Strange Manifestations at Aughadown Glebe. – For some months past the most unaccountable noises have been heard in Aughadown Glebe, commencing each evening precisely at ten o’clock p.m., and only during the absence from home of the Ven. Archdeacon Stuart. The strangest part of the whole thing is that immediately on his return these singular manifestations cease.
There can be no doubt of their existence, as they have been witnessed by gentlemen of the highest veracity and respectability in the neighbourhood. Questions on almost all subjects have been asked and answers returned by a given number of “knocks” on the floor.
We may mention that every means has been resorted to in the endeavour to discover by what agency these unnatural responses are produced, but as yet with no success. The flooring has been removed, servants watched, and every conceivable device thought of, but all to no purpose. Here is a mystery for the curious in such matters to unravel. It is not possible, it is said, to be a trick, as there is no person to perform such in the house. But by what means or agency these manifestations are made, that they do exist is beyond question, and are causing considerable excitement in the neighbourhood.
This mysterious spirit has “knocked out” its intention to remain at Aughadown, and not to follow the archdeacon to his new residence at Castle-town-Kinneigh, so the Rev. Mr Spring is to be favoured with a continuance of its disagreeable presence. He has also frequently heard the noises referred to, but can in no way account for them. He will not, however, we are sure, be “knocked out” of taking up his abode there, for this “spirit,” though a little noisy, is perfectly harmless.
Skibbereen and West Carbery Eagle, 19th November 1864. (reprinted widely in Irish and English press)
Noises at Aughadown Glebe.
To the Editor of the Cork Constitution.
Sir – With regard to the paragraph from the Skibbereen Eagle relative to the noises in Aughadown Glebe, which appeared in a recent number of the Cork Constitution, I beg to state the following, for the truth of which I most solemnly pledge myself.
In the summer of 1835 I had charge of the Parish of Aughadown and took up my abode in the Glebe. On several fine mornings as early as half-past three and four o’clock, it being then quite light, I was awoke by loud noises, as if in the kitchen; chairs were, as I thought, raised up and slapped down with great force – kettles, pans, metal pots, fire irons, &c., appeared to have been thrown about with considerable violence. I got up frequently, went to the lobby, and called out to know what was the matter, when all at once everything became quiet. I was, however, no sooner ensconced in bed again than the noises again commenced, if possible louder than before. On once occasion I was so annoyed that I went down to the kitchen, where, although a few seconds before there was apparently a most noisy clamour, all was quiet, and every article as it had been left at night, the windows fastened and the doors locked. I questioned the labourers and servants, and made every enquiry as to the cause of the noises, but they solemnly protested they knew nothing about the matter.
I am no believer in the so-called spirit-rapping, and think all such stuff a mere humbug, or at least to be caused by juggling; but I most solemnly assert that what I have written relative to the noises at Aughadown Glebe is a positive fact. I may add that the noises were heard by some relatives of my own who were then staying at the house.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A CLERGYMAN.
>The writer is well known to us. – Ed. Constitution.
‘Spirit-rapping Extraordinary.’
To the Editors of the Eagle.
Gentlemen – I am sorry that under the above heading, incorrect and exaggerated reports calculated to annoy (though I am sure not so intended by you,) the kind and respected family who have just taken their departure from Aughadown Glebe, should have found their way into your paper. As I am referred to as a witness of these nocturnal doings, I beg to say that I heard no noises but what if so disposed, I could produce myself. I heard questions, but no responses as stated in the Eagle.
It is very hard to ascertain the causes of sounds which can only be heard in a thoroughly dark room in the presence of a number of persons, some frightened, some amused, from whom the producing cause will not let you make your own selection. That the noises proceed from an invisible agency I freely admit, but on the principle that all agencies are invisible in the dark.
It is not true that the flooring of the room has been taken up, but merely a small part of one board; nor do the noises “commence each evening precisely at 10 o’clock,” but sometimes for a much longer period try the patience of those waiting to hear them.
A large and ancient-looking bedstead which has long occupied a place in the room was thought to have some mysterious connection with them. This I bought, with little competition, at the auction on Tuesday, and don’t expect it to be troublesome again.
