Spiritualistic Manifestations in Fermanagh.
I have been credibly informed that, since the beginning of April, some extraordinary noises have been heard nightly in the house of a small farmer named Thompson, who resides at the foot of Knockmore Rock, about a mile from Derrygonnelly, on the road to Kiltyclogher. Knockings are heard in the house at night, and nothing in short inside the house can be said to be proof against what may be called its capricious action, the contents of the presses or cupboards, even while locked, being as easily manipulated and removed as if fingers of flesh and blood had the articles in their visible grasp.
The wonder-stricken occupants, who, by the way, are Protestants, have tried various modes of relieving themselves of the visitation, but, for so far, without having succeeded in its expulsion. Answers to questions proposed to the intruder are given by “knocks” in the fashion peculiar to spiritualistic agency; and several clergymen who have visited the place, and a Methodist class-leader are alike puzzled as to the supernatural manifestations of which I have endeavoured to convey a brief outline.
An Enniskillen gentleman, who is connected with one of the learned societies, on hearing of the matter, went out to the scene of its operations, and I believe the result of his visit, and the inquiries it led to, was not of a character to justify his supposing it a humbug or an illusion. Some persons assert that the “manifestations” have been cunningly exerted to prevent a marriage, whereby a stepmother would be introduced; and others, that they are nothing more than a quid pro quo for certain strong allusions to the Roman Catholic priesthood by a Protestant while on his death-bed.
Of course I cannot say anything as to the truth or otherwise of these reports. All I know is, that there is a belief in the existence of the “manifestations,” and that they are a puzzle for so far all who have undertaken to investigate the matter by hearing for themselves. I have not enumerated one-tenth of the strange vagaries perpetrated by the “spirit,” or whatever it may be, which I have heard ascribed to it, but I may have occasion to refer to the subject again. – Correspondent.
Belfast News-letter, 20th June 1877.
A Holiday Ramble Around Enniskillen.
… As if in keeping with the awful gloominess of these vast caves, and the terrible gloominess of the huge cliffs that frown over the lonely valley below, we learn that here under the very shadow of Knockmore, in this wild and lonely region, the solitary cottage of a little farmer is haunted by some troubled spirit. Most of the night the scratching of demoniacal claws, and the loud rappings of a wandering ghost, with stone-throwing, and stealing of lamps and candles by invisible hands, have been going on with scarcely an intermittance since Good Friday last. Neighbours and friends have in vain tried to fathom the mystery: it remains insoluble; the terrified family crouch together at night into one room, but cannot escape their cruel tormentors. The oddest part of the matter is that in this humble family, in the wilds of Fermanagh, are repeated all the strange disturbances that once haunted the Wesley family, and still later, a farmer’s household in the hamlet of Rochester, in the United States.
We stay and devote some nights to an attempt to discover or explain away this ghost of Knockmore- but in vain; it baffles us, and makes us look with more respect on the fairy tales of our childhood, or the spiritualism of the present day. To all lovers of the marvellous we heartily commend a trip to Lough Erne, not forgetting the caves in the cliffs and a night with the ghost of Knockmore.
Cavan Weekly News and General Advertiser, 3rd August 1877.
Ghosts.
As an illustration of the belief in ghosts which still exists, I have to mention two cases which have occurred within a few miles of Derrygonnelly. The first of these phantoms has been for months practising its pranks at the house of a respectable farmer in this locality. The spectre goes through an exciting programme nightly in exquisite style. It makes very loud noises by knocking and rapping in various ways, commits acts of theft by carrying away boots, stockings, lamps, candles, lamp-tops, and other articles, and acts the rowdy by throwing turf, stones, and divers other things about through the house in a very reckless manner.
The whole neighbourhood has for some time been in a regular commotion about this story; and many persons, incited by curiosity, have gone to visit this “haunted house” in order to satisfy themselves of the truth of what they heard. Scarcely a night passed that parties were not present at these singular noises, &c. Professor Barret, of Dublin, and the Rev. Mr Close, with other scientific gentlemen, were amongst the many who visited this particular house. Searching investigations were held as to the cause of these peculiar ghost-like achievements, and the conclusion arrived at was, that the noises were the work of some unknown agency.
I would myself have gone to hear this ghost were it not for an uncomfortable misgiving that perhaps it might take the fancy of appearing to me that it had taken to cultivate all this clamour.
The second or junior ghost, to which I now allude, has I believe commenced its operations in a neat little domicile in the immediate vicinity of the house troubled by Ghost No. 1. This junior spectre’s performances are in some particulars like the antics of its senior relative. It makes frightful noises, tears the wearing apparel of someof the inmates of the house, breaks delf, and, it is said, appears to those whom it wishes to terrify.
Surely a locality pestered with such a plague of phantoms may fairly be called a land of ghosts and goblins. – Cor.
People’s Advocate and Monaghan, Fermanagh and Tyrone News, 3rd November 1877.
The Demons of Derrygonelly.
Philosophers are prone to reject all philosophy but their own; and few men are free from unconscious bias. Before my story is read I would ask consideration for the following paragraph from Abercrombie (“Intellectual Powers,” 7th edit. pp. 74 and 76): –
“While an unbounded credulity is the part of a weak mind, which never thinks nor reasons at all, an unlimited scepticism is the part of a contracted mind, which reasons upon imperfect data, or makes its own knowledge and extent of observation the standard and test of probability. In judging of the credibility of a statement, we are not to be influenced simply by our actual experience of similar events; for this would limit our reception of new facts to their accordance with those which we already know.”
Amid the multitude of extraordinary letters which it has been my lot to receive during the past two years, the post brought me some few months ago a strange communication from a gentleman residing in Enniskillen. The writer, who was only known to me by the geological and archaeological contributions he had made to some of the learned societies, informed me that the cottage of a small farmer in one of the most secluded spots in the county Fermanagh had, for some months, been the seat of various strange and inexplicable disturbances; in a word, that the cottage was reputed to be haunted! Furthermore, that not only had some of the most veracious and shrewd people in the neighbourhood testified to the reality of the disturbances, but my correspondent, in utter scepticism and ridicule, having gone to expose the credulity of his neighbours, had returned convinced that no trickery was at work.
Confounded with the results of his inquiry, and utterly unable to throw any light on the matter, he wrote to beg me to visit the place; pointing out that even if the haunted house should go the way of its predecessors, still the beauty of Lough Erne, and the extraordinary limestone caves of the district might repay me for the journey.
