Haunted Kilkenny E-Book

Cormac Strain

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Modern tales of poltergeists in housing estates, phantom voices, ghostly nannies, white ladies and banshees - this isn't the stuff of oft repeated folklore; these are freshly discovered ghostly tales from the people of Kilkenny. Ideal for the paranormal enthusiast, the local historian, the Kilkenny diaspora abroad and anyone who enjoys a good, scary story, Haunted Kilkenny is a book for everyone. All you need is to remain calm, don't panic and remember it's only a book…

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Foreword

one Laura

two Shankill Castle

three I Think I’ll Just Move

four The Shadow People

five Foulksrath Castle

six The Glowing Man

seven The Back of an Old Man’s Head

Copyright

Foreword

There is a certain pride that comes with being Irish. A journey around our fair country will bring the visitor to a variety of breath-taking landscapes dotted with ancient ruins, many of which pre-date the great pyramids of Egypt.

Those that take the time to mix with the locals will be introduced to a plethora of legends and fables of Irish myth and magic, and of ghosts and fairies, all told with a charm and grace which is unique to this land.

Cormac has brought us a wonderfully charming book of modern ghost stories, written in this unique Irish way. It will bring a smile to your face while you reflect and also horrify you as you hear tales of terrifying hauntings. These magnificently written tales from County Kilkenny are balanced with history and rational thought and will leave the reader with a lingering chill.

As the reader is introduced to Kilkenny they will discover, that even in this modern age of the electric light, nothing stops the world of the supernatural from reaching out its cold fingers and caressing your brow as you slumber.

Barry Fitzgerald

one

Laura

Just thinking about this story gives me the chills. It is farm fresh. When it was sent to me by email, I just had to visit the man concerned and hear it directly from him. I was freaked out the whole way home.

After a ten- or fifteen-minute car journey out of Kilkenny City, you’ll find yourself in the townland of Castlecomer. Follow one of the numerous country back-roads and you will find yourself on a stretch of road that runs past a small cluster of houses. These small bungalows were probably built sometime in the 1950s. They are complete with respectable front gardens and originally had allotments which have been transformed into back gardens.

Tom Murphy had been the proud owner of a bungalow in the area for a number of years. His paremts, grandparents and many of his relatives were all born and bred within ten miles of his own front door, as was he himself. Tom had left Kilkenny for the bright lights of the United States in the dark, dark days of the 1980s but returned in 1997, eager to find a nice home to settle down in.

Tom was more focused on saving a nest egg and building a life for himself than on scouring the nightclubs for a girlfriend. He was a lazy bachelor who knew that he’d find the right woman whenever he actually started looking. It’s a strange thing to be introducing at the start of a ghost story, but it’s an important fact to remember. This is how he began:

The local pub that I would normally visit isn’t too far away from here. It’s too long to walk, and I don’t have a car so I usually make the trip on my bicycle. It’s my main mode of transport and it keeps me fit. My workplace is about six miles away where I do shift work, so the bike is very handy to have.

On the way, you have to pass a small graveyard. It must be of a decent age since it’s been a long time since anyone has been buried there and it’s wildly overgrown. You have to go right past it to get to the pub. On the way back, I don’t know why it used to be in my head, but I used to always say ‘God save everyone here’, but I’d be half jarred so I’d normally add ‘and if God can’t, sure I’ll try. Just follow me on home!’ Obviously I was only messing; I’d never think anything of it for a long time.

One would assume that it’s not a wise idea to habitually invite ghosts to your home. They may not have retained their sense of humour in the afterlife and instead take you seriously. Tom found this out the hard way:

I never had any ‘experiences’ in the graveyard, even though it was a place I’d pass quite often during the day and night. I was on my way home from work one night, after the four ’til midnight shift. I’d usually stay awake until five or six in the morning before turning in. On this particular night a friend of mine, Alan, had arranged to drop over to discuss some local GAA matters. Alan lived over to the other side of here, in the opposite direction of my journey back from work, but he lives within walking distance.

After cycling along the road outside, I pulled up to the house, put the bike in the shed, and let myself in to the house. I was in the kitchen putting on the kettle when I saw the outline of a person just outside the kitchen window. Someone had stolen around the side of the house and seemed to be peering in the back window. I grabbed the nearest thing to me, which happened to be a dishcloth – I’ve no idea how that was supposed to help – and made a dash for the back door and out to the garden.

‘It’s just me! It’s just me!’

It was kind of a loud harsh whisper. If you can imagine someone shouting, while whispering, it’ll give you an idea.

‘Alan!’ I said. ‘What the hell are you doing? Has the front door disappeared or something? What are you doing in the garden?’

‘Ah now, Tom’, he replied. ‘Who is she?’

I had no idea what this man was on about. He obviously thought I had a new girlfriend and she was in the house. I know Alan; he’d want more information before knocking on the door. That’s why he was sneaking around the garden, trying to get a look inside to see who was there.

‘Who is “she”?’ I asked him, still trying to work out where this was all going. ‘I am literally just in the door from work and I was just sticking on the kettle and get a brew going before you got here. Really, what are you on about?’

Five minutes of discussion followed during which Alan informed me that he believed that I had a lady with me. It didn’t matter what I said. Alan didn’t believe me. In fact, he sounded almost insulted that I was daring to keep up this apparent charade.

