Co. Derry Farmhouse “Visitation”
Tales of Queer Events Arouse Curiosity
From Coleraine comes a report of “strange happenings” in a farmer’s house near Articlave, a village between Coleraine and Castlerock. Our Coleraine correspondent writes:-
“These strange happenings form the main topic of conversation of natives of the district and have aroused the interest and curiosity of people over a wide area. The house, which is about a mile from Articlave, is occupied by Mr. David Ross, a farmer, and his wife and three children.
A graphic description of the disturbances was given by Mr. Ross, whose eleven year old daughter, Jeannie, he said, had been the object of uncanny molestation. “When she goes to bed,” he continued, “she is pricked and jagged by pins and nipped until her arm is black and blue. She is almost ready for the hospital and is badly run down. I am sending her away in the hope of counteracting the influence.” Mr. Ross added that anyone who slept with the little girl was similarly molested.
“It all started about six months ago and got very bad at the week-end,” he stated. “We have tried to keep it quiet, but you know how things leak out. It commenced with the burning of hay and straw in the fields.”
Mr. Ross told of the movement, without apparent human aid, of household utensils. He said that a lamp which was sitting on the table, suddenly struck the ceiling with terrific force, splintering the globe and leaving a dent on the lamp. On another occasion a tin of paint which was in the scullery, suddenly flew across the kitchen striking the opposite wall like a bullet, narrowly missing his head. Articles of clothing had been slashed as if with a knife.
People in the district, while giving no definite opinion on the occurrences, are of the opinion that “there’s something in it.” The house is visited daily by large numbers of people, many of whom come from a distance.
Belfast News-Letter, 19th December 1934.
Belfast News-Letter, 20th December 1934.
Articlave’s “Haunted” House.
To the Editor of the Sentinel.
Dear Sir, – Being in Articlave district recently I was forced to lend an incredulous ear to the tales of the “haunted” house, the haunting of which is supposed to have been due to “Black Magic” practised by a young girl. These stories recount incidents which rival the most wonderful act of the most wonderful fairy queen, or rather, the most notorious villain ever included in the cast of a pantomime.
Some of the most incredible are seriously told by the most sober and highly respected men of the district. For instance, a tale is told by a certain old gentleman of how a certain young man called up a chimney and was answered by a voice.
Another is told of a minister who upon entering the house laid down his hat, which immediately disappeared.
A horse is supposed to have completely astonished a man by smoking a pipe and amazed another by leaning over the hedge to speak to him and actually calling out “Hello.”
In perfect sincerity a man told me that he had seen pigs wearing spats, and most ridiculous, playing football in the field next to the house. I was told similar stories by several people, which tallied amazingly. Some persons declared that they had actually seen these phenomena.
These stories may be all untrue, but perhaps there is a vestige of truth in them. Stories like these, however, are hard to believe since the Christmas festivities have not long ceased. May I ask in closing if some new publicity agent is trying to “boost” Castlerock. I remain, yours sincerely, “UNBELIEVER.” Londonderry, 3rd January 1935.
Londonderry Sentinel, 5th January 1935.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Irish News” reporter spends all night in haunted house in Derry.
Baffled by the mysterious noises.
Determined to hear the mysterious noises reported in the house of the Ross family near Articlave, a village on the Coleraine-Castlerock road, an “Irish News” reporter spent all Saturday night there. The setting had all the elements conducive to a ghostly visitation. Outside the house, situate in an expanse of bleak land, a storm raged, while with a company of others he kept his vigil, his ear strained for sounds, and then, after hours of waiting, he heard – tap, tap, tap, mysterious taps which baffled him. “Nobody in the room,” he writes, “could have made the sounds without me seeing him. The sounds came from the corner of the room and were on the inside.”
Appended is the story of his vigil.
I am in the “haunted house,” he writes. For weeks past fearful tales have been told of mysterious happenings in this house the home of Presbyterian family named Ross, near Articlave. With the good man of the house, his wife, two sons, and Jennie, the child around whom the mysterious happenings appear to centre. I sit at the kitchen fire – a huge peat fire. Uncanny things are said to have happened in this kitchen. I look round it. It is a typical country kitchen.
The only light is from an oil lamp which stands on the table. I watch this lamp. I have been told it is difficult to keep this lamp in globes. For three or four nights its globe has been mysteriously shattered before the eyes of the occupants of the kitchen.
