the stories she recounts in the book. Not only do we learn about the hauntings themselves, but Madeline is often in a position to tell us who these beings are, as they appear, with their old-fashioned clothes, in suddenly icy rooms. And she explains the where and the when, and often the who, so well. It puts the reader in a position to ask the question that intrigues me the most: why? That is a question about which we can only speculate. Why do these ghostly figures, encountered on wobbly stairs or woodland paths, have to linger on, reminding us, or even re-enacting incidents, of times long gone?

I hadn’t realised, until I read these spectral stories, how many old gentry houses there are still in the city and its environs. In some cases they have been turned into schools or hotels, and their original owners are probably mystified, or even angered, by what’s going on in these buildings now. No wonder they still make the occasional physical appearance to put manners on us. Perhaps there is a sense of ghostly satisfaction in all this. They enjoy seeing the effect they still have on us, witnessing our astonishment or terror. Or maybe they can’t bear to leave us, here in the most beautiful city in Ireland, with its wide walls perched on the central hill and the great river below.

And how the history of this place echoes through these pages! This place of strife and struggle, sieges and slaughter! The old soldiers and the seafarers, the servants and the masters live in this book as truly as they seem to live among us still. And as someone who has his own tale to tell in this volume, I can testify to the truth of that statement.

Eamon Friel

BBC Radio presenter, singer and songwriter.

Derry, 2015

INTRODUCTION

UNTIL I was 12 we did not have a television in our house so it was inevitable that there would be many tales told, especially at night when the fire glowed on our childish faces and we begged for a story. At home my siblings and I heard no frightening ones but, when the darker nights came in and Halloween was just around the corner, I listened avidly to the ghost stories that other children told. We sat on a wall at the top of our street within sight of home and frightened ourselves as the stories became wilder and scarier. If there was a breeze at all, the sighs and groans of trees across the road added to the eerie atmosphere.

We lived in a small cul-de-sac of fourteen houses and our house was at the bottom, in the corner. I remember that, when I was about 8 years old, I was terrified by the story of ‘the wee white woman’ who came to haunt our street. According to John, one the young boys, the ghost entered through our back garden and lingered behind the hedge, waiting for us to appear. I was too afraid to go home and, much to the amusement of the boys, sat down on the pavement at the top of the street and cried.

I must have sounded like the banshee because a neighbour, Mrs Carlin, came out and scolded the boys before taking me by the hand and walking me back to my house. When she handed me over to my mother she whispered something and before I went to bed I was given a nice warm cup of Ovaltine and a ginger nut biscuit. My mother tucked me in, told me that my guardian angel would protect me and left the light on. Since then I have heard many tales about the wee white woman and to this day I can still taste the Ovaltine and ginger nuts.

My great-aunt lived in a little cottage in the country without electricity and running water. When it got too dark to see she lit the Tilley lamp in the kitchen, but going to bed at night when we stayed with her we had a candle on a saucer. The gloom outside of the candle’s glow could be frightening and the corner where the coats hung could have housed ghosts waiting to come out when we lay down. It didn’t help that neighbours often came around and inevitably ghost stories mingled with the gossip. Even though we weren’t supposed to listen, the allure of being frightened overcame our reluctance and I remember pulling the blankets over my head and fervently saying my prayers.

I have always had a fascination with ghost stories. There is something about being pushed outside the realm of reality to a different space and feeling the scary tingle on the back of my neck that I just cannot resist. But when people ask me, ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I have to say that I don’t disbelieve. I have never seen one but I have had, on occasion, a feeling of dejà vu and at times one of something or someone being nearby. I have had premonitions once or twice, but the first thing that most of us do is to try to explain things away logically or convince ourselves that it was simply imagination. I don’t think we can always do that, so, for now, the 15 per cent of me that needs proof is quite content not to have it thrust upon myself.

What I can say, without any doubt whatsoever, is that those who shared their experiences with me were utterly convinced and convincing when they told me about them. Many of these people are in professions that require sifting through facts to get to the truth. It was listening to their stories and similar ones that I have come from total disbelief to the stage at which I find myself now.