(I may mention that my correspondent was Mr Thomas Plunkett, of Enniskillen. If Mr Smiles is on the look-out for a new hero to add to his self-made men, let me take the liberty of commending him to my correspondent. Mr Plunkett has, from his boyhood, been an earnest student of books and of nature. He has collected a large and excellent library; has actively encouraged education among the peasantry; has mastered and thrown light on the geology and ancient glaciation of the entire district; has discovered and explored with persistent energy and success the extraordinary limestone caves of Fermanagh; and out of his little leisure and narrow means has himself unearthed some eleven or twelve cwt. of cave bones, many of ancient animals and of pre-historic man, with the usual accompaniment of rude pottery, flint flakes, and bronze inplements. I am glad to say that at the last meeting of the British Association a grant of £30 was awarded to aid Mr Plunkett in the continuation of his cave explorations.)
Notwithstanding that the romance of haunted houses does provokingly vanish when they are being investigated, rats being found at work, or boys at play, I agreed to go; for even if my private misgivings were confirmed, still, as my correspondent remarked, the scenery and the caves would assuredly remain.
So a wet Friday afternoon found me in Enniskillen, and the evening was spent in discussing plans for the morrow. Bothe the “caves” and the “haunted house” were far away from the town, in a desolate region to be reached only by foot or car. However, the next day we were on our way. The morning was spent blasting the stalagmite floor of the caves; a beautifully made and very ancient, though still perfect bone pin, numerous fragments of coarse pottery and bones of wolf and deer, rewarded our labours. Before the sun set we left our digging for the still stranger quest the results of which I am about to relate.
A lovely drive of some nine miles had previously brought us to the village of Derrygonelly; turning sharp to the left after passing through the village; the road faced the magnificent limestone cliffs of Knockmore; a couple of miles farther and we were at a gate opening into a field that led to the haunted house. A more lonely spot could hardly be found in this country. Across the bog that lay before us rose the huge pile of Knockmore, its steep side crowned by an escarpment of over-hanging rock, fully 300 feet in height, hollowed here and there into those vast caves, the abodes of pre-historic man, to which allusion has already been made. No house could be seen anywhere, for the cottage we were in search of lies hidden in a hollow, and was further screened from observation by the foliage of the trees that surround it. The only neighbours to be found are in the scattered farms that dot the wide-sweeping and poor valleys. It was now evening, and, added to the loneliness of the place, gloomy shades were cast by the clumps of trees and the tall hedgerow beside our path.
At last we reached the door of the farmer’s cottage and found him within. He gave us a friendly greeting, and whilst he was making up the turf fire, and his daughters preparing, with Irish hospitality, to get us a cup of tea, we looked around. The cottage did not differ in its size or arrangements from that belonging to any other of the small farmers in the country districts of Ireland. The front door opened into a roomy kitchen, with a low ceiling, in great part open to the blackened rafters of the roof. The floor was of hardened earth, and on a large hearth-stone there burnt against the wall a turf fire, the smoke ascending through the primitive and ample chimney. A small window let enough light in to discern, by the fire-side, a door, opening into a bed-room, and in a corresponding position on the opposite side of the kitchen was the little parlour. The farmer himself was a grey-headed man, with a careworn look; he spoke with a quiet and simple dignity totally different from the voluble utterance that betrays insincerity. He had lost his wife a few weeks before Easter last, and the loss had greatly affected both himself and his children. The family now consisted of four girls and one boy, the youngest about ten, and the eldest, a girl, Maggie, about twenty years old.
It was chiefly in the neighbourhood of Maggie that noises were heard, and hence it was of interest to regard her a little more closely. Her appearance was most picturesque: without shoes and stockings to hide her white and well-formed feet and ankles, her gown neatly tucked up, a little red shawl thrown across her shoulders, her hair simply and tidily arranged, and her whole attitude graced by a manner instinctively gentle and modest; to this was added an intelligent and interesting face which wore a somewhat sad expression, though the healthy, open countenance gave no evidence of a character which could pursue a systematic course of deception.
By this time Maggie had the tea ready, and we went into the little parlour; none of the family, however, would partake with us, nor would the elder children sit down in our presence, actuated by that sense of respect and politeness which is inborn amongst the Irish peasantry. Whilst at tea, I questioned the old farmer closely as to any suspicions he may have had to account for these sounds. He was perfectly frank with me, and told me how unable he was to find any clue to their origin, and how gratefully he would thank me if I helped him to discover their source and banish the disturbances. All he knew was that as soon as the girls had lain down noises and rappings began, and often continued all night long, and this, too, when he had sat in their room with a candle, and watched closely both within and without the house.
In order to gain further information, I begged the old man to give me as slowly and carefully as he could the history of these disturbances. In the course of the evening he complied, and as he spoke I wrote down his words, which I will give without alteration or addition in the sequel.
Our primitive tea being over we went back to the peat fire in the kitchen, where I questioned, aside, each of the children, but all gave me substantially the same story of the noises. Maggie now left us to put the children to bed, and afterwards herself bade us good night, saying she would merely lie down on the bed without undressing, so that if the noises came we might, if we chose, carefully examine the bedroom. A few minutes after she had retired a pattering sound was distinctly heard, as if made upon some soft substance. This was followed after an interval by at first gentle, and then gradually louder and louder raps, coming apparently from the walls, the ceiling, and various parts of the inner room; and this again was succeeded by scratchings and other indeterminate sounds.
Naturally, the first thought was that we should find Maggie, or one of her little sisters, making these sounds within, or some one making them at a given signal without. Quietly stealing outside the house, every corner was examined. No one was found, but the noises were still clearly heard within the inner room. Upon returning, we obtained permission to go into the bed-room. .When we entered with a candle the noises ceased, but they returned on our quitting the room!
This was provoking and uncommonly like, if not demonstrably, trickery. Had some of my medical and physiological friends been with me they would have argued that there was no need for further wasting our time. Maggie, they would have said, was evidently one of that numerous class of hysteroid sufferers who, without moral obliquity, are impelled to trick and cheat and play foolish pranks under the morbid influence of a well known disease. The case, they tell us, is by no means rare; in fact, it is extremely common among girls at her age; sometimes one dominant idea takes possession of the patient, sometimes another. Every physician has had experience of it in some of its phases. Let us, therefore, go home.
But I remembered when first the Holtz electric machine came to this country an eminent, but incredulous man of science remarked to me he would not believe its powers unless he saw with his own eyes that sparks of a foot long could be obtained by merely the rapid revolution of a couple of glass discs without any rubber or other apparent source of electricity. I procured and tried the machine, and when the sparks were leaping from the terminals I sent for my friend. He came at once, but on his opening the laboratory door the noisy discharges instantly ceased, the mimic thunderstorm of a moment ago had vanished utterly. Vigorously we turned the machine, but uselessly. My friend was as triumphant as I was crestfallen. He smiled when I told him that the sudden change was unaccountable, and goodnaturedly remarked he was always unlucky in seeing wonders; so with many thanks he wished me good morning. Subsequently, it was found that so trivial a thing as opening a door might precipitate on the plates of the machine particles of moisture or dust instantly fatal to the generation of the high electric tension evoked by the machine.
