I’ve mentioned more than once how one of the highlights of Halloween growing up in Cheekpoint in the 1970s was my father’s ghost stories. One I remember concerns an incident that befell one of his drinking buddies. Martin, RIP, well known to all in the community as a quiet, inoffensive man who liked a drink and a chat. He was a regular in Butler’s bar at the West End of Cheekpoint, close to his home.

Like most men of his era from the community, Martin went to sea at a young age. Lads would ship out and could be gone for weeks, months, or even years. Occasionally, they might “Pay Off” a ship close to home and make a trip back to their family and friends. On one occasion, Martin was aboard a ship that docked at Dublin, and he decided to leave the ship and head home.

Being “paid off” meant that he was given the balance of his wages that had accrued whilst aboard the ship less whatever the half that was sent home and whatever was drawn on when in a foreign port or other shipboard expenses.  So sailors coming home were always welcome, both to their families and friends.

Martin made the journey by train from Dublin and then took Kenneally’s bus from the Clock Tower in Waterford to Orpen’s bar at Knockboy.  He dropped in for a large bottle of stout to clear the dust from his throat, and from there he shanksmared it to Jack Meades.

As it was now getting dusk, Martin reluctantly decided to “slip his moorings” from the comfort of Meades bar and move closer to “home waters”. So bidding the company good evening, he shouldered his seaman’s duffle bag, and proceeded up Redmond’s Hill, turned left at the forge, along Woodlands Avenue, crossed the Faithlegg Pill and then through the Oak Woods to the Glen.

As the evening filled in, a drizzle came down. Martin opted to take the Glazing Woods, and then via the Deeny Road to the Old Road. The branches above, heavy with wet, pressed low and close, and with each step the world around him grew quieter. At the junction of the Old Road, Martin noticed a sharp drop in temperature, followed by a creeping mist that coiled around his body, blurring the path before him. Within moments, he was no longer certain of his bearings. Pausing, he reached out his hands to feel for the ditch, but found only the damp emptiness of the fog.

Then—without sound or warning—a figure emerged from the white shroud. Martin’s breath caught; instinctively, he stumbled back. His heart thudded in his ears. “Good night,” he managed to mutter, though his voice sounded small and strange to him.

“Aye… the wanderer returns,” came the reply, low and oddly distant, though the figure was only a few steps away. At once, relief flickered through Martin—the voice was familiar, known to all as “oul Power the Glen”. Yet something about the tone was off: slower, heavier, as if spoken from deep within the mist itself.

Martin forced a smile and passed the figure, but each time he tried to move off, Power moved with him, his shadowed shape keeping pace, his voice droning on about village news. The more he spoke, the less Martin heard. The cold deepened. His fingers numbed. He wanted to go—needed to—but every attempt to leave was met by another story, another reason to linger. At last, the figure turned aside and said, almost in a whisper, “Good night, Martin.”

Before Martin could answer, the mist shifted, and the man was gone. Grateful to be released, he ran down the Old Road, the ground slick beneath his boots. Moments later the fog thinned and the drizzle eased, and he realised the air had grown warmer, the cold had vanished. He stopped and glanced back. The path behind him was clear, and where the figure had stood, there was only the whisper of the wind moving through the trees. And then, from somewhere deep in the woods above Fairymount came the faint echo of a voice—his own name—spoken in that same slow drawl – “Good night, Martin.”

Martin ran the rest of the way before he stumbled over the threshold of Butlers Pub, gasping for breath. In the heat and brightness, the fear he felt reduced and as he recognised old friends and acquaintances, his assurance returned.  Shur wasn’t he a silly man to get so spooked by the dark night. He called for a round and as his mates gathered round he gave them an update on his voyage. He called for a second drink, and with this, the talk turned to more local stories.  As each one was introduced, Martin was quick to finish the account.  A shotgun wedding, he knew, birth of a child, he knew, so and so fighting over a drift, shur he knew.

“By God Martin, but yer well informed,” said Maggie Butler from behind the bar.

“Arragh he’s home since yesterday” said one.

“He must have heard it all in Meades” said another.

“He might have come across a crystal ball out foreign” said another with a laugh.

“Yer all wrong” said Martin, “shur didn’t I meet oul Power the Glen on my way down off the Old Road – I couldn’t get away from him, he had all the news” Martin was suddenly conscious of the hush that had descended and the strange look in the eyes of the clientele of the pub.

“Well” said Maggie Butler from behind her bar, “if ye did meet oul Power he left one vital bit of news out”

The colour drained from Martin when he heard that Oul Power had died the week before and was found on the Old Road, frozen and stiff just about where he met him.  According to my father, he didn’t sober up for a week. And so convinced was he that it was a portent of doom, he came ashore from that time and never returned to sea.  Fact or fiction I never knew, as my father warned me never to upset the man by asking.  Although maybe it was just another one of his tall stories that he didn’t want exposed.

Although Martin is now gone to his eternal reward, I decided not to give his full name. Obviously, most locals will know exactly who I am referring to. I have no idea who the old man my father was referring to, and at this stage, I am not sure if it was Faithlegg or the Glen, but it was one or the other. All I do know is that we always ran past that spot on the Old Road and I am sure most of my contemporaries will have shared my fear. A very ancient Scots Pine tree was on the ditch there and we never went by it without a branch cracking off and crashing to the ground. I’m delighted to be asked to tell some scary stories at Christ Church Cathedral tomorrow night – Saturday 1st Nov at 7.30pm. See poster above.

For more ghoulish tales check out the Halloween tab.

I will also speak the the following conference:

WATERFORD PEOPLE & THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Date: Saturday 8th November 2025
Time: 10am – 4pm
Location: Dr. Mary Strangman Large Room, City Hall, Waterford (enter via the Medieval Museum)
In 2025, with support from Creative Waterford, Waterford Treasures undertook an oral history project to collect and preserve memories from the Second World War on the eightieth anniversary of its end.

Join us for a free conference to celebrate the people of Waterford who lived through this period and some little known aspects of the time known in Ireland as ‘The Emergency’.

You can book a spot here.  Or email [email protected]

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