Strange Happenings Near Derry.
Mysterious noises at Newbuildings. A house with a “spell”. Priest, police and neighbours called in. But still weird knockings go on.
Mysterious and weird noises have occurred in the little whitewashed two-storeyed home in the main street of Newbuildings of two elderly ladies during the past few nights, and have excited considerable alarm and a tremendous amount of interest not only in the immediate vicinity of the village but throughout a wide area, including Londonderry, where many have heard of the strange story.
The unearthly noises, which have been described as supernatural and ghostly by those who have heard them, have been going on now from Monday night, and no amount of investigation and watching, even by the R.U.C. from the Waterside Barracks in Londonderry, has been of the slightest service in finding out their cause or preventing them from taking place.
The house where they have occurred with unnerving and unfailing regularity night after night, between midnight and five o’clock a.m., is in the middle of three slated residences in a row at the entrance to the village from Londonderry, which is only four miles away, and its occupants are two elderly ladies, Annie Devine and Mrs. Grace Kilgore, her sister, and the little girl Kilgore.
They have only been in the house for the past three weeks, having come to live there from a house at the other end of the village. Their predecessors as tenants of the house were a family of the name of Tate, who have gone to the Rosemount district of Londonderry, after being three years in residence in Newbuildings. It is not known, by the way, if they have ever heard anything in the matter of strange noises.
The noises first occurred on Monday night as the occupants were retiring to a room upstairs, in which there is a hollow wooden partition. The occupants were alarmed by loud hammering on the partition and in other parts of the room, the noise being accompanied by sounds like that which would be made by the scraping of fingers on wood. The people in the house were, of course, unable to get any sleep that night, as the noises continued till five in the morning.
It was thought that the noises, which were incapable of explanation, would not continue, but the occupants of the house got kindly neighbours to keep them company on the next night. Again the nerve-wracking sounds began, accompanied by the monotonous scraping sound, and not all the investigation or watching was of use. The unnatural -sounding noises continued in spite of everything.
Acting on the advice of neighbours, it was decided to call on the police, and Sergeant Blevins and other constables from the Waterside Barracks came to the house on Wednesday night, but, remarkable as it may appear, the combined forces of the neighbours and police, who were actually in the room, did not prove of any benefit, as at the midnight hour the mysterious noises once more began.
All the people in the house could do was to sit and listen to these most upsetting sounds. It was thought there was some agency acting between the partition boards, but on one occasion an alert constable, on hearing the loud rapping, jumped forward and wrenched away part of the structure, but he could see nothing, and still the knocking continued.
The noises, it appears, are not continuous, but go on for a time, then cease for a time, and then start again, just as the people listening and waiting have thought they were finished.
On Thursday night, so far had matters gone, and so baffling were they that the Rev. B. Smith, C.C., of St. Columba’s Chapel, Waterside, was called to visit the house. He did so, but even while the priest, the police, and a number of neighbours were there the noises again happened, beginning at the same time and ending finally about dawn yesterday morning.
Last evening a “Sentinel” representative visited the disturbed home of the old ladies. While our representative was in the house the old ladies and the little girl were partaking of an evening meal, and at frequent intervals neighbours called for a few words of conversation. When questioned about the occurrences the old ladies were reluctant to speak of them, regarding them clearly as supernatural and out of their hands. One of them, when asked was she not afraid, declared – “I think it is a ‘spell.’ I believe some person has a ‘spell’ cast on the house, but God is stronger than the devil, and I am not afraid. Neither is my sister.”
In conversation with them our representative learned that the police had been in the house till early in the morning, and were to call every night, if requested. If the agencies were those of ill-disposed persons they expressed their determination not to be afraid.
The occupants of the house, in fact, are not in the least afraid, with the police and neighbours at hand. They state that they can offer no explanation of the occurrences. They believe, failing any other explanation, that somebody, although not in the house at the time, has a “spell” over the house.
One of them said the noises could be heard as far off as a public-house at the corner of the road leading to Donemana, more than a stone’s throw away.
One neighbour, when speaking to the “Sentinel” representative, actually said – “I have told the old lady that somebody has cast a ‘spell’ over the house – somebody that has gained knowledge from a bad book. It is nothing earthly. Of that I am sure. The person who has cast the evil ‘spell’ over the house has to come near it in the morning to call it off, and I would watch at dawn, and when the noises stop I would see who is nearest the house and accuse him.”
A local grocer’s assistant said – “You want to know if there is anybody in the village likely to be responsible for this? He will not be caught until the devil himself is caught.”