The danger of jumping to a conclusion taught by the foregoing experience crossed my mind when the introduction of the candle stopped the playful devilry in Maggie’s room.
(It is hardly necessary to point out the unphilosophical attitude of mind of those, who before becoming acquainted with a new group of phenomena, postulate the conditions under which those phenomena ought in their opinion to be produced. It is no more incredible that strong light should be fatal to the particular sounds here investigated than that the glare of daylight is fatal to the appearance of the stars.)
Instead of going home at once, satisfied that the noises were a practical joke, I begged permission to make another trial. Taking the lad (who had all the time been by my side) with me, and putting the candle on the little window sill in the kitchen, I stood, along with the father, just inside the open bed-room door. In a few moments the sounds recommenced, but in a timorous sort of way; gradually they became stronger and stronger. Taking the candle in my hand they ceased again, but after a minute or two once more returned, as if growing accustomed to the presence of the light! When at last, after much patience, the sounds were heard in full vigour, we moved towards the bed, and, candle in hand, closely watched the hands and feet of the girls; no motion was apparent, and yet during this time the knocks were going on everywhere around; on the wall, on the chairs, on the quilt, and on the big four-post wooden bedstead whereon they were lying. Returning to the door and placing the candle just outside, enough light was cast into the room for me to see every object distinctly. Whilst in this position the knockings and scratchings came with redoubled energy, and yet the closest scrutiny failed to detect any motion on the part of anyone in the room.
Now came a very staggering and marvellous affair – one of those things which, as Robert Houdin said of a somewhat similar occurrence, are simply stupefying, inasmuch as they defy any ordinary explanation. I found my request to have a certain number of knocks was obeyed, and this, too, when I made the request more and more inaudibly. At last, I mentally asked for a certain number of knocks: they were slowly and correctly given! To check any tendency to bias or delusion on my part, I thrust my hands in my coat pockets, and said, “Knock the number of fingers I have open.” The response was at first merely a loud scratching, but I insisted on my request being answered, and to my amazement three slow, loud knocks were given, – this was perfectly correct.
The chances, of course, were one in ten of its being right if trickery were at work. Again, I opened a certain number of fingers, and bid it tell me the number open; five was knocked. This, too, was right, and the chances of both times being right were one in one hundred. Again, I opened other fingers and the number was correctly rapped; the chances were here one in one thousand. Again I tried, and six was knocked, which was also right; and here the chances for all four cases being correct were as but one in ten thousand. Let it be noted that my hands were entirely hidden in the side pockets of a loose overcoat; no one but myself could possibly know the number of fingers I had open; and the enormous chances against being right four times running – if the knocks were due to trickery – gave me, I think, just ground for believing that, after all, there might be here something in operation not dreamt of in medical science, nor compatible with a purely materialistic philosophy.
(What a change in the last twenty years! The weird legends of our childhood are vanishing; their superstitious glamour, which we are both glad and sorry to lose, is being replaced by the conscientiously gathered minutiae of the scientific investigator. We doubt whether, since they were chronicled in a matter-of-fact way in Egypt five thousand years ago, ghostly occurrences have found tellers free from imaginative terror until now. This scientific age is realistic in its ghost stories. Mr Wallace catches a small sprite at work in a hinged slate, Mr Crookes photographs one by the electric light. We are waiting anxiously for Dr Carpenter to meet with the genie of the Arabian Nights, who fills the sky with his giant frown and refuses to be replaced in his bottle. When the haunts of the “Krakens” of the supernatural are found, science will have some fun, and we may expect good stories. – ED.)
After the last number had been correctly rapped, and I expressed aloud my great surprise, the knocks increased in vigour and in variety of character. A loud rattling was heard like the beating of a drum, the pattering on the bed-clothes was incessant, and violent scratching and tearing sounds added to the diabolical hullabaloo.
This, said the old man, is how it has been going on nearly every night, and often all the night through, “and it frights and puzzles us greatly, sir.” Certainly I was as puzzled as the old man; such uncanny sounds might well scare the lonely little household. By degrees I got the whole of the story from the old farmer, and the following account contains his ipsissima verba [very words], verified, as I have already remarked, by cross questioning his children: –
“My poor wife,” he began, “died in March last, and after her death we were all very lonesome and sad, and fretted a good deal. On Good Friday night, just three weeks after her death, after I had gotten to bed I heard a little wee rapping at the door forenenst where I lay, and it kept on rapping till about two o’clock in the morning. I thought it was our cats, or some rats, and that it would go away soon, but it didn’t. The next night it began again, so I fetched a light and got up to see what it was, and it then ceased: but when I lay down again it began again. Then I got a stick, thinking I would scare it away, so when it began again I hit the door a crack with the stick, but instead of scaring it, it struck harder than before at the door, and when I struck again it struck too. Then when I found I couldn’t daunt it, just a wee dread came over me, for I knew then it couldn’t be rats or mice. So I got up and searched all the house; the cats were surely asleep by the fire and no one was about. Then I began to take a thought what it was, but could pass no opinion.
Then I woke the children, but when I went to bed again it kept on rapping till day-light, when it went away till next night. After this a great dread came over us all and we kept a candle burning all night, but the knocks would still come when the light was burning, though not so loud. Then we all laid ourselves down in the same room, and now it wrought on the quilt of the bed, making sounds like tapping the quilt, and touching my daughter Maggie, so she says. One morning we found fifteen or sixteen small stones had been dropped on her bed. The noises and the tapping continued nearly every night, and once it wrought all night till the children were getting up in the morning; and so it went on, and with the dread and the loss of sleep we all felt very sick.
“Then it began to steal. We found this first on May 24th, – I know it was that day, because it was Derrygonelly Fair. It first took a pair of boots and an odd one from out of the press in our sitting-room, and we searched the house for them everywhere, but could not find them; and we looked in the fields, but never a one of them could we find. Then one of us said, Let us ask the raps to tell us. So that night I said, If the boots are in the house, give a rap; and instead of rapping it gave a scratch; then I said, If the boots are out of the house, give a rap, and it gave a loud rap. Then I said, Give a rap if they are in Garrick’s field, and it gave a scratch; then I asked other places, and at last I said, Are they in the plant field? And it gave a loud rap; and I said, What o’clock will they be there? as I had searched the plant field already. Then it gave six knocks. So a little before six in the morning I went out and searched the plant field again, but could see nothing; then I came in to see the clock, and it do be only just six; so I went out again, and I found them in the very place I had looked before. And sure, sir, I am of this. The three boots were all tied together with a bit of selvage wound round and round them, and with a string of knots we couldn’t undo; so we had to cut them apart, and they were quite dry as if from the fire. Then we locked up all the boots, but it did no good, for another night it took a boot from a locked drawer, and after a great search we found it in a chest of feathers in the loft.