On the far side of the room there is a clothes rack from which garments of all kinds have mysteriously been shot into the fire and burned. If this procedure is repeated to-night the house will be short of two coats and two caps. I took care not to hang my coat on it, but I am uneasy lest the garments on it take their mysterious journey hearthwards. I realise that I am between them and the fire and that they would have to make a detour around me or enfold me.
Cooking and other household utensils hang on the walls. I register the fact that if things begin to fall, as they have done, there will be a nerve-racking din. So I feel like lowering them gently to the floor myself! But I don’t. I am here to see something out of the ordinary, so why interrupt the “ghost’s” pranks.
On my way to the house my guide told me that as he sat at the same fire while on a neighbouring call the night before a large horse nail fell from the roof above and lay within a few inches of his feet. He had the nail in his pocket. So I examine the roof. It is substantial.
The mysterious happenings, I am told, follow two broad principles – the jagging of pins in the child Jennie while she is in bed and the tendency on the part of small movable things to throw themselves into the fire at which I am now sitting. Mrs Ross tells me that while Jennie was putting on her shoes one day, she observed the operation closely, having a premonition that the shoes would, like so many other things, feel the urge to wander towards the flames. When one shoe was laced she felt that all was well, but immediately she turned her head the other was in the fire!
I examine Jennie, who sits opposite me, closely. A shy, intelligent country child, she looks and acts like any other child, and seems little the worse from the strange things which centre around her. She talks with the rest, laughs, and corrects us if we make any slips in recounting the things that happened to her.
It was a few hours to midnight, but still neighbours began to gather, and the kitchen was nearly full. We talk of crops and game – ordinary things, and we keep clear of the very subject which is uppermost in our minds. A bucket rolls outside the house, and we are startled. Then “Billie,” the dog, who lay on the floor before the fire, yelps sharply, and we are again startled. The woman of the house busies herself with her work, and we go on talking.
By and by a motor-car arrives with a number of what we might call “substantial” people of the district. They join the gathering in the kitchen. Midnight. Thank goodness the clock hasn’t a chime. I feel that if it did chime most of us would jump a few feet from our chairs. But the witching hour passes without incident, and the lamp continues to burn bright. Lest anything should happen to it, a hurricane lamp has been lighted, and sits on the table.
The visitors disperse, but there is left a good company. I am still by the fire – I intend to stay here if possible, though preparations are going on upstairs for the retirement of members of the family. With a cheerful fire and the flow of general conversation which still oges on, I feel that this business of sitting up all night in a haunted house is not so bad, but I hope there is plenty of oil in the lamp. Mrs Ross is being lighted through the house by a candle which she is carrying. I recall uneasily that candles have gone out through some unnatural agency. So I don’t think it is wise to have a candle. In fact, I wish we had electric light. Between the front door and the door of an inner room sits a churn covered with white cloth. In the draught between the doors the cloth moves gently. It catches my eye. I try to look away from it, but again and again I turn to look at it.
Two o’clock. Nothing strange has happened, and Jennie is going to bed. It is she who has been annoyed almost every night before she falls asleep by being jagged with pins, and a number of people arrange to sit by her bed. Voices upstairs. Jennie is apparently in bed. Mrs Ross pauses between the kitchen and Jennie’s room and occasionally other members of the family.
Someone mentions that the lamp is growing dim, and another says it is going out. But it is just want of oil. So we re-oil it and put out the hurricane lamp. The two sons of the house still keep me company by the fire, but conversation has lagged. Leaden eyelids seem to affect all of us. The weather has turned stormy, and the house has the right setting for a ghostly visitation. I can hear the rain beating heavily, while the wind howls mournfully in the chimney.
Nearing five o’clock. Something is happening upstairs. There is a drift towards Jennie’s room. I am reluctant to leave the fire but things upstairs are apparently becoming the centre of things, so I make my way up. I go down a narrow passage, up a short flight of steep, narrow stairs, turn left at the top, and enter a small room. Ten persons are gathered in the room, which is not more than ten feet square, and the only light is supplied by two candles. I join them. Jennie is in the bed and everybody is still. Outside the wind howls and the rain beats against the window.
Knock, knock, knock. It seems to be coming from the bottom of the bed. One of the group explains that this has been happening for some time. No member of the party in the room is in a position to knock at the place where this sound is coming from – the bottom inside corner of the bed. The wall of the other side is the outside of the house and far above ground level. I am baffled. I pull myself together and review the situation. I should feel afraid, but I am not. None of us in the room apparently are.