In 2001 I embarked on a one-year multimedia course in the Nerve Centre in Derry. The students were invited to compete for a Commedia Award with the Millennium Commission. Together with two of my colleagues, Christiane Kuhn-McGuffin and Raymond Brady, I decided to build a website aptly named www.derryghosts.com. I gathered the stories and took the photographs and my two friends expertly did all the technical stuff. I spoke to many, many people who shared their experiences, glad that someone would listen and that they would be published. Our website won an award and thanks to Christiane and Raymond it is still online.

When I was asked what I was writing and answered ‘ghost stories’, the person asking usually answered with another question: ‘Have you written about …?’ I’ve always listened and there are many notes in my filing cabinet with stories that could not be included in this volume. I thank all of those who gave them to me; someday, some way, the stories will be retold. After all, I am a storyteller.

1

THE BIG HOUSES

STATELY mansions stand derelict all over Ireland. Ghostly histories are embedded in their very walls and ruins. Their isolation allows these stories to be passed down from generation to generation, and though we cringe and feel afraid we acknowledge that they are part of our heritage.

Even those that still stand have a fascination for us, and if there is not a story we are not averse to weaving one.

The Ghost of Balliniska House

Balliniska House on the Northland Road was the childhood home of James (not his real name), a man from a well-known and respected family in the city. The house (Baile an Uisce – townland of the water) was named after the area, which was known to have many springs (names describing the area are common in Celtic countries such as Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Balliniska was a lovely looking house, with bay windows at each side of the front door, and the event that James describes took place in his bedroom on the top-left room of the second floor.

The house was in a secluded location, sheltered by trees with a driveway curving from the Northland Road to swing along the side of the house to the front. Unfortunately, like many lovely houses, it was demolished and the plot was developed as part of a Science Park. Technology firms now occupy the newly built industrial estate. Consequently its history is lost to this generation, except perhaps in stories told by the people who once resided there.

The following story about the ghost that haunted his house is in James’s own words:

We were getting one of the bedrooms upstairs redecorated and when the old wallpaper was stripped off we discovered that there were several magnificent portraits painted on the wall beneath. Our neighbour, who knew the history of the area well, said that Percy French painted them on one of his sojourns in Derry. The house used to be owned by a Judge Osborne and Percy French was a frequent visitor. He stayed in the front bedroom where he painted these pictures. The judge declared that the song ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ was composed in that particular bedroom as Percy looked out on Scalp Mountain and not, as is commonly believed, while looking at the Mountains of Mourne at all. The room faced north-eastwards, down towards the Buncrana Road, so he would have had a very clear view of the Donegal Hills, which fact gives the statement credence.

I would have been about 13 years of age and I slept in the room where Percy French did these paintings. I remember lying in bed early one summer’s morning at about half-past five and it was quite bright. I wasn’t waking out of a dream; I was wide awake and when I turned, there at the side of the bed looking straight at me was a figure. I remember it as if it was yesterday. He was very tall, with a long face and a beard. I looked down and when I did, I was shocked to see that below the knees there was nothing. I could see the carpet clearly where there should have been legs and feet. I looked again thinking that I was imagining things but there was still nothing. I screamed and cried and a maid came running in. She took me out of the bedroom, still shivering with fright and I stayed downstairs until my parents came down. I tried to tell them what had happened, but although my mother and father said nothing about the incident I never slept in that bedroom again. As far as I was aware at that time, that was the only incident and I was the only one in the family that saw this ghost.

But then, much later, when my own boys were teenagers, they would have gone to stay in that house with my father. He allocated them a different room so they would not have slept in that bedroom. During the night they were both wakened from their sleep. Both quite clearly heard footsteps coming up the stairs, but when my older boy opened the door and looked out no one was there. These boys were teenagers who would not have been easily scared but after this happened on other occasions they absolutely refused to stay in Balliniska House again. It was something that the family did not discuss. It was just accepted that things happened and life goes on.

Balliniska House, where Percy French once stayed in the top front bedroom, known to be haunted by the eerie figure of a man.

Other pieces of information were said in passing at the time but we put no importance on them. For instance, apparently after the death of Mary Anne Knox [see p.26], the coach in which she had met her death was housed for a time in one of the barns within the land of Balliniska at the request of the Corporation. Perhaps the appearance of the ghost had something to do with that. We’ll never know.

When the house was sold to a builder and developer, that was the end of that, or so we thought. I remember the next incident; although it didn’t happen to me personally, it confirmed everything that I had known and experienced.