The old ladies expressed their appreciation of the kindness of the neighbours. They have now sat up four nights and are feeling the effects of their unpleasant experiences.
Our representative visited the scene of the mysterious noises before midnight last night, when around the house were gathered a large number of people from the surrounding countryside, as well as numerous cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians who had come from Londonderry. Some of the people, in fact, expressed their intention of remaining till dawn.
About eleven o’clock slight noises were heard in the upstairs room, but no amount of searching revealed anything. The little girl Kilgore was frightened, and was removed to the house of a next-door neighbour, where she remained by the fireside for the rest of the night.
It appears that when the noises occurred on Thursday night the vibration of the partition was so intense that an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary fell off, and was broken.
When the police pulled away one complete side of the partition the single sheeting could be seen vibrating with the noises.
Rev. B. Smith told the occupants of the house that he would see the parish priest, and the Bishop, if necessary.
All last night and till an early hour this morning the large crowd remained, speaking in whispers. There was an air of mystery about the place. The room upstairs was in darkness, the only light seen being that of the police torchlights. The police last night were under Head Constable Neely, who left at midnight, a number of police being left to watch the premises.
None of the occupants of the three houses had any sleep last night, for the noises have been such that sleep for these people was absolutely out of the question. During the last few days the people were inclined to treat the matter lightly, but on Thursday night and last night the atmosphere was intense.
Up till one o’clock this morning nothing unusual was heard apart from the slight repetition at eleven o’clock, after which the little girl was taken out of the house. The people remained in the kitchen till an early hour, when, it is understood, at that time the police were about to close the house and let all the occupants go to the next-door neighbour’s home.
The greatest sympathy is being shown for the people of the house in their un-nerving experience.
Some time ago in the South of Ireland there was a somewhat similar case, but the noises occurred throughout the day and night. They were proved to have been echoes of noises caused by an unknown well under the house. In another somewhat similar case it was discovered that the cause of the noise was a white owl in a nearby tree. There are trees about twenty yards distant from the Devine’s house.
Londonderry Sentinel, 30th April 1932.
Co. Derry Ghost Scare.
Mysterious noises in a house.
Even policeman “defied.”
Excited villagers.
The little village of Newbuildings, a few miles from Derry, has been the scene of no little excitement during the week. In one of the small houses of the only street in the village, strange noises have been heard in the early hours of the morning. These sounds, which took the form of loud hammering and scraping on the wooden partition in an upstairs bedroom of the house, aroused other inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who came to the scene and made investigations, but nothing was discovered.
On Friday morning the noises became more terrifying than ever, and the police and a priest were sent for. The police stayed in the house, but still the knocking continued as loudly as ever. One constable located the spot where the weird noise appeared to be coming, and suddenly pulled off several of the boards, only to find a bare wall, while the sounds irritatingly kept on. They eventually stopped shortly after five o’clock.
A “Telegraph” representative visited the village on Friday afternoon and the story was confirmed by several residents. One of the occupants of the house, who was in no way perturbed, told him that they had only been in occupation of the house for three weeks. She thought it was something supernatural, although she did not believe in ghosts. “I am not afraid, but it is very annoying,” she said.
The neighbours put forward the extraordinary theory to our representative that somebody had cast a spell on the house and took it off during the day.
The occurrence, which has caused a considerable amount of comment both in the village and in Derry, is being investigated by the police.
Belfast Telegraph, 30th April 1932.
A “Haunted House.”
Police watch all night.
Newbuildings village agog.
The strange and unnatural noises which have set the little village of Newbuildings, a few miles from Derry, agog with excitement during last week were heard again on Saturday night in what has come to be known locally as the Newbuildings haunted house.
The police and the occupants of the house remained awake all night to endeavour to discover the cause of the noises, but without success. Outside a crowd of people, a large number of whom walked from Derry, assembled and listened with awe to the monotonous noises. The knockings were clearly audible outside, but the scraping, of course, could not be heard. These noises, which have been described as ghostly, were not so loud as on previous occasions.
The house is one of three two-storied whitewashed houses situated on the right-hand-side of the road at the Derry end of the village, and comprises a kitchen and bedroom on the ground floor and a room upstairs. It was in the back room on the ground floor that the knockings were first heard. The police on Saturday night [30th] investigated the room, where a 16-year-old girl was sleeping. It is stated that the investigations revealed that the happenings were of unnatural origin. It was freely asserted on the roadside that the little girl is the subject of psychic influences.
Belfast Telegraph, 2nd May 1932.
The Rappings Cease at Newbuildings’ House.
Crowd’s vigil for nothing.
