Ghost in the machine haunts motor museum.
A strange spirit from the past has come back to haunt the staff at the Transport Museum in Killarney – but in a very friendly and mischievous way. Museum Curator, Eileen Daly, knows this ghost more than anyone. “He first struck three years ago and has been back several times since then,” she said.
One of the spectre’s spookiest visits was during the October Bank Holiday weekend last year when he mysteriously revved up the engine of an antique car – one of the 30 veteran cars in the museum. “We were in the museum and then all of a sudden, the engine started on the 1910 Wolseley. The engine ran for about 10 seconds but that felt like an eternity because we were so shocked,” she said. She said there was nobody near the car when the engine started. “It would take at least an hour for a person to start that car because it is an antique. But all of a sudden it started. We were amazed,” she said.
Another favourite trick of the ghost is to hide keys on people. “One day we lost the keys of the museum. We looked everywhere for them but we could not find them. We had a spare set so we locked up and went home. When we came in the following morning, the missing keys were on the counter in broad day light. They were in a place where we would not have missed them when we were looking, she said.
On another occasion, the staff opened up the museum one morning to see the doors of a vintage Mercedes wide open. “Because Mercedes own this car, we always keep the doors locked. It is a Gullwing Mercedes and the doors on it open up rather than out. When I came into the museum one morning the doors were wide open,” she said.
Eileen believes that the ghost is the spirit of a past owner of one of the cars. “We have 30 vintage cars here and each one of those would have their own story. This ghost seems to have an attraction to the 1910 Woseley,” she said.
In the 1840s, the site where the museum stands today was once a workhouse. This caught fire and many people were killed when the roof of an adjoining premises collapsed. “The ghost might be one of the workers who has come back to haunt us,” said Eileen. She stressed that this ghost is not evil. “He is very friendly but quite mischievous. Although I would be quite wary going into the museum at nighttime on my own,” she admitted.
Kerryman, 9th June 1995.
Transport Museum now ‘a spook free zone’.
By Joan O Sullivan.
Owners of the Museum of Irish Transport in Killarney have this week declared that a ghostly presence which was claimed had been inhabiting their museum for almost three years has finally left. The story of the museum ghost first came to public notice some months ago when The Kerryman ran an article detailing the antics and mischievous behaviour attributed to the spook.
According to museum manager Eileen Daly, small items in the museum would often go missing and then turn up later in the oddest of places. During the night, car doors would be opened and shelves inside sealed cabinets were often rearranged. During the October Bank Holiday weekend of 1994, an antique car in the museum started up of its own accord, only to cut out less than 30 seconds later. Human mischief-making had been ruled out as a possible explanation for these strange occurrences, as the museum comes equipped with a sensitive alarm system and has only two sets of keys. Since then ghostly visitations have been on the decline and the museum is now believed to be a spook-free zone.
Although she claims she has never paid too much attention to the eerie goings on, Eileen admits she feels a sense of relief now that her uninvited guest has eventually disappeared. However she doesn’t rule out the possibility of a future return. “We have two antique cars coming in soon and we’re just hoping we won’t get any previous owners along with them!”
Kerryman, 26th June 1998.