I learn that somebody has intercepted two safety pins on their way through the mattress of the bed, impelled by an unseen force. I am satisfied.
It is 6.30. I leave the house. The storm is over, but scurrying clouds throw shadows in my path. The only sound is the gentle rustle of the leaves. Phew! P.D.
Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 5th January 1935.
Weird happenings repeated.
Ghostly visitation to Co. Derry farmhouse during Christmas.
Strange molestation of occupants.
Note left on table with inscription “The Devil – Black Art”.
The weird happenings which first disturbed the family of a Co. Derry farmer about six weeks ago were repeated in the house during the Christmastide. On Christmas night an apple was mysteriously taken from the window-sill and flung at a lamp, smashing the globe to atoms.
On St Stephen’s night the farmer’s wife and her daughter were alone in the house, seated around the fire, when they suddenly felt a strange sensation as if somebody was prodding their backs with pins. At night, when the family was retiring, the candle went out without any apparent reason, and when the farmer went to relight it the table on which it rested began to shake violently.
The weird happenings occur both during the day and night, and the farmer, Mr David Ross, and his family are greatly perturbed by them. The house is on the side of the road about eight or nine miles distant from Coleraine and about a mile from the village of Articlave, which lies between the seaside village of Castlerock and Coleraine. A two storey building attached to it is 40 acres of tillage and grazing land.
When an “Irish Weekly” special representative visited the house he met the occupier, Mr David Ross, his wife, and their son William, and daughter Jennie, and heard from their own lips the strange story in relation to the weird happenings which disturbed their peace both day and night. It was principally Jennie who was affected by the uncanny happenings until recently, when other members of the family became involved in the occurrences, which have been the sole topic of discussion not only amongst their immediate neighbours but in Coleraine and other places into which details of the fearful experiences of this Presbyterian family have penetrated.
As our representative drove along the road to the house groups of people were assembled, apparently talking of what has come to be known as “the haunted house,” which is removed only a few yards from the main thoroughfare, and is a typical example of the well-kept residence of the Ulster farmer who has a careful, industrious housewife to assist him. He found the family sitting around a turf fire. Mrs Jane Ross appeared to be the only one of the family who was feeling the effects of the nerve-wrecking experience which she related.
“We were seated in the kitchen about six weeks ago,” she said, “at about 7 o’clock. My sister, Miss Bessie Pollock, and myself were knitting, and had left the things we had been knitting on the kitchen table and turned in to th efire. No one then was near the table, and suddenly the knitting was in the fire. We did not see it coming from the table to the fire. We felt the smell of burning wool, and on looking at the fire we saw not only the knitting but the needles we had been using in the flames. This happened several times since both at night and in the day time.”
This was not the only instance of the inexplicable she related. “We had socks just newly knitted,” she continued,” and I thought we put them in a bag – in fact, I am sure we put them in a bag. They were flung into the fire in a mysterious way on Sabbath day a few weeks ago.”
“One day,” she went on, “I sat purposely at the fire to see if anything would happen. It was in broad daylight, at about 4 o’clock. Jean, my little daughter, who is 11 years of age, was with me, and her coat and cap, which had been hanging where the boys’ caps were also hanging on pegs at the far end of the kitchen, were flung into the fire. I did not see them coming, and no one could possibly have thrown them.”
“On two occasions, six weeks ago, was saw [sic] in the two bedrooms occupied by the family the paper falling off the wall. Part of the paper was burnt, and a number of half-burnt matches were in the part of the paper which was just starting to burn. That was about 3 o’clock in the day. Several inches of the wall paper was burned, and the paper was beginning to burn in other places. The bedclothes were burnt in parts. One evening about the same date a box of clothes took fire in the same bedroom, and a fire also started in the wardrobe.”
Mrs Ross went on to tell of the remarkable experience of her little daughter, Jean, who was present during the interview and bore out all her mother stated. “When my little girl,” said Mrs Ross, “went to bed three weeks ago last Sunday, at about 10 o’clock, safety pins began to jag her. When I went into the same bed I also felt the safety pins jagging me.”
Handing our representative a safety pin about an inch and a half long, which had been found in the bed where his wife and child were sleeping, Mr Ross stated that even bigger pins had been used to stab them. Continuing her extraordinary narrative, Mrs Ross said: “While we were in bed we heard distinctly the paper being torn from the walls and thrown on the bed. That ceased for a while, and was followed by knocking on the bed. My sister, Bessie Pollock, slept with my little girl on another occasion and heard the knocking and scratching at the side of the bed.”