The Newbuildings ghost has apparently been “laid,” or, at any rate, has suspended its “mysterious” manifestations, and the hundreds of people who on Sunday night waited outside the house, where the partition had been vibrating with noises on other occasions, had their vigil for nothing.
The house itself was closed at midnight, and the occupants removed to another cottage nearby, and there was no traces of any mysterious noises, while the partition remained as silent as any other wooden construction in the village.
Belfast Telegraph, 2nd May 1932.
Weird Knockings.
Newbuildings Mystery Solved.
Extraordinary Scenes in Village.
Crowd’s All-night Vigil.
It was not till the early hours of Sunday morning that the mystery of the knockings and scrapings in a house in the village of Newbuildings was more or less solved and accounted for.
The three occupants of the house which during the week-end excited the interest and curiosity of the people of the North-West are Mrs. Grace Kilgore, her sister, Annie Devine, and her daughter, Gracie Kilgore, a seventeen-year-old girl.
The noises on the first four nights shook the whole house with the vibration, but on the fifth night (Friday) there was only a slight noise at eleven o’clock. The girl was then transferred to a next-door neighbour’s house, and there were no more disturbing sounds.
On Saturday the scene was visited by hundreds of people, and on Saturday night a crowd of about three hundred gathered around the house. The crowd waited patiently from eleven o’clock, passing the time by telling stories of previous mysteries, walking around the house, while the younger element, which included an equal proportion of youths from Londonderry and rustics from the surrounding countryside, treated the “mystery” with light-heartedness, and the night air reverberated with the sounds of their laughter and ribald comments.
Suddenly about twelve o’clock the noises began to be heard by the crowd, which at that time blocked up the roadway, there being also a large number of people in the garden at the back of the house. The noise startled everybody outside and some of the people inside the house, who had no suspicion of its origin just then.
The crowd was hushed to silence, which was broken by a burst of laughter from a group of Londonderry youths at the gable end of the adjoining house.
The same knockings went on intermittently till after one o’clock. Some of the noises, as was learned afterwards, were made by people inside the house as experiments, but the crowd believed everything. Once, in fact, when one man was tapping the partition another near the door could be heard calling on the crowd for silence as “it” was “starting again.”
Other practical jokers were going around the house tapping people on the legs, and for a time there were some, including a policeman in mufti, off duty, who received a fright from this source. Others of a mischievous turn of mind were rattling keys, breaking bottles, and throwing stones on the roof with the object of frightening the more credulous.
Had it not been for the fine manner in which the police, assisted by the neighbours, handled the unusual situation for the householders and the village generally would have been almost unbearable.
As the crowd became somewhat accustomed to the noises they began to treat the matter with the greatest levity, making some choice comments about the “ghost.”
Inside the house, where our representative remained for over an hour during the final stages of the solving of the “mystery,” the scene was different. The kitchen was crowded, everybody offering their opinions. There were two or three kindly-disposed neighbours who went to the greatest trouble to establish proofs of their theories. It was more or less accepted by all that there were no agencies such as the running of water underground or any outside influence.
It was noticed that when the young girl was removed next door on Friday night there was no more disturbance, and it was decided to try a number of means of finding out the cause of all the noises. On one occasion the young girl was seen knocking at the partition after having left alone in the little back room where she sleeps. There followed a long argument till about two o’clock as to the cause of the disturbances, and during this time the little girl was repeatedly visited, but made no audible reply to anything said to her, in spite of threats and promises.
Different opinions were advanced as to the source of the noises, and some of the people made amazing statements, which they said they were ready to swear by. The discussion continued till two o’clock, when the assemblage in the house broke up, it being safe to say that a considerable number were totally unconvinced as to the simple explanation offered by the rest of the neighbours, although they agreed on the general lines as to where the responsibility belonged.
Most of the crowd remained to listen for more noises, being unaware of the general agreement reached as to the cause of the noises by those inside. It must have been intensely annoying to the neighbours, in view of the developments of Saturday night, to see the same curious crowd gathering again on Sunday night, as those inside the houses knew there would be nothing happening.
On Sunday night, in spite of an all night vigil by part of the crowd, absolutely nothing happened, and to those few of the crowd who knew what had taken place in the house on Saturday night the situation was most amusing.
The crowd, well over five hundred, came from all parts of the North-West, but mainly from Londonderry and the surrounding countryside. On one side of the road there was a row of motor cars and cycles, while every other few minutes cars would stop opposite the house for a short time.