“Other things besides boots it stole; some things it took in daylight, and many of them we have not found yet. It took a pair of scissors, and then it began to steal our candles. First it took a pound of candles; then we had to light the little lamp; it then stole the lamp chimney and after that three more lamp chimneys, so we couldn’t get our lamp to burn. Then we borrowed a lamp which burnt without a chimney, and it stole the bottle of lamp oil. None of these things could we find, nor would it tell us where they were, but kept on scratching and seemed to get angry. We got some more oil, and it came that night and stole the lamp we had borrowed, and this vexed us badly. Then Jack Flanigan came and lent us his lamp, saying ‘he would engage the devil himself could not steal it, as he had got the priest to dip it into holy water.’ But that did no good either, for a few nights after that it stole that lamp too.
“We were then forced to get more candles, and the children hid them in the byre (the cow house) in a little hollow between the thatch and the rafters, so that no one could have found the candles, they hid them so close; but it seen them, and I think too it heard us speaking of the good way we had managed to trick it this time, for when we went to get a candle from the byre, an hour and a half after they were hid, they were all gone; so we were forced to leave our candles in a neighbour’s house till we wanted one, but it was very troublesome, for there is no house very near, and we could’nt keep a candle at all unless it do be burning, for it would take the candle end away if the light were put out. It tried to keep us in darkness, so that it should be able to make most disturbance.
“One day I bethought me of putting a candle in a lantern, and tying the lantern up to the ceiling. So I bought a candle of a woman who comes this way to sell things, and I put the candle in the lantern, shutting the door tight down myself, and then tied up the lantern, and set the two young children after watching it, like a cat would a mouse; but they didn’t keep their eyes on it all the time, but every now and again they looked up. We were down working in the bog, and before night came the children running down to us, saying the candle had gone out of the lantern; and sure it had, for whne I got home there was no candle in the lantern; it had been stole out, though the lantern door was close shut all the time, and no neighbour had come nigh the house. After that I said it was no use getting more candles, so we had to use the light of the turf fire. Lately, however, it has left off stealing, and we can now keep a light, though every day we fear it will be taken.
“Many people came now to see us and hear the knockings, for the news of it had gone about, and some said it was only rats, and others thought it were trickery, and some said it was fairies, or may be the devil. Several neighbours wanted us to get the priest, but we are Methodists, sir, and believed the Bible would do more good. A class leader one day told us to lay the Bible on the bed; so we did in the name of God, but a little after we found the Bible had been placed on the pillow and was laid open at the book of Jeremiah. Then I got a big stone, about 28lb. weight, and laid it on the Bible in the window sill, for I was afeard it might take the Bible away; but before long we found the Bible had been moved and we found the big stone laid on the pillow and the Bible open on top of it. After that it moved the Bible and the prayer-book out of the bed-room and tore seventeen pages of the Bible right across, as you see, sir, here.”
The old man had now finished his story, though other circumstances would occasionally recur to him as the evening went on. It was time, however, for me to ask, “Is it not possible some of your children were playing tricks all the time?”
“Ah, sir,” he replied, “they were in too great trouble, and no trickery could be in their heads, as they were sorrowing over their mother. Then, sir, I know them too well for that; they would not keep their old father awake and trouble him so, for it’s many a night we have had no sleep, but have been kept worrying over this till morning. And, sir, how could they be at trickery, for since it began I have laid down on chairs in the same room, right forenenst them, and the candle was burning, when I heard it rapping and scratching or rattling like a drum at the head and the top and the foot of their bed, and the children were lying still all the time.”
“Might it not be some troublesome lads outside?” I asked.
“Well, sir,” he answered, “if the lads could lie inside a wall they might, for there are no windows beside the bed; and why would lads keep up the noises, for I say truth, sir, when I tell you that for two months it never missed a night from the time we all laid down; sometimes only a quarter of an hour it would go on and then stop entirely. After two months it kept away some nights, and now it comes chiefly on Saturdays and Sundays, but oftentimes other nights also.”
“Well, what do you think it is?” said I.
“I would have thought, sir, it do be fairies, but them late readers and all knowledgeable men will not allow such a thing, so I cannot tell what it is. I only wish you could take it away.”
“Why do you not ask it the question who or what it is?” I replied. “You might spell over the alphabet, and ask it to knock at the right word.”
“Yes, sir, so some one told us to do; but it tells lies as often as truth, and oftener, I think. We tried it, and it only knocked at L. M. N. Some of our neighbours say it do be my wife’s spirit haunting the house; but this I am sure, sir, that if the Lord would send her spirit wandering on earth, it’s not for to trouble us in this way, but to make us happy and protect us she would come.”
Tears stood in the old farmer’s eyes, and I felt that before me was certainly one who had no hand in the noises, and it seemed inconceivable that his children could have the physical endurance, even if they could have had the cruelty, to inflict such continued suffering and disturbance on the little household, and that, too, in the midst of the great calamity that had so recently overtaken them. If I had not personally tested every plausible hypothesis I should have said that the family, unstrung by this very calamity, had readily given way to superstitious fears, their imagination building upon the weird sounds that occur in that bleak and desolate region. But my nerves were not unstrung, and my hearing certainly did not deceive me. Could it be anyone “larking?” The experience I have narrated seems to render such an idea impossible. Nevertheless, I determined to go again, and meanwhile wrote to ask a friend to join me.
The next occasion I visited the house nothing occurred, though I waited till past midnight. The friend to whom I had written – the president of one of our learned societies – promptly responded, and upon his sobriety of judgment and accuracy of observation the reader may confidently rely. We visited the house together, and heard the noises as before, though not so loudly manifested as previously, yet our united and strict vigilance failed to detect imposture, and equally certain were we that we were not the victims of hallucination, for my friend’s experience and my own coincided in every detail. We searched round the house; no one was, or could have bee concealed; none of the family were absent, adn if the reader concludes they must have been the agents at work, the question cui bono [to whom is it a benefit], and the absence of any morbid ailment among them, seemed unanswerable replies to that point, – even if my own careful observations be omitted.