Asked if the scratching might not be attributable to rats or mice, Mr Ross repliled that there were no rats in the house. “Something like a hand nipped my child, myself and my sister,” Mrs Ross went on, “when we were taking it in turn to sleep with my child.”
Christmas Night and St Stephen’s Night will not soon be forgotten by Mrs Ross and her family. “On Christmas Night,” she said, “we were in the kitchen. An apple was taken from the window sill and thrown at the lamp. The blow broke the glass in front of myself, Jean, my daughter, and William, my son. The globe was smashed into atoms. On St. Stephen’s Night between 3 and 9 o’clock we were seated around the fire when my daughter and myself suddenly felt something like safety pins going down our backs. We were alone in the house at the time. During all these happenings no strangers were in our house at any time.”
“On St Stephen’s Night we were going up to bed at about 10 o’clock. My husband and the little girl went up first. A candle was placed on the table in the bedroom, and the candle went out without any reason, and while my husband was striking a match to relight the candle the table began to shake violently.” Mr Ross verified this, while Mrs Ross told how the looking-glasses in the bedrooms shook and fell from the walls. “I took up the looking glasses,” said Mrs Ross, “and placed them on the bed for safety. That was about one o’clock in the day about three weeks ago. To my horror, one of the mirrors rose by some unseen power from the bed and fell on the floor with a great crash which broke it in two. We afterwards took all the remaining glasses out of their frames and put them in a pile in the yard. I put the frames in a large bath pan on St Stephen’s Night. I took the bath pan up to the bedroom and put it under a table.
“The table and all on and under it,” Mrs Ross said, “began to shake, and I thought the house was coming down upon us. The noise was terrible. I never heard such a din. It lasted for about half an hour. That occurred at about 10 o’clock. When my little girl was in bed on another night there was knocking at the head of the bed and though I saw nothing, I heard the noise. It stopped after a wee while. I got into bed with the child, and at once pins began to jab the child and myself. That went on until about midnight, when the child went asleep, and nothing further occurred.”
“It is strange,” Mr Ross interjected, “that when the little girl goes to sleep all becomes quiet.”
“The trouble,” Mrs Ross said, “stopped for a week, and did not occur again until Christmas Day.”
Our representative barely missed being a witness to one of the happenings. “Just before you came in,” said Mrs Ross, “the salt was showered all over the kitchen table where my son William was taking some tea. I put sugar into his tea, but when my son tasted it he found it was salty. My husband and myself were taking tea at the same table but there was no salt in our tea. I emptied my son’s cup and put in fresh sugar, and there was no inteference with it after.” She proceeded – “Yesterday a little note was left on the table in the kitchen. We did not see anyone leaving it there, and no one entered the house. I opened the paper and read it. On it was written in ink – ‘The devil – black art.’ There was something like a white stud stuck in the paper. The little girl and myself were the only persons in the house at the time. I turned away from the table for a moment, and when I looked back the paper was not there, but on looking into the fire I saw a blaze. The note was just being consumed. I tried to get it out with the tongs, but I could only get the little stud. All that is absolutely true,” she added with emphasis. “I opened the hall door, and I saw another paper at the doorstep. The paper had a drawing of the devil, and the word devil written on it.
Both Mr Ross and Mrs Ross ridiculed the suggestion that practical jokers might be at work. Mr Ross remarked – “There was no one about here to do it, as be took particular care to keep a strict look-out. It is an unseen power that is at work. ”
“Whatever it is,” interjected Mrs Ross, “there seems to be a great force behind it, because the tongs have been lifted from the fireside and crashed with considerable force against the far end of the kitchen. The crook was lited off the crane in the kitchen chimney and banged against the wall also. This has occurred in broad daylight.”
“It is mostly when the little girl is in the house that these things happen. We are Presbyterians. We never read novels, Sunday papers or bad papers or books of any kind. We worship at First Church in the district, where the minister is the Rev. Mr Mark. He has been with us, and is very sympathetic with us. He told us to keep our door closed and not to let anyone in.”
Mrs Ross complained that the family felt very much the rumours that were going to the effect that the family were inventing the stories that had been inventing the stories that had been circulated. Some people have been unkind enough,” said Mrs Ross teafully, “to say that we are doing all this ourselves. It’s a great untruth.”
