John Seymour & Harry Neligan - True Irish Ghost Stories

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John Seymour & Harry Neligan - True Irish Ghost Stories (Senate, 1994: originally Hodges, Figgis & Co., Dublin)

Simon Marsden, Coolbawn House, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.

St. John D. Seymour - Preface to First Edition
St. John D. Seymour - Preface to Second Edition

Haunted Houses in or near Dublin
Haunted Houses in Conn's Half
Haunted Houses in Mogh's Half
Poltergeists
Haunted Places
Apparitions at or After Death
Banshees, and Other Death-Warnings
Miscellanious Supernormal Experiences
Legendary and Ancestral Ghosts
Mistaken Identity - Conclusion

Index of Persons and Places

Blurb:

"To my horror, the footsteps ascended the stairs, and the bedroom door was violently dashed against a washing-stand... A cold perspiration broke out all over me; it was not actual fear, it was more than that. I felt I had come into contact with the unicorn.'
Who has not been held spellbound by tales of ghosts and haunted happenings? Are they true?
Editor John Seymour affirms: "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 ordinary matter of fact would be accepted without question.'
In compiling the book, newspaper readers throughout Ireland were invited to submit their recorded incidences of unusual happenings. The result is a delightful collection of tingling tales of poltergeists, supernatural experiences, haunted houses, death warnings and banshees - tales not of the imaginary but the faithful recounting of people's actual experiences.

The first edition (1914), was compiled over a month from late October 1913, when the Rev. St. John D. Seymour first realised that, while "Books on Irish fairy and folklore there were in abundance - some of which could easily be spared," he had yet to find a single work devoted to his country's ghost stories. Not knowing of any himself, Seymour duly wrote to the day's principal newspapers, encouraging the readers to send in their own true ghost experiences. The names of the many who responded are gratefully acknowledged over two pages of his preface. Essentially, the result is an Irish The People's Ghost Stories a century before Richard Felix's (very) challenging, predominantly English version.

Haunted Houses in or near Dublin: Mrs. G. Kelly on the phantom charlady of ______________ Square (she won't tolerate rearrangement of furniture and is hostile toward guests). Major MacGregor on the month he spent in a room haunted by the "warm, plump and soft" disembodied hand and lower arm of a long deceased family member. Mrs. E. de Lacy recalls a certain semi-detached house in the suburbs which has proved an impossible long-term let on account of its resident ghost, that of a former occupant who saw out his final years in a lunatic asylum. Among his victims, a cook found hanging from a hook in the kitchen, and a female caretaker fortuitously rescued by a passing constable as she clung precariously to a windowsill. Alas, all he could learn from the poor woman was that something terrible had forced her from the premises, after which she lapsed into terminal idiocy. Chaper also remarks a fastidious ghost at Marsh's library (always puts books away after him); a limping bell-ringer at Rathgar; a skulking, "villainous looking" spectral hag at Kingstown; and a clergyman who, intent on sleeping the night in a schoolroom, was driven out by an awful floating face bearing "an expression of wickedness and hate upon it which no words could describe."

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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, 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 immediately 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. 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 commenced 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.

Haunted Houses in Conn's Half: Ghosts macabre, malevolent, dreary and/ or plain mediocre of the North. Sample entries; Who dares venture along the old Mill Road on the hill of the Headless Man?; River-horses at play in Lough Nacorra; Mrs. A Chesson of Roscommon on the nocturnal knocker of Emo House, Co. Westmeath; "A lady who desires to have names of persons and places suppressed" on the ghost of a commercial traveller, mistaken for a spy and shot dead by Fenians in a Mullinger hotel room; Rev. Leslie C. Davis, rector of Castle Connell, recalls a phantom knee-grabber stirring him awake in the night in a house said to have witnessed murder; 'A Lady' reports on phantom horse hooves on spectral cobblestones outside in the yard and poltergeist activity within a small house in Co. Mayo. A different Lady on she and late husband's traumatic stay at a cottage in the same county. A Doctor friend would later inform them of a previous tenant, a school inspector, who fell into a depression and cut his throat. An ex-R.I.C. constable confides the haunting of a police barracks by a brutal invisible entity particularly hostile toward drunks (precise location withheld, though it has long since been demolished to make way for the railway); At Carna Kirk in the Clogher Valley, the Wilson family black sheep, believed to be living in Canada, was only prevented from throttling his sister by the timely intervention of their brother. Even as the assailant disappeared, the furniture came under poltergeist attack. Haunting ceased when the siblings sold the farmhouse and emigrated to the States. They would later discover that the disgraced brother had died early on the same day the persecution began; the vicious white lady of Drogheda who so brutally beat a nurse the poor woman died within two days; the same Mr. W. S. Thompson as provided details of the "unpleasant haunting" (see above) was soon at it again with a report on a murderous attack on his sister as she slept in the room above her shop, a groceries and spirits outlet. The ghost is believed to be that of a fanatical teetotaller. When the shop ceased operating as an off-licence, the would-be strangler went back to its grave. A lengthy chapter concludes with comparatively detailed reports of recent goings-on at two allegedly haunted rectories.

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Banshees, and Other Death-Warnings: "she is believed to be the spirit of a woman of unfortunate rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expatiate the dishonour done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat." As seen and reported by Lady Fanshawe, who encountered this miserable spectre - that of a young, comely, pale woman with dishevelled red hair and dress style long fallen out of fashion - while staying at a friend's ancient baronial castle (Gort, Co. Galway?) in 1642. A death in the family shortly followed. Mr. T. G. Westropp, M. A. is our source for a similar incident involving a ghostly grey-haired lady wearing a dark cloak running to and fro, chanting, wailing and carrying on in the churchyard at Kilchrist. An unidentified relative of either Rev. Seymour or his co-compiler, Mr. Neligan, met a banshee on a bridge immediately prior to the death of her grandfather in a freak accident. A boy in a public school was made aware of his brother's death in a shooting hours before being notified by telegram due to a visit from the family goblin. As reported in the Occult Reviewfor September, 1913, when an American sailing aboard a passenger yacht suggested a queer-looking, red haired spectral stowaway resembled a banshee, she was soon proved horribly right. Final word on subject, as so often the case, goes to Elliott O'Donnell: "The Banshee never manifests itself to the person whose death it is prognosticating. Other people may see or hear it, but the fated one never, so that when everyone present is aware of it but one, the fate of that one may be regarded as pretty well certain." So should you be visited by, relax, you're safe. It's the rest of the family have cause for concern.