(As might be expected, the family have been greatly pestered with idlers, and with some visitors calling themselves gentlemen, who, uninvited, have come to partake of the free hospitality of these poor folk, and then have behaved in an unseemly way, and when rebuked, have left the place proclaiming they had found out the “whole trick”, and denouncing the family as gross imposters. Although such are not likely to be found among the readers of this magazine, yet I have suppressed the farmer’s name, as it may prevent intrusive letters. I may add that extensive inquiry among his neighbours confirmed my impression that he was a thoroughly upright, God-fearing man. As this paper was passing through the press, I wrote to the farmer, asking him if any further light had been thrown on the noises. Unable to write, and with difficulty to read a letter, Maggie wrote for him as follows (the spelling and punctuation only are altered): – “The disturbances is still going on, we hear it some nights, about once in three weeks we hear it; we have no talk about it now and our nearest friends does not know but it is gone, we are not afraid of it now but I hope it is going away.” Furthermore, my Enniskillen friend, at my request, has within the last few days again visited the once troubled household; and I also learn from him that the knockings are still heard, but they are feebler and less frequent than they were. The family are, he says, very reticent about the matter, not only being anxious to avoid further intrusion, but also because their experience has led them to the correct conclusion that the more persistently the noises are disregarded the less troublesome they are, so that in time the sounds will doubtless entirely fade away. This conclusion is singularly verified by the two cases referred to in the last foot-note but one in this paper. In one of these cases, that of a little girl whose parents were annoyed by the sounds, and who eventually let them go on unheeded, the knockings slowly disappeared, and have not returned. In the other case great interest was excited, and sittings were regularly held for nearly two hours every night during the last three years; here the sounds have steadily grown in vigour and variety, and at the present time are tolerably certain in their bold recurrence, in full light, directly a passive or expectant state is assumed by the so-called “medium” – not necessarily by the inquirer, who is, or ought to be, in an attitude of the utmost vigilance. But there are cases in private families of high respectability, who not only would be insulted by the idea of taking, directly or indirectly, any payment, but who hush the matter up as far as possible, being naturally anxious to avoid the ridicule of society and the aspersion of their characters by physiologists imbued with a “dominant idea.” Numerous similar cases exist, to my certain knowledge, in various parts of England. I am no advocate for indiscriminately encouraging these phenomena; far from it, whatever their explanation, their effect upon the ignorant and credulous is an unmixed evil. Viewing with concern the inevitable progress and havoc of “spiritualism” among uncultured minds, I view with still greater concern the flimsy explanations, varnished with half-truths, that pass muster at the hands of those psychologists who arrogate to themselves the sole right of instructing the public on this subject.)
Thus I left the neighbourhood fairly puzzled, and on my way home could not help reflecting upon the extremely curious similarity between these phenomena cropping up in a remote part of Ireland, where, as I ascertained, neither the name of Spiritualism, nor the report of any of its prodigies had ever penetrated, and the rappings that so mysteriously arose thirty years ago across the Atlantic, in the family of a respectable farmer, also members of a Methodist church, and living in a lonely country district of the United States. I allude to the well known case of “Kate and Maggie Fox,” of whom their Irish counterparts had never heard.
(The reader will remember the knockings and disturbances at Epworth Parsonage where the Rev. Samuel Wesley (father of the founder of Methodism) was then rector. These sounds, investigated by his son John Wesley, and described in Dr Priestley’s and Dr Adam Clark’s Life of Wesley, defied every attempt at explanation, and they still remain a mystery, as the foregoing occurrences seem to me at present. The naturalistic philosopher might say that the story of the Epworth knockings had found its way into Methodist literature (as is the case, I believe) and had been read by the children of both the American and Irsih farmer (in the latter case I found this supposition was correct), and so they tried to get up notoriety by imitating the wonders that happened in the family of the famous founder of their sect. My rejoinder is that even this hypothesis did not escape me when conducting my inquiry on the spot, and yet the enigma remained still unsolved in my mind. I cannot, of course, expect my readers to be equally convinced that no trickery was at the root of the matter.)
(The attempts made to asperse the character of these ladies [Kate and Maggie Fox] (the former is now the wife of an English barrister, Mr Jencken, the latter the widow of Captain Kane, the Arctic explorer) have signally failed; and concerning the so-called “exposure” of their powers in America, the recent correspondence in the columns of the Atheneum has proved it to have been a baseless fabrication. For a full and excellent description of these “Rochester rappings” see Dale Owen’s “Footfalls on the Boundary of another World,” page 204, et seq.)
What, then, is this lurking mystery that yields neither to holy water nor scientific inquiry? Are we, in the midst of our nineteenth century science and civilisation, to be expected to believe in the fairies and hobgoblins of our childish imagination? Are we seriously to give heed to the village … Stories told of many a feat, / How fairy Mab the junkets eat – / She was pinched and pulled, she said; / And he, by Friar’s lantern led, / Tells how the drudging goblin sweat / To earn his cream-bowl duly set, / When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, / His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn / That ten day-labourers could not end; / Then lies him down the lubber fiend, / And stretched out all the chimney’s length, / Basks at the fire his hairy strength, / And crop-full out of doors he flings, / Ere the first cock his matin rings. / Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, / By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
But if any one believes these rappings to be beyond the power of visible mortals to produce, may we not have our household demons around us still, up to any pranks and fun? The conclusion is too absurd for the modern mind. Society has grown out of ghosts and goblins. It has made up its mind they cannot exist. Haunted houses have been relegated to the pages of the novelist or to the limbo of obsolete superstitions. And it matters not whether it be a ghostly apparition, or ghostly knockings, or ghostly noises and freaks of furniture – all are equally foreign to the enlightened opinion, the scientific wisdom, and the strong common sense of the present day. Does not the voice of philology as well as philosophy assure us that the country ghosts of our forefathers have disappeared under the influence of surface drainage?
(It is almost needless to say that our modern word gas is the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon gast, and the German geist – literally, ghost or spirit. The Will-o’-the-Wisp, Milton’s “Friar’s lantern,” is no longer a trickey sprite, but well known to be due to the spontaneous ignition and wafting to and fro of inflammable gas produced by decaying animal and vegetable matter; the gas itself every school-boy knows under the name of marsh-gas.)
We must go to the chemist, not to the dark and lonely marsh, to see the objective ghost of to-day. But the chemist is not the only exorcist. The physician has laid the more numerous tribe of supernatural visitants which, in all past ages, mankind thought they saw. Apparitions, wraiths, and spectral lights are readily explained by “sensorial deception,” haunted houses and the like are the product of a “dominant idea;” possession, obsession, and exalted powers of mind or body are the results of “hysteria” and its congeners; in fine, ancient necromancy and modern Spiritualism are sad illustrations of “epidemic delusions!”
Thus it comes to pass that no one who values the good opinion of his friends, or cares to lose the reputation of being a sensible man will venture to express the smallest belief in a ghost. It is not a subject in which reasonable men can be expected to take any serious interest; and yet ghost stories of one sort or another still persist, and new cases incessantly recur. No superstitious fear now prevents belief or checks inquiry. Fear of the unknown is out of place at the present day. The reason for modern incredulity is that we know, or think we know, everything. Under the guise of profound humility as to our ignorance of the particular discoveries of the future, there lurks the most arrogant assumption as to the definite boundaries of our knowledge. The world that our senses reveal is all that is, or was, or ever will be. A belief in the supernatural is a relic of the past. Let us eat, drink, and study evolution, for tomorrow we die. In future ages our descendants may be angels, and my have learnt the secret of immortality, but to-day we are as the animals that perish. An unseen universe is a philosophic delusion, and a faith that looks forward to life in the invisible is a priestly snare!