Mr David Ross related how “his wee boy and himself” had three caps burned which were hanging on pegs in the kitchen. “I was,” he said, “sitting by the fire at about one o’clock one day, and, without any warning whatever, I saw the caps in the fire. They were almost burned when I pulled them out I certainly did not see them going in. On the evening of the 14th December I brought three boxes of matches from Coleraine. When I went to light the oil lamp the matches in one of the boxes were nearly all wet. I asked my son, David, if he had been at the matches, and he said no. “When I went to bed, I had the surprise of my life, for there between the blanket and the sheet I saw the matches spread out in a row.
“I returned to the kitchen and took up an empty box and filled it up again. I put the boxes and matches outside and buried the lot in the garden.”
“Do you intend to remain in the house?” he was asked, and he replied: “You cannot rise up and leave a farmhouse. We have no place to go. We have got a kind of ‘mad’ with what has occurred,” he continued. “We are here for the past 20 years. We have all lived happily together, and never had any domestic trouble or trouble of any kind.”
Little Jean Ross, a bright, intelligent child, said: “My arms were black and blue, and so were Miss Bessie Pollock’s arms, from the pricking we got in bed.”
Mrs Ross, though apparently suffering from the nervous state consequent upon her ordeal, was optimistic. She said: “It will surely wear off.” “We have faith in God,” were her final words to our representative as he left the cottage.
A veteran driver, who motored our representative from Coleraine to the scene of his investigations, recalled that many years ago a similar occurrence was reported in the same county. He had travelled the district of all hours of the night, even when he drove a jarvey car, and he had never seen anything “worse than himself.”
Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 5th January 1935.
“Haunted” House in Articlave.
Visited by Special Representative.
Incidents Attributable to Human Agency.
A Constable’s Experience with “the Ghost”.
There are few things as enjoyable as a really good ghost story, but, unfortunately, the interest created means an unhappy time for the victims. This is the case at Articlave, near Castlerock, which I visited on Tuesday, writes our representative.
Here, for the last five months, according to the occupants of a house there, mysterious happenings have been going on, and visitors have come from all over Northern Ireland to get to close quarters with something which, they say, has never been accounted for, and the result has been that Mr and Mrs Ross, the tenants of the place, have had their house full almost every night for about a month.
Wildly exaggerated stories of occurences at the house have been spread abroad, and while it is all very entertaining and amusing, the plight of the family has been forgotten by the public. To end this annoyance the family, who are of a highly-respectable class, have closed the door to all curiosity-mongers, and especially reporters, who are taboo, and anybody who goes there in future will see or hear nothing, for they will not be admitted. The family are tired of the unwelcome publicity given them, and effective measures have been taken to stop them.
In fact, the door would not have been opened to me had the occupants known who I was, but, after explaining that my mission was to help and draw attention to the position of the family, and after a lot of persuasion on the relatives I was admitted to the “haunted” house.
Mrs Ross explained to me that she had been greatly annoyed through reports appearing in the Press, gained under what amounted to absolutely false pretences. At any rate, I am able to state that I believe the affair is passing away now, and, as there has been little recurrence of the mysterious happenings since Christmas, there is little doubt that in a short time it will be forgotten. By the time i had reached the house I was ready to believe anything.
Seated comfortably before a roaring fire in the hospitable home fo the Rosses, my first impression was that the family were coming through their painful ordeal, which would drive most people crazy, extremely well. They were perfectly calm, and went about their duties as if nothing had ever happened in the house, whereas stories as related by them were enough to raise the hair on the head of the most incredulous.
Apparently in September last there was a mysterious burning, quite explainable in itself, but not when followed by the happenings, such as the nightly pin-pricking of Jean, the little daughter of the house, with pins, moving of their own volition; utensils, such as cans, hurling themselves through space without any apparent propelling force, and the slashing of coats as if by knives. Those are the whole facts, and I found on sifting and thoroughly investigating various accounts which I heard that as actually stated here they are correct.
What amazed me and everybody who has been in the house is the astoundingly calm manner in which everything is discussed by this family, and this says much for their nerves. Had I experienced one-tenth of what was related to me I might not have recovered from the shock to tell the tale. When I left the house on Tuesday evening after being there about three hours under its kindly roof I confess I was almost persuaded there was really “something in it,” and I felt sorry for the people concerned. But when one has slept on a thing like this and weighed up all the evidence, as I did yesterday, and consulted with highly respectable people in Londonderry who were present when tests were carried out, as I did last night, one begins to see that there is little that could not be rather easily explained, and the good people of the house need not be alarmed.
