Cowled Man Mystery.
Irish story of apparition with luminous face.
Ghost layers fail.
The “Irish Independent” yesterday published details of a ghost story which has been startling a large part of County Wicklow for a considerable time. All attempts to solve the mystery have failed, and different investigators have had to confess themselves beaten by the strange visitant.
Two years ago a distinguished Dublin citizen purchased a house and fishing rights in a desolate part of County Wicklow. When he went to reside there during the summer months weird occurrences began by night. Bells rang without apparent cause, doors supposed to be locked were heard slamming, and ghostly figures flitted through rooms and corridors. The wife of the owner of the house awoke one morning to find three lighted candles arranged around her bed. A few mornings later six lighted candles, similarly arranged, were found round a maid’s bed. this was more than the occupants of the house could stand, and they promptly returned to Dublin.
Last Christmas the son of the owner of the house set out with four friends, resolved to pierce the mystery. Nothing happened till one of the party left the house to recover something he had left behind inthe motor car. Then from a dark window overhead he saw an old-fashioned blunderbus pointing at him, and as he crouched for shelter he observed a cowled figure leave the house and go towards the out-offices. He got the impression that the stranger did not open the door on leaving the dwelling.
While the young man and his companions were discussing this puzzling manifestation there came loud reports of gunshots discharging, doors banging, and furniture falling. Then the cowled man appeared before them, a terrifying apparition described as having a luminous face, malevolent expression, and ghastly gaps in his teeth, two of which were exceptionally large. The startled investigators saw the cowled man go upstairs. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they endeavoured to follow, but were driven back by bottles and other missiles which clattered downstairs with an awful din. Eventually they procured lights, and worked their way to the top of the house, where through a trap door giving access to an attic they saw the apparition of the cowled man hanging head downwards. The investigators thereupon decided it was time to go home.
One suggested explanation is that the strange figure is what is known as a poltergeist – an evil spirit full of malicious tricks.
Nottingham Evening Post, 2nd May 1929.
Wicklow Ghosts
Eerie Happenings in Garden County
An Uncanny Visitant
The recent startling experiences of a number of Dublin citizens in a lonely mansion in a desolate region in Co. Wicklow have been the cause of much whispered conversation and not a little ribald comment in certain circles in the metropolis. A “Weekly Independent” reporter who investigated the various accounts is satisfied that the original version, stripped of the embellishments of the more artistic narrators is as follows: –
Some two years ago a well-known Dublin citizen purchased a house and some fishing rights in Co. Wicklow. While in residence there during the summer months noises were heard during the night, bells rang without being pulled, doors slammed while they were locked, and weird figures perambulated through the halls and rooms of the house.
These are more or less legitimate activities on the part of a ghost and have the sanction of tradition behind them, but when the wife of the owner woke one morning and found three lighted candles arranged around her bed it began to look as if the ghost contemplated taking more definite action to get rid of his unwelcome fellow-tenants. There was an unpleasant suggestiveness about the arrangement of those candles, and when a few mornings later she found six lighted candles arranged in an unmistakeable order around the bed of her maid, she and her husband, not to speak of the maid decided that it was time to take the hint, and accordingly they returned to Dublin.
Shortly before Christmas last the owner’s son and some friends, a party of five in all, decided to visit the house and investigate. They were all young and the spirit of adventure was strong in them – considerably stronger than it has been since. They drove down at night and took possession of the house in safet.y and for some hours nothing unusual happened. Then one of them went out to the car to get something he had forgotten. The house was in darkness, except for the light shining from the room in which his companions were. As he approached the house he observed in the moonlight that the muzzle of an old-fashioned blunderbus was being slowly protruded from one of the dark windows. He inclined to the belief that this was an ill-timed joke on the part of one of his companions, but the reflection that there was no blunderbus in the house and that they had not brought one with them suggested the advisability of getting out of the line of fire. As he crouched against the wall, endeavouring to persuade himself that someone was playing a trick on him, a tall cowled figure emerged from the house and made towards the outoffices.
He felt reasonably sure that this must be one of his companions intent on carrying the joke further, and would have accosted him but for the fact that he had an impression that the cowled man had omitted the usual procedure of opening the door before emerging from the house. The investigator was feeling far from well, but he stole up to the window and peered in. The place was empty, and, apart from the door and window, which were under his observation all the time, there appeared to be no other exit by which the cowled man could have left, not that the investigator sought for another exit. By this time he had lost all curiosity s to the destination of the cowled man. Greatly mystified he returned to his companions and related his experiences, concluding by expressing the conviction that ghost-hunting was a much over-rated amusemennt.
While they were discussing the situation several loud reports like gunshots were heard, doors banged upstairs, there was a sound of furniture falling, and suddenly the cowled man appeared before them. Seen at close quarters he was extremely unprepossessing. Beneath his cowl appeared a large luminous face with a malevolent expression heightened by a ghastly gap-toothed grin which brought into prominence two exceptionally large teeth. These teeth seem to have been particularly impressive, for each of the five laid special emphasis on them in their subsequent accounts. The cowled man glided silently across the room, and they saw him turn in the darkness of the hall and go up the stairs. Although they were terrified the self-appointed investigators felt that if they were to keep their sanity they must seek some rational explanation of these extraordinary happenings.
Accordingly they followed the cowled man into the hall, but were driven bck by the fact that bottles and light bath which rattled down the stairs with an appalling din, were thrown at them from the hall. Rendered desperate by fear, however, and the thought that it was better to know what the cowled man was doing, than to imgine what he might be doing, they procured lights and emerged cautiously into the hall. This time nothing was thrown at them, and they pluckily, if reluctantly, began to climb the stairs.