I was out hunting and shooting with a friend who had introduced the developer to me, when his phone rang. It was the new owner and he said, ‘You are never going to believe this, but I was in the house today checking around and I saw a ghost.’ Now this man was a purchaser, a total outsider and complete stranger who had just gone in to look the house over. It was in the day time and he was adamant that it was no trick of his imagination.

‘A tall man was on the landing. I can’t say that he was standing because he seemed to float because there was nothing below the knees.’

A long time later our family brought it out into the open and discussed it and my sister, who also had her own terrifying story to tell, decided to ask my father’s secretary if he had ever mentioned anything about seeing ghosts. Mrs B did not reply.

We believe that he had told her but he and my mother had never, ever said anything to us. Perhaps they didn’t want to frighten us so in many ways we just accepted things.

It was our home.

Strange Happenings at Balliniska House

Grace had lived most of her life in Balliniska House. She came in 1943 and left there in 2006 but in all that period there were only two instances where she was aware of some supernatural presences. The first was in 2000.

The house was very big and had a huge landing area. Grace went up the stairs one night; the light was on and the landing was all lit up. The little cat, generally a placid, timid little thing, was standing on the landing and its fur was straight out like that of a porcupine. Grace had never seen the like of it before in her life.

‘Now, it is said that animals can be very sensitive to spirits and it convinced me that there must be something there. This little cat stood absolutely motionless, as if it was paralysed with fright.’ Grace felt something or someone move swiftly by her and the air felt so icy cold that she began to tremble involuntarily. The cat stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes and Grace believed that they must be in the presence of something so strange that it would cause the little animal to behave in that way. Still shivering, she carried the cat downstairs.

‘It was only when we reached the sitting room that her trembling eased,’ said Grace.

However, the strangest event happened in the summer when she and her sister were alone in the house. Neither of them were fanciful people. Grace was 30 years of age at the time; her sister was 25 and she, too, had a very practical nature.

They had visitors arriving from America and their brothers had gone with their parents to Shannon to collect these relatives. To accommodate them, the two sisters had moved out of their room into the empty bedroom where their brothers used to sleep before they married. It was a huge room with two double beds and a large space in between.

In mid-August at about half-four or five in the morning, when there was just that slight bit of dawn light, Grace woke up with a sudden jerk when she heard the loud bang of the back hall door. She quickly sat up in bed, and then called to her sister across the room to wake her but she was already awake.

‘There must be a burglar in the house,’ she whispered.

The two of them listened, hardly breathing, and what followed was the most terrifying experience for them because what they dreaded was actually happening; someone or something with an extremely heavy tread began to move downstairs and along the passageway. Even though the hall was carpeted the footsteps were like those of someone determined to make its presence felt.

Whoever or whatever it was moved steadily along the hall but as Grace said, ‘In your own house you know every creak and we were able to follow those until whatever it was reached the bottom stair. It ascended the stairs with the exact same measured tread as before, until it reached the middle landing where there was a very creaky board.’

The sisters, much to their consternation, heard that creak very clearly. The disturbing sounds continued on up the next flight of stairs to their floor. They sounded so deliberate, like those of a huge man walking, that Grace realised she was holding her breath as the treads continued, steady and heavy, until they stopped right outside their door. Although there was a space underneath the door, there was no shadow of anyone showing in this space.

Grace said, ‘I just could not describe the absolute, total terror that both of us felt at that time. Hearing that measured tread coming closer and closer, I felt as if I was suffocating.’

As she remembered her experience, I could see that she was still upset.

‘We were sitting there in the beds, we couldn’t move because there was nowhere to go. Where could we hide? Even if we’d wanted to move there just was nowhere,’

Grace went on. ‘Because we were in a state of awful panic, it’s hard to put a time on it, it could have been fifteen minutes or half an hour, we were just petrified, sitting there.’ Her sister whispered in the darkness, ‘We better search the house.’ Grace didn’t want to leave the safety of the room but her sister was a lot cooler. They hadn’t heard any footsteps moving away from the door and nothing, absolutely nothing after they had stopped outside of the bedroom door!