Sitting in that house on Tuesday for three hours, and although surrounded by friendly folk, one would expect something something to happen if things were as stated, but there was not the least disturbance of any kind, and nothing appeared so remote. Nor was there any air of tension or expenctancy on my part.
During my stay the little girl came tripping in from school, and a brighter, more intelligent girl I have seldom seen. She seemed even above the average intelligence for eleven years. I questioned her, but never caught her out. It was strange, however, that the jagging with the pins never occurred when she was asleep, a natural time for any evilly disposed opponent. The pricking went on sometimes while the girl was sitting at the fire, and the pins are supposed to be different from those used by the household.
It was explained to me that while a stranger was in the house there would be no pricking, and I promptly pointed out that at such a time the girl’s mind would be directed away from herself. There being no signs of pricking in the kitchen, I suggested that the girl should be put in bed as an experiment, but, unfortunately, the bed was not prepared then. I was then willing to wait until bedtime, but the girl was being taken away to another district that night. Only sometimes was there pricking when the girl was away on her last holiday a short time ago, and nothing happened in the house she left behind her.
What is the real explanation of the pricking is hard to say, but it is clear there is a mischievous spirit about, although not necessarily supernatural. A solution which is worth a trial, and which should help, would be a change of environment for the girl for a considerable period, and those in the house on Tuesday readily agreed with that suggestion, as the girl needs building up, they said.
Another most peculiar thing is that the pins appeared through the bed clothes and also the girl’s clothing point first. One cannot jag with the head of a pin. When I queried this statement the unsatisfactory answer was given that some of the pins were knitting needles.
When I entered the house I was a little bit nervous, or rather, expectant, and it was certainly surprising and pleasing not to see the occupants starting at every sound or with nerves frayed. However, as nobody seemed to be worrying, I too, soon began to treat the matter as if it were a hundred miles away.
When I left I was frankly puzzled, but i had one strong belief, and this was, fortunately, confirmed up to the hilt when by pure accident last night I met and discussed with people of standing in Londonderry, who had watched experiments on a number of occasions in the girl’s bedroom, the whole circumstances. These gentlemen, one of them really anxious to meet something supernatural or a spirit of some sort, paid several visits and watched and assisted in experiments, but, to say the least, the results were not only negative, but farcical.
Tappings which were heard in the house were accounted for quite simply, and were apparently of human origin. “The answers,” “Yes” and “No” code, arranged by the spirit were only available for the most childish questions.
The slashing of the front of a coat, which I was shown, the “flying” of boots and shoes and caps into the fire are quite possibly, and probably, due to human agency, but there appears no evidence as to any person or persons having a motive for playing these tricks.
Members of the family have suffered a great deal of annoyance and pain over the affair, according to their statements, and whoever is responsible ought to feel ashamed of themselves at the mischief they are working.
Again, there has been mention of little fires in various parts of the house, but what an extraordinary thing it is that not one of these fires has gained much headway, and always they have been extinguished in a few minutes, before any great damage is done.
The pins which are doing night-pricking are different from those used in the house, but it is easily proved there is nothing devilish about them. Last night I met in Londonderry a man who had carried out several tests and seized two of the pins. He has had them in his house ever since, and two more inoffensive pins were never made. There they repose in a drawer without any ill-will towards anybody.
However, the occurrences have not been bad since Christmas, and Mrs Ross is hopeful that they will die away, never to return. A thorough test is what is wanted, but it seems clear the family themselves never tried that.
The purpose of this article is to help, not to amuse the curious, and if it has the effect of keeping away the plague of unwanted visitors and to aid in the solution it will have achieved its aim.
These are the full facts, honestly stated and commented upon, and nothing remains but to thank Mrs Ross and certain members of the household for their kindness and for an interesting afternoon. The police are taking no interest in “the ghost” now, but they did go to the house on one occasion, and there is an amusing story, although it is probably on a par with all the other silly yarns about cows riding on bicycles, pigs with tall hats, and smoking and playing banjoes, which have been foolishly circulated.