The house, on which all eyes were trained at the times when somebody near the front would call “Silence,” was in complete darkness, and not a sound came from it, the occupants having gone to bed. Two policemen were on duty, but they were there for precautionary measures on account of the crowd surging about the houses. It must have been the strangest night duty they were ever detailed for. The conduct of the crowd was much the same as on Saturday night, except that a spirit of buffoonery was more in evidence than ever. On one occasion somebody kicked the door of the next-door neighbour, calling forth an irate occupant, armed with a torch lamp.
It was an extraordinary spectacle, indeed, to see the large crowd standing gazing at the house and passing the time in something like the way a crowd waiting on the start of a football match is ready to laugh at anything. In spite of what advice they were given a big part of the crowd remained till nearly dawn without having their morbid curiosity satisfied.
Last night, for the third night in succession, a large crowd left the city to visit the scene. As early as five o’clock, indeed, about fifty people were congregated in the vicinity. Last night one band of youths, leaving the city from the Rossville-street direction, included a ukelele player in their company.
Londonderry Sentinel, 3rd May 1932.
[excerpt]
When on Saturday night the little girl, Gracie Kilgore was found tapping the partition wall that divides the kitchen from a bedroom on the ground floor, it was assumed that she was responsible for the weird knockings and scrapings which had occurred nightly from the Monday previous, but there has been no explanation of the eerie effects produced or of how it came that the volume of sound created by the unseen agency was much greater than when anybody else tried tapping the wall.
It has transpired that the girl’s mother and her aunt, the only other occupants of the house, were actually standing on the street during the early hours of Thursday morning while the noises were occurring inside the house.
The strain of the excitement, it is stated, has affected the little girl so much, that it has been deemed advisable to have her removed to the house of an uncle who resides in the Drumahoe district.
Derry Journal, 4th May 1932.
The Newbuildings Mystery. Getting back to normal.
The Newbuildings mystery is over so far as the public are concerned. The little girl of the house where the strange noises were heard has been removed for a time, it is understood, to the home of friends at Slaughtmanus.
There were only a few people on the scene on Tuesday night, while last night the life of the village was practically normal again.
While the mystery of the noises has not been fully explained, it has been solved so far as to remove it from the status of a “ghost” story worth going any distance to stand outside another person’s house all night in order to be on the scene.
Londonderry Sentinel, 5th May 1932.
County Derry Ghost.
“Weird Noises” Only.
Great crowds from Derry City during the week-end crowded into the little village of Newbuildings, four miles away, where the mysterious nightly noises have been heard in a small white-washed cottage occupied by two elderly ladies, Annie Devine and her sister, Mrs. Grace Kilgore, as well as by Mrs. Kilgore’s daughter, Grace Kilgore.
All efforts to trace the origin of the noises have completely failed, and the villagers are convinced that they are of supernatural origin. The noises were first heard by the occupants as they were about to retire to bed one night last week. They consisted of a loud hammering on the hollow wooden partition, and in other parts of the bedroom, accompanied by sounds resembling the scraping of fingers on wood.
The noises continued during the night, and were again heard on subsequent nights when neighbours and police were present. Once a policeman, when he heard the noises, wrenched away part of the partition, and the knocking continued. When one complete side of the partition was pulled away, the single sheeting could be seen vibrating.
The Rev. B. Smith, C.C., Waterside, visited the house about two o’clock on Friday morning. While he was there the weird noises did not occur. The crowds remained in the house till the early hours on Sunday morning. At three o’clock on Sunday morning hundreds were gathered in the vicinity of the house. The occupants of the house have spent several sleepless nights as a result of the noises, and are only able to get some hours sleep during the day.
Several Press representatives who stayed in the house from 12 o’clock till 3 on Sunday morning and heard the noises described them as very weird. The girl, Kilgore, was asleep in an adjoining room when the noises were heard, and a policeman on hearing the noise hurriedly entered into the room. He is said to have found her tapping the wall. Other persons, however, then tried tapping the wall, but it was found that the noise they made was only slight. No matter how much they tried the volume of sound they produced was nothing like the noises which have been occurring, and which seem to shake the house. They can even be heard about 500 yards away.
The girl, who is aged 17, did not seem to show any concern about the weird happenings.
When the policeman pulled away the side of the partition where the hammering and scrapings were heard the single sheeting was vibrating so intensely that an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary hanging on the other side fell off and was broken. In the room where the partition is the only light was that of the police searchlights. No amount of search, watch or investigation has revealed anything likely to be responsible for the weird noises, and their intensity and regularity seem to rule out the possibility of echoes.
Mid-Ulster Mail, 7th May 1932.
long article in Derry Journal 2nd May but no additional information
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001123/19320502/126/0008