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.
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.