During the months of the disturbances prior to this a legend had grown up that there had been a suicide in the house. Some such occurrence was indicated, and, though the legend was not well substantiated, a sense of the fitness of things prevented people from being too critical. With this in mind, the five investigators had some idea of what to expect. They discovered nothing until they reached the top of the house. There was one room here with a trap-door in the ceiling leading to a small triangular space under the roof, and in this room they found the apparition of the cowled man hanging by a rope suspended through the trap-door, which was open. It is disconcerting enough to pass through doors without troubling to open them, but it is carrying unconventionality altogether too far to hang oneself head downwards. With some such thought in their minds, the five investigators decided unanimously that it was time to go home. In fact it was an instantaneous decision, and was acted on very promptly and without discussion.
Those learned in psychic lore, when asked for an explanation, advanced the theory that the gentleman in the cowl was a Poltergeist, which they were informed is a type of evil spirit occasionally found on the Continent, particularly in Germany, and greatly given to performing malicious tricks. Apparently a Poltergeist is rather vain and something of an art critic in addition, as the following incident illustrates. One of the investigators who has some skill in drawing made a sketch of the Poltergeist when he got home. His companions agreed that it was an excellent likeness and he put it in his pocket and went down stairs to show it to his father. When he produced the paper the portrait had disappeared and the space on the paper where the sketch had been was charred, though a chemist to whom it was shown was unable to say how the sketch was burned off.
This incident made a great impression on the family as an Irish Independent representative discovered. He had been endeavouring as tactfully and sympathetically as he could to get the rather reluctant heroes of these adventures to confide their story to him. They replied that probably if they wrote it the story would disappear from the manuscript. In his endeavour to be helpful the reporter offered to give a personal guarantee that if it was dictated to him he would not allow the story to disappear out of his notebook whereupon the atmosphere became as chilly as if the Poltergeist himself were present.
Some time after the charring of the sketch the Poltergeist gave a further proof that he was still in a playful mood, and had not forgotten his young friends. He was apparently particularly attracted to one of his youthful investigators, and on two occasions when the investigator was out in motor car he is reputed to have called, disguised as the investigator in question, on friends of the investigator. They had no idea that he was not the real man, and the Poltergeist was fortunately on his best behaviour, and didn’t interfere with the furniture in any way.
One is inclined to talk about experiences of this kind with a strict proviso that the story is to go no further, and in due time the story came to the ears of three young Dublin men, who determined to call on the Poltergeist. They were not psychic or given to seeing things. Their souls held no reverence for Poltergeists, and they drove to the house in a frame of mind which was anything but conducive to the production of psychic phenomena. They approached the house at the “witching hour of midnight,” one of them flourishing a handy length of lead piping with which he proposed to swat the Poltergeist if he refused to do all his stunts in record time. He was prepared to insist on all the recognised tricks, and though he admitted that he might not succeed in making the Poltergeist clank chains, he felt confident that a vigorous use of the lead piping should produce a few realistic groans.
Of course, no self-respecting Poltergeist could be expected to manifest for such non-psychic people, and after playing table-tennis for a time, tired of waiting for him. When two members of the party were asleep, the third though this an auspicious moment for the Poltergeist to appear. He rang for the Poltergeist, but nothing happened. He rang every bell in the house long and loudly, but without result. Then he danced into the room where his companions were attired, attired in a sheet, with the noble intention of understudying the Poltergeist, but the joke fell flat, as they were still fast asleep. Such indifference to his efforts made him sympathise with the Poltergeist, and he also lay down and slept till morning.
Apparently the Poltergeist was offended and disgusted at this contemptuous treatment, for though this visit occurred some weeks ago, he has not played a single prank since, and it seems likely that he has departed for regions where he is more appreciated.
Irish Independent, 4th May 1929.
Boys’ story of a haunted house.
‘Cloaked figure with a terrifying face.’
A small party of boys in the senior classes of a well-known Irish public school decided to spend a short holiday in a house in the Wicklow mountains, undeterred by the fact that the house was commonly reputed to be haunted. On the first night loud noises in the top of th ehouse caused some of the lads to rush upstairs to see what was happening. One, describing his experiences, said that when he opened the door of an attic a figure glided out. It had a “sort of human shape” with a long cloak over it. The face was terrifying, the open lips drawn back in a grin, revealing two exceptionally large and prominent teeth. “I thought it was a joke,” added the boy, “and just stood looking at it until it dropped over the banisters and disappeared.”
The other boys denied all knowledge of any hoax, and the whole party thereupon visited the attic. There, according to their story, they saw a cloaked figure suspended from the ceiling head downwards. They promplty bolted, although not convinced that there was not a hoaxer at work.
The second time the “ghost” appeared the boys threw things at it, without any effect. When they followed it up the stairs the “ghost” flung light articles of furniture at them, but, curiously enough, none of the boys were hit.
On another occasion the boys followed the “ghost” out of doors. It hobbled across to an outhouse and, the boys state, disappeared through the wall.
“I know something about sketching,” said one boy to a “Morning Post” reporter, “and I drew on a piece of paper a sketch of the figure we had seen. I remember it most distinctly, but the sketch burned off the paper, leaving it blank except for a charred mark. This happened twice. We took the paper to a chemist and had it examined, but there was nothing wrong with the paper – it was just ordinary paper.”
According to other members of the party the “ghost” played pranks on one of their members long after they had returned to Dublin, by appearing somewhere as the boy sketcher when he was really elsewhere.
The owner of the house is also said to have suffered from the pranks of the “apparition” on his visits.
One of the boys has had a nervous breakdown as a result. Psychic experts assert that the whole thing is the work of a poltergesit, an evil spirit given to performing malicious tricks.
Framlingham Weekly News, 11th May 1929.