Such is the practical materialism that now runs, more or less hidden, throughout society. Hence any evidence that may be given for the existence of phenomena that elude rigid scientific inquiry, or for which no materialistic hypothesis can be framed, whether that evidence relate to past times or the present, is invariably received with a feeling of settled distrust, or else pushed aside with a motion of impatient contempt.
Notwithstanding this, almost every family has within its knowledge some perplexing occurrence, bordering on the confines of the supernatural, some private mystery rarely spoken of to the outside world. Still, even such people sit in the seat of the scornful when any similar inexplicable phenomenon outside their experience is related to them by their friends. Doubtless in the case of dreams or presentiments, mere coincidence covers much of the ground; but not in all, for cases have come under the writer’s notice where the chain of coincidences wouldhave to be stretched to such an unbelievable extent that any alternative is preferable, and some supersensuous influence acting upon the mind of the sleeper becomes a far easier hypothesis. And in the case of apparitions and the like, a disordered state of the nervous or digestive system unquestionably affords, in general, a simple and rational subjective explanation.
But here, too, medical scrutiny sometimes hopelessly breaks down, and with it every “naturalistic” suggestion, so that we must either abandon our common sense and disbelieve evidence that in a criminal case would hang the most virtuous man in Christendom, or accept the simpler explanation that amid the multitude of phenomena which time and space present, there exists a resideue which science cannot explain. Facts are slowly but surely accumulating which seem to indicate that the whole civilised world up to a couple of centuries ago might, after all, have had some good ground for the once universal belief that activity, intelligence, and personality can have and do have an existence in an unseen state; a state between which and us there is a great gulf fixed. And yet it would almost seem that certain mental organisations, or the conjunction of special circumstances, in which we can trace the operation of no recognised law, form at times a frail and fleeting bridge which enables that gulf to be momentarily spanned. When in support of this the overwhelming testimony of the past and of the present day is borne in mind – testimony which every honest critic feels it most difficult to gainsay – such a conclusion can hardly be felt to be extravagant by any rational and unbiased mind.
But here we are arrested by two opposite phases of thought. On the one hand we find those who, whether from their environment or conviction, find no intellectual difficulty in a belief in the supernatural (this is a bad word, of course, but it conveys what is meant, and its use does not imply agreement with its etymological signification), accepting the general creed of Christendom, and attributing any contact of the unseen with the seen to the operation of diabolic agency. Accordingly they steadily shun all post-Johannine evidence of the supernatural that may be adduced, not from disbelief but from dislike.
On the other hand we find the hardened sceptic, who refuses to believe in any unseen world of intelligent beings, but who professes a readiness to believe in such a world if it could be proved, albeit he closes the question by asserting the existence of an unseen world can never be proved; for, he argues, any proof we have must come through the evidence of the senses, and thereby the object of proof has ceased to belong to the unseen. Among some exact thinkers such scepticism is fortified by the conviction that if an unseen world does exist in the background of the world with which science deals, any nexus between the two, however slight or transitory, would be attended by intellectual confusion: inasmuch as those great natural laws which scientific inquiry has established would at any moment be open to invasion, and therefore periodic destruction, by an unseen enemy. To such, therefore, an unseen universe is practically non-existent.
It is not probable that any remarks of mine are likely to affect the attitude of mind of either of these opposite schools of thought. Nor, if I had the power, would this be the place or time adequately to notice them. But perhaps I may be permitted to say this much. Among Christians the dread they feel is, in general, nothing more than a survival of the superstitious fear of the unknown which in former times characterised both savage and saint. To me, it seems that a bold and manly Christian courage should welcome any evidence which throws light on the pneumatology of the Scriptures, and so far from playing the ostrich with these phenomena, Christian thinkers should surely seek to co-ordinate them with the facts of revelation. (Upon this point the reader will find a masterly and interesting excursus on the “Scripture Doctrine of an Evil Superhuman Agency concerned in the Destruction of Mankind,” in the second book of that valuable work, “Life in Christ,” by the Rev. E. White.)
And turning to the sceptic, whose philosophy is based on the absence of this old superstitious fear, where terror usurps the place of reason, ought not such an one to make himself quite sure that the evidence of every supernatural occurrence is valueless before he denies the possibility of an unseen world, and stakes such weighty issues upon his denial. I do not pretend that the case I have narrated in these pages is sufficiently sifted to allow of no alternative but that of the operation of superhuman agency. Such a conclusion could only be admitted after the most laborious and protracted inquiry by experts more competent than the present writer. But these facts – taken in conjunction with similar manifestations that have been submitted to investigation, so long and patient, that we are assured every other alternative has one by one had to be abandoned – do seem to point to a high degree of probability in the direction of such a conclusion.
(It is irrational to contend that because the physical phenomena are so utterly contemptible, therefore they are not worthy of inquiry. A knock at the street-door is an absurd thing in itself, but it may be the precursor of an exalted guest. To establish the fact that physical or mental action is possible across space would in itself be a great advance in our knowledge of the universe. Two cases have come under my notice which have carried conviction to my mind that intelligent physical action can and does occur at a distance, i.e., free from any perceptible agent. These cases I have investigated with extreme jealousy and care, and can affirm that none of the numerous hypotheses suggested by Dr. Carpenter and others are competent to explain away the facts. The strongest evidence in the case narrated in these columns is that of mental action at a distance; concerning this question of supersensuous perception I hope very shortly to publish ampler and more decisive evidence).
That an unseen universe does exist the leaders of physical inquiry are agreed upon purely scientific grounds; from it they trace the genesis of life and of everything that our senses reveal. (C.f. the utterances of the late Sir John Herschel and Professor Faraday, and of Prof. Clerk Maxwell, Prof. P.G. Tait, Prof. G.G. Stokes, Prof. Balfour Stewart, Prof. S. Haughton, and others, in various discourses and writings). Moreover, do we not find in our own microcosm the mingled mystery of matter and spirit, so unlike and yet so closely knit? What, then, may we not expect to find in the macrocosm of the world around? Already we know definitely that it presents us with gross matter free from, as well as united to, consciousness; may it not also present us with the converse – consciousness free from gross (i.e., perceptible) matter? The vagueness of idea which engenders scepticism as to how consciousness, personality – in a word, spirit – can exist free from tangible matter, is surely lessened when we admit, as every man of science does admit, that interatomic as well as interstellar space is filled with matter, of a substance not gross enough to affect our senses, or the finest instrumental appliances. And the incredulity which arises from the difficulty of conceiving how spirit freed from its association with tangible matter can act upon such matter so as to appeal to our consciousness through it, is truly no greater than the difficulty which meets us in the action of our own will over the gross cellular tissue of our brain, and thus over our entire bodily frame. Is not the greater difficulty rather that of conceiving of the life-long conjunction and mutual influence of gross matter and individual consciousness, and not that of their separate existence?