‘OK. So you are telling me you didn’t bring anyone home with you tonight? Yes?’ I nodded in agreement.

‘Obviously’, I said. ‘I was on my bike’.

‘Then in that case, you wouldn’t mind if I have a look around?’ he asked.

Now, as I said, I know Alan well. He’s one of my main buddies and we hang out together a lot. It was obvious that he believed he’d find someone, and I just knew that I’d have to go through this little rigmarole before I could get Alan to just tell me who he thought was there. I let him search. He didn’t find anyone, but not from want of trying. He must have watched a lot of cop shows, because he looked everywhere: in the washing machine, under the sink, in the garden.

Finally he seemed to give up. He found me in the kitchen, looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘No, seriously. Who was that woman on the back of your bike?’

One great thing about interviewing people in person, rather than through the internet, is, not only do you hear what they say, but you can also see their reactions to their own experiences. Tom, to this day, still finds that it was the most shocking question he has ever been asked. He had to reply with the question, ‘When was there a woman on the back of my bike?’

Alan had been making his way along the road to Tom’s. He was in no hurry as he knew Tom wouldn’t be back quite yet. ‘Should be perfect timing’, he thought. Outside the small row of cottages were two bright orange lights which transformed complete darkness to a kind of orangey glow. Alan was fast approaching this welcoming light when he spied Tom’s tiny little front light making its way from the other end of the street. That was Tom alright. He was just reaching the far streetlight so it was easy to see him. Riding passenger was a woman of about twenty-five years, wearing a pale-coloured dress. She was holding onto Tom’s shoulder lightly with one hand, and the other holding on to the back of the seat.

‘No … seriously … who was that woman on the back of your bike?’ (© Gala Hutton, 2012)

He didn’t get a good look, as this was a bit unexpected for a start, but also because Tom was fairly belting it along the road. Within seconds he had gone up along the side of the house. (It was only a couple of days later that Alan realised that the weather was pretty bad that night, yet the woman didn’t look like she had suffered from it at all.)

Had Tom forgotten about their meeting? He surely would have texted him if he had decided to go on a last-minute date. Wouldn’t any self-respecting citizen who didn’t wish to be disturbed on such an occasion? Now this is a bit of a pickle, thought Alan.

Finally, he decided to do a quick bit of scouting before knocking on the door. If there was a lady in the house with him, then Alan would make his way off home. If he couldn’t see anyone, then he’d chance knocking on the door. It was shortly after this that Alan saw Tom out to the garden, armed with a dishcloth. Tom continued:

When he told me this, I wasn’t too sure what to think. There was no one with me – I know that for a fact – but Alan was quite adamant that there was. We seemed to come to an uneasy truce where if he didn’t ask anymore, then I wouldn’t deny it. There had not been anyone else with me on the bicycle, so I would have had a hard time pretending there was just to keep Alan happy.

That was the way I left it all and I didn’t give it any more thought. A few weeks later, again just after midnight, I arrived home. I had just hung my coat on the bottom of the banister, when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed someone at the top of the stairway. By the time I’d realised this, I was halfway down the hallway to the kitchen. I stopped in my tracks and thought, ‘Did I just see someone at the top of the stairs?’ I immediately went back, looked up, but there was no one there.

Then I got the fear, you know, thinking, ‘Oh God, there’s a burglar in the house!’ I ran down into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and ran back to the stairwell. It took me ages to go up the stairs all the same. I had my back to the wall the whole way, honestly believing someone was about to pounce on me, but there was no one there. I searched all of upstairs and the house was just as I had left it. No sign of anyone.

By the time I was downstairs with a mug of coffee watching the television, I had got to thinking about the old farmhouse that had been here and the stories about it. I had completely forgotten all about that until then. When my grandfather was a child, this plot of land was the ruins of an old farmstead. It had been ruins in his father’s time, and no one would build on it because of the ghost of a young child that haunted it.

The story goes that in the early nineteenth century the farmstead was a profitable business. The working conditions were not ethical by today’s standards and the farmer employed many people, some as young as eight or nine years of age. To the back of the property – which would have probably been in the same area as Tom’s house – there was a well. One morning, while water was being drawn, the pulley system collapsed and large pieces of wood fell down the well and blocked it. Normally the farmer wouldn’t involve himself in day-to-day farm matters, but considering that someone would have to be sent down to clear it out, the farmer had to be notified. It was decided that one of the children would be slowly lowered down by rope, to clear out the wood. Then they would repair the pulley. The farmer himself would anchor the rope.

Unfortunately, the rope broke and the child fell to his death. Within five years, the farmstead was no longer profitable. Within ten years, it was in ruins. Some very bad business deals had been made by the farmer.

The farmer couldn’t handle the guilt and grief he felt after the death in the well. He drank too much and ended it all by jumping into the well himself. It was only a matter of months before people in the area muttered about the ghost of a child haunting the farmer. It is said that it was this relentless reminder that eventually drove him insane. Certainly, by the time Tom’s grandfather was growing up, it seemed to be an accepted fact that there was a malevolent spirit roaming the farm ruins.

This is what was going through Tom’s mind as he sat watching television, trying to work out whether he had really seen someone at the top of the stairs or not.