The story, which appeared in a Coleraine newspaper, is that a constable was left alone in the kitchen to keep a look-out. He was sitting gazing into the fire in his stockinged soles when a voice out of the shadows said – “There is only you and me here.” The constable said nothing, but thought his ears had deceived him. Again the voice, this time quite close, repeated – “There is only you and me here.” The constable was alarmed, and, making a grab for his boots, he replied – “Wait a second until I get my boots, and there will be only you here.”
There is nobody who has investigated the circumstances but would agree with the sentiments expressed in the letter from “Unbeliever” in last Saturday’s “Sentinel.”
Londonderry Sentinel, 10th January 1935.
The Articlave Poltergeist.
Dr Bob Curran investigates in Articlave.
At first sight, the village of Articlave, lying between Coleraine and Castlerock seems a sleepy and innocent enough little place. Yet the village has a strange and sometimes sinister history. Articlave lies within a tract of land which was once known as Firlee, a territory which encompassed the site of the modern-day village and the desolate mountain country around, stretching as far as the Sconce Hill and byond. It marked the North-eastern limits of the country of the O’Flynns, a clan who paid tribute to the Kings of Dalrada, and was known as Oua Tuartrie or the High North County. Even in those ancient times, the place had a sinister reputation. It is still littered with the remnants of prehistoric times – ancient standing stones and souterrains – many dating back to the Bronze and Iron Ages and early Christian periods. The Sconce itself is believed to have been an early Celtic fortress, perhaps known as Dun Cetheren or the stronghold of Catheren, grandson of an Irish High King, Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall died around 405 AD. There is an old and persistent legend that two kings were burned to death on the summit of this ancient hill. Ghosts of ancient warriors are said to haunt the areas and the sounds of phantom armies clashing in battle are said to reverberate amongst the lonely hills. In early days, it was a place of reputed witchcraft and that those who ventured into the mountain country after nightfall would be carried away by evil spirits.
Such stores, of course, simply passed into folk legend and were usually dismissed. However, tales of ghostly presences in the district were soon to reemerge with the appearance of the Articlave Poltergeist in 1934. In ghost-lore, poltergeists are a specific type of spirit. The name in German and means ‘noisy or boisterous ghost.’ In all cases this spirit remains invisible, signalling its presence by knocking, banging or hammering on doors and walls or by hurling objects (sometimes very heavy ones) around the room. It very rarely injures anyone, but the experience can cause shock and fright. Because much poltergeist activity has been recorded in houses where young children (especially young girls) have been present, there has been an attempt to link the phenomenon with psychokinetic energy which is subconsciously released by minors. The evidence for this, however, remains untested. Most of the recorded poltergeist activity has been on the Continent, in America and in England, but there have been several famous cases in Northern Ireland – in Larne (1866); in Cookstown (1876( and Derrygonnelly (1877). Rated against these, however, the Articlave Poltergeist must be one of the most recent and best documented since it was recorded by a well-known reporter, J.P. Donaghy, who was working for the ‘Irish Times’.
A story had reached his editor in Dublin that a family in Articlave village had become the focus of poltergeist activity and Donaghy was sent North to investigate. He has consistently refused to give the name of the family involved as they and their descendants still live around the area and he has understandably no wish to cause them any further distress. The only family member whom he does name (since she proved to be the centre of the spirit activity) is the daughter whom he simply calls ‘Laura’, though this may not be her real name. The spirit, it is claimed, was making life unbearable for a small tenant farmer, his wife and a family of two sons and a daughter. Articles, it was said, freely moved about the house of their own accord and delph, cloths and glass lamp globes were tossed about the place with reckless abandon under the very eyes of the family.
The girl, aged ten years old, was said to have been flung out of bed during the night, injuring herself, and was repeatedly troubled by ghostly knocking and by invisible objects like sharp needles being stuck into her, some even leaving welts and marks on her skin. The family, good church-going Presbyterians, were at their wits’ end. A minister had been summoned to exorcise the phantom but without much success. The reporter arrived in Articlave as a storm gathered over the mountains. The clouds appeared to be lowering and a strong wind was rising, blowing over the roofs of the low village houses with a banshee-like wail. He found the house by following a rutted track, just a little way beyond the village-end. It led Donaghy to a ‘solid-looking two-storey stone farmhouse standing on a desolate bit of land a good way away from the main road.’ A number of people had gathered in the kitchen and it appeared that since the disturbances had begun, neighbours stayed with the family each night in order to keep vigil.