After all, the problem the sceptic has to solve is not whether the immanence of the supernatural is credible or incredible, or comprehensible or incomprehensible, but simply whether the evidence in support of such a statement is conclusive; in fine, whether the facts are true. Let us put aside clamour, misrepresentation, and vituperation; let us also put aside the idola tribus, whose worshippers believe all the laws of existence in this wide universe are to be found within the covers of certain physiological manuals; and the idola specus, at whose shrine truth is so often sacrificed; and seek for instantiae crucis of super- or infra-natural phenomena, if such exist, in the dry and pure light of truth.
Be the conclusion as it may, the story I have here narrated, even if it goes no deeper, may perhaps furnish some of my readers with a Christmas tale, or a subject for fireside speculation.
W.F. Barrett.
The Demons of Derrygonelly. in The Dublin University Magazine, December 1877 (No. 540. Vol. 90).
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000358/18771222/097/0007
Sir – Those who think that every case of “haunting” is due to trickery or a lively imagination are quite mistaken.
At Derrygonelly, near Enniskillen, a case happened several years ago in a Protestant family. The mother died, and after her death extraordinary happenings took place. Things were thrown about this room by an unseen agency and on one occasion a large Bible was torn right in two across the leaves, cover and all, with no one near it.
These occurrences always took place when the eldest daughter was present. A gentleman, well known to me, and an eminent Irish scientist, investigated the affair. He questioned the agency, and got correct answers by means of knocks. He is an agnostic, and attributed the phenomena to some unknown force.
The family got greatly alarmed finally, and called in three Protestant clergymen to exorcise the “ghosts” while they were engaged in prayer. The girl went into a trance, and there was a continual knocking on the roof of the old fashioned bed on which she lay. Finally this ceased, and peace permanently resulted.
About three months afterwards, my friend was passing by the house and went in to see how matters were. He asked some questions of the “spirits,” and there were very faint knocks in reply, which so frightened the family that they at once asked him to leave the house. When the disturbances were at their height, clothes used to be found removed to outside drains.
All these things sound incredible, but my friend who saw them is no believer in the spirit theories, and is too robust and substantial a personage to be moved by emotion. There is, in fact, so far as I can see, no possible explanation of these happenings unless it be that indeed we are living in company with invisible beings, who occasionally are able to get in contact with us. Who they are no one can tell. I am not a credulous person, but the evidence that such things happen is too strong to be ignored, and the happenings being intelligent, must be controlled by some intelligence. My friend is so eminent that at one time the Canadian Government offered him a scientific post at a high salary, but he declined it as he had a private fortune and preferred to be a free lance of science.
FREE LANCE. August 30, 1912.
Western Daily Mercury, 31st August 1912.
Ghost stories.
Evidence in Fermanagh Will Case.
“Unseen Spirits.”
Weird happenings in house described.
(From our own correspondent.) Enniskillen, Wednesday.
A remarkable story of a ghost which tore 17 pages out of a Bible upon which a big stone had been placed, was told in Fermanagh County Court, before Judge Green during the hearing of a case to establish the will of Miss Emily Thompson, aged 60, who lived on a 30 acre farm in Derrygonnelly district. The will was contested by some of her relatives on the ground that she had not testamentary capacity. The will was prepared by Mr Joseph Murphy, an Enniskillen solicitor’s clerk, who said she seemed quite capable of making it.
Cross-examined by Mr Cooper, M.P., solicitor, witness said he never heard that the late Miss Thompson lived in a haunted house and conversed with spirits by rappings. Mr Cooper read extracts from a book in which the doings of ghosts were related. The weird happenings were investigated by Professor Barrett and others. On one occasion, Mr Maxwell Close, M.A., on visiting the house, read passages from the Scriptures and the Lord’s Prayer. At first his voice could scarcely be heard owing to mysterious knockings, but gradually the noises ceased altogether. Mr Cooper told the judge that the occupants of the house were Methodists, but got the Parish Priest to specially bless a candle. It was lighted in the house, but unseen spirits extinguished it.
Miss Thompson was a child when these things occurred, and witnesses said her mind was always weak, and she could not count sixpence in coppers.
The further hearing of the case was adjourned.
Dublin Evening Telegraph, 25th April 1923.
Haunted House in Fermanagh – Strange Allegations in Will Suit – Noisy Ghosts Who Blew Out Candle – ‘Unseen Hand’ Which Tore Up The Bible – Dispute Over An Old Maid’s Property – Heard at Enniskillen Quarter Sessions – Question of Testator’s Capacity.
At Enniskillen Quarter Sessions before His Honour Judge Greene, Wm. John Elliott, Kilduff, Derrygonnelly, sought to establish the will of the late Miss Emily Thompson, Kilduff, this application being opposed by Wm. John McClelland, Caldrum, and William G. Ferris, Blaney, defendants. Mr J. P. McGovern, solicitor, for plaintiff, and Mr. James Cooper, M.P., for defendants.
Joseph Murphy, Law Clerk, Enniskillen, stated that he saw Miss Emily Thompson on 25th August, 1921, accompanied by plaintiff and his mother. Miss Thompson told witness she wanted to make her will and he made it according to her instructions. She was quite clear and sensible at the time. Plaintiff corroborated previous witness’s evidence and stated that the testator was quite capable of making a will and knew perfectly well what she was doing.Cross-examined by Mr. Cooper, witness denied that testator was very odd in her manner or that she was incapable of transacting business.
Mr Cooper – Was her house haunted? Witness – No.
Did you never hear the story of ghosts being in this house? – I did, but I never paid any attention to it.
Was it not alleged that your sister Annie and a man, who is in court, used to go down at night and throw stones on the roof of this house? (Laughter). – I know nothing about that.
Did you ever go to this house yourself? – Yes, I used to go down and “caley” there.
Was this woman not one of those who said they heard strange spirits in this house and did Professor Barrett from Dublin, and the late Mr Thomas Plunkett, Enniskillen, not go out to the house and spend some time there investigating the alleged presence of these ghosts? Did the whole world not come down there to banish the spirits haunting the place? I will tell you how the ghosts were finally expelled.
Mr Cooper then read some extracts from Seymour’s “True Irish Ghost Stories” in which reference is made to strange and inexplicable noises having been heard in the house in question which aroused much widespread public interest at the time. The book set out in detail the various ineffectual methods adopted to try and ascertain the origin of the strange scratching and rumbling sounds frequently heard in the building and told how Professor Barrett, of Dublin, and the late Mr Thomas Plunkett, M.R.I.A., Enniskillen, had spent some time in the locality investigating the affair. The book narrates how when all the usual methods had failed the clergy were called in. “Scripture was followed by the Lord’s Prayer to the accompaniment of knockings and scratchings which gradually ceased as all present kneeled in prayer.”