So, because they were in their brothers’ bedroom and both brothers were mad keen fishermen, there were gaffs, fishing nets and rods stacked in the corner. They took a weapon each: Grace chose a gaff, a pole with a big hook for lifting fish out of the water, and her sister a heavy rod. They inched the door open and with dry mouths and ragged breaths they looked out to the landing. It was completely empty.

‘My sister headed off. I was tiptoeing behind her and we began to search the house. The clammy perspiration of fear was rolling off both of us but we searched around the window alcoves, checked that the windows themselves were locked, looked under every bed and in every wardrobe in every single room of the house. Nothing had been disturbed. The front and back doors were still locked and there was absolutely no sign of any entry.’

They crept back to bed, shivering and still scared.

When their parents came home, the sisters told them what had happened, but they said very little. The sisters suspected that their parents knew the house was haunted. A couple of years after their father died, Grace met his personal secretary in the town one day and during the conversation asked her if she knew anything about this. She just smiled at her and said nothing. Grace believes that she was being very loyal and honourable to her father. Grace was sure that her father must have asked her not to say anything to the children because it would have made them nervous.

‘Still,’ said Grace emphatically, ‘there definitely was something there.’

Before that experience, Grace was sceptical of anything ghostly but said that no one could tell her now that there is no such thing. She and her sister talk quite often about that experience, reliving it, tasting the terror.

‘There were two of us who experienced this and we know that it happened. If I had been on my own I suppose that, looking back, I would wonder, but no, even if I’d been on my own I would still be certain that it happened. My sister, if she were here, would tell you exactly the same story. It happened and it was horrendous. Even thinking of it now, I shiver with the terror again. I live with it and sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and think, “My God! That experience!” I mean, in your own house you know every creak, every sound, and I still dread hearing that. But even though I am in a new house I still think of Balliniska as home and, in spite of its ghosts, I loved it.’

Another thing happened one time when Grace was away on holiday. Her nephew came up to stay with her father one night. He was to sleep in the other front bedroom and when he went upstairs he sat reading in bed but also had the television on. All of a sudden the bedroom lights began to go on and off, almost as if they were on a dimmer switch, but there was no such thing in the house. The lights went very gradually down until it became dark and then after a few minutes they came on again. It was in that same room that he and his cousin on another occasion saw a shape forming in the corner before it moved to the double bed at the other side of the huge room. On that occasion the ‘thing’ began to move and writhe in the bed but there was nobody there, just a shadow and the bedclothes moving.

One other time Grace’s youngest brother was sleeping in the room where she and her sister had their terrifying experience. He awoke one morning at twilight and there was a man standing beside his bed. He was wearing a hat and as her brother looked at him the man just gradually began to fade until he completely disappeared.

Beechill County House Hotel

Patsy O’Kane and her brother now own Beechill Country House Hotel. After at least 350 years of exile, the O’Cahan clan finally came home.

The hotel has a well-deserved reputation and Patsy has played hostess to many eminent visitors. President Clinton and his wife Hillary stayed there, as did Lord Saville of Newdigate when he chaired the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

The townland on which the house stands was and is still known as Ballyshaskey. Captain Manus O’Cahan asked Alexander Skipton to build him a house on this land, but by legal skulduggery Skipton took it from O’Cahan at the last moment, thereby beginning the saga of tragedy and ghostly appearances that dogged the owners down through the centuries.

Suffice it to say that Skipton never lived to enjoy the house. The night before he was due to move in he was killed by one of the O’Cahans. Three of the clan had entered Skipton’s house at Tamneymore, and although their only intention was to find the deeds to the house to prove that Manus was the true owner, Alexander charged in and in the ensuing affray he was shot. He died instantly.

It was said that although he never lived there, his ghost haunted Ballyshaskey House, looking for his rightful place. But the restless spirits brought misfortune to Alexander’s heirs because his son and heir, Thomas, scarcely escaped massacre when the house was burnt to the ground in the rebellion of 1642. A second house, Skipton Hall, was built in 1663 but the besieging Jacobean army burnt it down in 1688. Thomas’s son, Captain Alex Skipton, built this third and present house in 1729. He gave it the name Beech Hill, on account of the number of beech trees then growing around it.

Beech Hill County House, now a beautiful hotel in tranquil surroundings. The strange Revd Alexander is said to have haunted the building since 1793.