Donaghy was surprised by the nature of the people who were in the house. There were, he says, stolid Presbyterian country people, not much given to flights of fantasy or imagination. ‘Laura’ was there too – a shy, intelligent girl, no different from any other child of her age. If a practical joke was involved, says Donaghy, she seemed incapable of perpetrating it, as did the other members of her family. Her father made the reporter welcome and brought him up to a fire of peats which was burning brightly in the corner. The kitchen was lit by a single oil lamp which burned in the middle of the table and which cast long and frightening shadows all around the room. The talk was very general – about crops, the weather, anything except ghosts. About midnight, a car was heard outside the house and three people who might be described as ‘substantial men’ of the district – probably elders from the Church – arrived to take up their vigil in the house. One by one, the other neighbours began to drift away to their own homes, leaving Donaghy by the fire with the two sons and the three vigil-keepers. Laura had long since gone to bed. As the hours slowly passed, the conversation waned. Outside, the wind still howled about the farmhouse, moaning eerily amongst the chimneys and scattering of rain smote at the windows. Donaghy and his companies began to doze in the heat of the peats.
They were awakened from time to time by a collie dog which had crawled under the table, whimpering and growling in its own sleep. The animal seemed to be troubled by disturbing dreams. Now and again, it would suddenly sit up and look towards the door as if expecting it to open and someone to come in. At one time, Donaghy records, he thought the door did in fact open slightly and close again, as though someone was peering into the kitchen, but there was no one there, and he admits that he might have been dreaming himself. The dog’s behaviour was probably due to the storm outside. Just around 5 a.m. the men were awakened by a noise from the stairs, signalling that something was starting to happen in ‘Laura’s’ bedroom. Donaghy followed the others up the narrow wooden stairs to the child’s room. ‘Laura’ lay in a small wooden bed, pushed tightly against the outside stone wall of the house, just below the only window in the room. The bedroom was lit by two candles and ‘Laura’s’ mother sat at the top of the bed, looking towards the door, and for a few moments Donaghy could distinguish nothing unusual in the tableau in front of him.
Then he heard the sounds. There was low, clear, knocking in the candlelit room. It was like knuckles being rapped against woodwork or the sound of a carpenter’s hammer tap-tapping against a piece of planking. It seemed to be coming from somewhere close to the bottom of the child’s bed – from the wall, it seemed, which was made of stone. The sound was a regular one, coming in both single and double taps, sometimes loud but at other times falling away again. Sometimes it maintained a steady, regular rhythm, at others it increased in speed, becoming an angry impatient knocking. Donaghy looked around the room for something wooden which could be used to make the noise but he could see nothing. The tapping continued more rapidly this time, and the patience and nerves of the people in the room were clearly being strained. This was something far beyond their usual experiences and it was frightening them badly. The candles flickered and threatened to go out and a very cold sensation was experienced by everyone present, including the hard-bitten reporter.
Searching around the room, Donaghy tried to locate the exact source of the sounds. At one time, he thought that it came from a spot about two feet above the floor, at others that it came from high up in the wall end. He put his hand to the stone but could feel no vibration at all. Nor did the sound appear to stay still but travelled all around the room, sometimes echoing in front of him, then coming from behind. In search of a logical explanation, Donaghy suggested that it might be caused by something outside the house – a nightbird or a tree-branch tapping against the wood of the window frames. He looked outside – again nothing. No bird flew away at his movement and there was no tree close enough to the house to even reach the window.
One of the elders present began to ask the spirit questions to which it replied with a simple yes/no code. He asked it about personal details of several of those in the room – things which ‘Laura’ or anyone present could not have known about. For example, he asked it to pick the birthday of Donaghy – a stranger in the district – from a number of dates. In all cases, the poltergeist answered correctly. It would not, however, answer any questions about itself and these were simply greeted with long periods of silence. All the while, the candles in the room guttered and flickered, seeming on the verge of extinction at one moment, then flaring with an inexplicable brilliance the next. They cast an almost unearthly glow around the room and upon the grim faces of those who stood by the bed. Sometime just before daylight, the sounds in the room ceased and ‘Laura’ fell back into a deep and seemingly restful sleep. Donaghy, quite shaken by the experience, decided to take his leave. Shortly after that night, the weird rappings and other phenomena stopped altogether and peace returned to the house at the end of the track. No explanation was ever found for the ghostly sounds and incidents and the case remains unsolved until this day. Donaghy, himself, never went back but, as he says, “I have never forgotten the experience.”
Coleraine Times, 21st June 1995.