Mr Cooper, proceeding, said it was further stated that the Parish Priest was sent for although these people were Protestants. As a matter of fact, he added, they were Methodists, but no Methodist parson could do the house no good and so the Parish Priest came who blessed and lighted a candle, but unseen spirits came and blew it out again. (Much laughter).
To Witness – Did you ever hear of the “unseen hand” coming down into this house and tearing seventeen pages out of the family Bible although there was a big stone placed on it to protect it? Witness – No, I did not. Mr Cooper – Well, you will see all about it in this book. At this point Mr Cooper handed up the book in question to the judge who perused portions of it apparently with much interest.
Mr Cooper – Was the testator one of the people living in the house at the time these things occurred? Witness – I don’t know.
Do you know that when people came to visit this house she always ran away and hid herself? – No, I never heard that.
Was she eventually found dead in her bed? – Yes.
Do you do any work for her? – Yes.
When her sister, Maggie, died, Emily, the testator, was left money and cattle on the farm, but got rid of everything and what was there for you to do for her? – She had to get firing and do other things.
There was no one there to look after her? – No. – You were no relation of hers? – No. – Would you say there was any “want” in this girl? – No. – She was an ordinary intelligent woman according to you? – Yes.
His Honour- Where did she keep her money? Witness – She had a place in the house for it.
Mr Hugh Macken, Arney, said that at the request of Mr Murphy he had gone into Mr McGovern’s office and witnessed testator’s signature to her will. He did not know her at the time and had never seen or spoken to her before or since. On that occasion she appeared to be quite normal and witness saw nothing strange or odd about her manner. She appeared to know quite well what she was doing. He did not think the will was read over to testator in his presence.
Mr McGovern – You saw no sign of any ghosts about her that day anyway? His Honour – Ghosts do not appear at that hour of the day. (Laughter).
Philip Murphy, executor under the will, said he lived about two or three hundred yards away from testator’s house and had known her all his life. He had never seen anything strange or odd about her. He had had conversations with her at different times when they talked about the weather and the creamery, etc.
His Honour – Did you ever talk politics with her? Witness – No. His Honour – Did you ever ask her what she thought about how things were going on in the country? Witness – Well, we might, at times, talk about that. His Honour – Do you recollect anything she said on that subject? Witness – No.
Cross-examined by Mr Cooper- Was this girl ever at school? – I believe she was at school under Master McGuinness. – Could she read? – No, I do not think she could. – Did she ever go to Church? – She used to be out with the rest of the sisters. – His Honour – At Church? – Witness – I could not say at Church. – Mr Cooper – When did you see her last? – Witness – About thirty years ago. (Laughter).
Mr Cooper – Did you ever ask her to vote for you when you were standing for the Rural District Council? – Witness – No, she was asked to vote for some other body, but would not do so. – Did you never ask her to vote for you? – No. – She did not want to vote? – No. – Did she ever vote? – She did. – Mr Cooper – When. – Witness – She helped to return your honour to Parliament. (Loud laughter). Sir Charles Falls – That is clear proof of her sanity. (Laughter).
Mr Cooper – Don’t you know she was different from the rest of the family? – Witness – She was just as good looking as the rest. (Laughter). His Honour – Was she not good looking? – Witness – Indeed she was not. (Laughter). Mr Cooper – There was £300 in the house at one time which afterwards disappeared; can you tell us what became of it? Witness – I cannot.
David Hamilton, local postman, said he used to deliver letters to testator and he never noticed anything peculiar about her. Mr Cooper – What did she get letters about? – Witness – She used to get Land Commission receipts for her rent, circulars and fashion books and things of that sort. – Was the testator accused of being the cause of these things? – Yes. – When people spoke to her she would run away? – Both her father and brother and sisters knew there was something wrong with her. Her father used to take her out into the fields with him because he would not leave her with the people in the house. – Mr McGovern – Is there anything strange about a shy young girl in the country running away when strangers speak to her? – Witness – There is something odd about it.
Rev. W.B. Steele, rector of the parish in which testator resided, in reply to Mr. Cooper, said if he had been asked to make a will for deceased he would not have been willing to do so as he would have had grave doubts in the matter. Mr Cooper – In your opinion was she not a person capable of making a will? Witness – I would not say that, but I would have been afraid to take the responsibility, that is all I can say. Mr McGovern – Suppose nine or ten years ago you had been asked to make her will, would you have done so? Witness – I did not know her then at all. – Did you ever hear any talk about her? – Nothing definite, but there was an impression on my mind that she was not like other people. She would answer questions intelligently if I asked her, but she was very hard to talk to. I would say she was very eccentric and it was always my impression that she needed someone to manage her business for her.
Hugh McClelland said testator was never capable of transacting any business; in fact she could not count sixpence in coppers and was very easily influenced. Before her sister died the place was stocked and there was money in the bank, but all this money disappeared. Witness had managed the farm for twenty years before he went to the war. – To Mr McGovern – He had not seen her for some time before her death. – Mr McGovern – Why? – Witness – Because she did not want me. – Why did she not want you? – Because your client poisoned her mind against me. – Mr McGovern – You say that the whole thing is a conspiracy against you? – Yes.
Mrs Mary Ferris, niece of testator, corroborated the evidence of last witness and stated that her aunt had never been to school and never went to Church and was very peculiar in her ways.
The case was adjourned for production of another witness as to testator’s mental capacity.
Fermanagh Times, 26th April 1923.
…The late Sir William Barrett, F.R.S., contributes two well-authenticated cases to a book entitled “True Irish Ghost Stories,” compiled by St. John D. Seymour, B.D. Litt.D., and Harry S. Neligan, D.I. R.I.C., in 1926. Sir William Barrett was closely associated with the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, and his conviction of the supernormal characters of the poltergeist manifestations was very strong.
… In the two fully investigated cases given by Professor Barrett in the book above-mentioned, one occurred in 1877 at Derrygonnelly, nine miles from Enniskillen, in the house of a farmer, who had been left a widower with a family of four girls and a boy. The eldest child, aged 20, seemed to be the centre of the disturbance.
Strange rappings and scratchings were first heard, then objects were seen to move, stones began to fall, and candles and boots were continually being thrown out of the house. In such manifestations in Ireland it was customary to invoke the aid of the local Roman Catholic priest, who, however, was usually unable to frighten the intruder, unless, indeed, the supposed ghost was a product of some human agency carrying out a clever trick.
In the case at Derrygonnelly, the troubled family were urged to send for a priest, but being good Methodists preferred to put an open Bible on the bed with a big stone on top of it. Some unseen power, however, displaced the Bible, removed it from the room, and tore several pages right across. Candles and lamps were mysteriously thrown about. When Professor Barrett visited the house he heard long, continued knockings, as loud as those made by a carpenter’s hammer. He assured himself that the noises could not have been made by any of the inmates, who were all under his view, and, moreover, he saw a stone fall from the void.
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Belfast Telegraph, 2nd May 1932.