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...
The Waterford Poltergist
The following story comes from the newspapers of February 1892 and concerns the haunting of an ex-RIC man who had taken up residence in the home of an evicted family. In February 1892 a family by the man of Kingworth (Kingsworth by some accounts) had a fearful...
The Bannow Bay Ghost Ship
The Irish newspapers of Christmas 1831 were alight with speculation after a ship sailed onto the sand banks of Bannow, Co Wexford with no crew. Aboard was a full cargo, some blood-stained clothing, a box of silver dollars and a dog. The ship was the La Bonne Julie of...
Digging up our dead – The Body Snatcher era
I remember hearing many years back an account of the body snatchers who resurrected a lady in Kilkenny. The story went that a wealthy lady from Ballinlaw on the River Barrow died and was buried in Slieverue. It was a time when even the dead could not rest...
Ghost Ship Maury
The appearance of a ghost ship on the Cork coastline during the recent Storm Dennis raised many eyebrows and prompted a flood of questions. The vessel was the cargo ship MV Alta abandoned in the mid-Atlantic in 2018 when ten crew members were rescued from the ship by...
Oiche Samhain, 1970’s Cheekpoint
As a child, Halloween was a lot simpler. There again in the early 1970's with one TV channel (RTE 1), the ability of advertisers or foreign TV shows to influence our daily lives was much less than today. Although they are very different countries between then and...
An Sí Gaoithe, the Fairy wind
I'm occasionally asked what I miss most about drift-netting for Salmon. When it stopped in 2006 I was fishing on a part time basis, but I refused to participate in the buy out of licences, preferring instead to hope for a return. So when I answer, I'm usually a bit...
The Banshee attack at Coolbunnia
Halloween is upon us again. In the past it was a very different occasion and I've written about the Halloween of my childhood before. Now it wouldn't be Halloween without a Ghost story and here's one my Father told1. "There was a family called Walsh who lived above...
The night the “devil” came for the captains corpse
I was raised on the story of Captain Udvardy's grave in Faithlegg, which is marked with a very distinctive palm tree My grandmother was a young girl at the time, and was a front-seat witness to the affair, and had played a cameo role in the tale. Despite all the...
the Faithlegg woman who died twice?
One of the oldest grave stones in Faithlegg belongs to a family named Fortune. But the headstone creates a bit of a stir...it gives two dates of death for the lady...1745 & 1746 The headstone reads; Here lyeth ye body of ANSTAS FORTUNE alias QUINLAN...
Oiche Samhain
As a child, Halloween was a lot simpler and cheaper. There again in the mid 1970's with one TV channel and limited radio, the ability of advertisers or foreign TV shows to influence our daily lives was much less than today. Although they are very different...
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