On the following night I went determined, in the altered circumstances of the house, to institute the strictest investigation should the “rappings” and “knockings” continue, but I could hear nothing. I am, gentlemen, your faithful servant, EDWARD SPRING. Kilcoe, November 25th, 1864.
[From the accounts related by gentlemen who were expressly invited to hear the “knockings,” we beg to inform Mr Spring, that instead of the paragraph in the Eagle being exaggerated, we have since learned it fell far short of what might have been said. We also beg to assure him that gentlemen of the strictest veracity informed that they did receive “answers” by a given number of knocks.
The Rev. Mr Spring, we believe, was not present on the night of the 17th instant, the occasion to which we more particularly referred, when a large party was specially assembled. In speaking of Mr Spring last week, we did not call him as a witness. We said – “This gentleman has also frequently heard the noises referred to, but can in no way account for them.” Neither has he now thrown any light on the matter, unless by the hint conveyed about the purchase of the “ancient-looking” bedstead. We sincerely hope it will cease to be “troublesome,” and that it contains no more disturbing customers. That Mr Spring was not quite at rest upon this subject, the latter part of his letter fully proves, as “on the following night he went determined to institute the strictest investigation.”
Who can account for the mystery revealed in the letter of “A Clergyman.” In conclusion, we must say, that if “reports calculated to annoy” were circulated, we emphatically deny their authorship. Go where we would, meet whom we may, the sole subject of conversation was “the noises at Aughadown,” but as our statement is said to be “exaggerated,” if Mr Spring will oblige us with the version he related at the Young Mens’ soiree, we shall be most happy to give it publicity.
Skibbereen and West Carbery Eagle, 26th November, 1864.
Manifestations at Aughadown Glebe.
To the editor of the Cork Constitution.
Dear Sir – In reference to the various letters, &c., on the above subject, which within the last ten days have appeared in your Paper from the Skibbereen Eagle and other souces, I beg to inform you that I have discovered and captured the “ghost”. It is an ingenious but simple contrivance, and so conveniently portable that I was able to bring it home with me in my pocket yesterday. I shall keep it for the inspection of as many of “the curious in such matters” as may wish to try their own hands upon it.
There are few of the “knockings and rappings” which the last six months have been affording so much amusement to some and causing terror to others that it will not produce even in the hands of the unskilful, with a capability of instant concealment.
Though I have not yet gone to reside at the Glebe, I slept there on Monday night in the “haunted room” and “enchanted bed,” giving the ghost every advantage for his “manifestations” the present circumstances of the house could afford, but he did not come.
I had received information of the contrivance some days before, but it was only that night, after I had gone to sleep there, it was found, by a late out-door servant of the establishment, concealed beneath a quantity of rubbish under the stairs. In the remarks you copied from the Eagle of last Saturday there is a passage which is calculated to convey a wrong impression to the readers of both Papers. It runs thus:-
But as our statement is said to be exaggerated, if Mr Spring will oblige us with the version he related at the Young Men’s Soiree we shall be most happy to give it publicity.
Those who were not present “at the soiree” would naturally infer from this that I had made some public statement there of this much talked of matter, but I did not. I suppose the Editor refers to what, in a mere private conversation, I told a friend I had myself heard (then unexplained) and had been hearing from others, but there was no inconsistency between that and the statement in my letter “that I had heard no noises but what, if so disposed, I could produce myself.”
The only “mystery revealed” in the letter of your correspondent “a CLERGYMAN” in respecting the jingling of “kettles and pots” on a fine Summer’s morning in the year ’35 is that no person told him who did it. I should have supposed that the learned gentleman “revealed” in the Parish register as in temporary “charge of that parish” for six months of that year, had more sense than to have written and published a letter calculated only to amuse or frighten babies in a nursery.
I am, dear sir, your faithful servant, EDWARD SPRING. Kilcoe, Skibbereen, Nov. 30, 1864.
PS – The Editor of the Eagle will please copy the above, and thus save me the trouble of a separate letter to himself.
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We congratulate Mr SPRING (see his letter). He is a valuable ghost-layer. We assure him, however, that “A CLERGYMAN” is not the only person (not wanting in “sense” or in veracity either) who testifies to the noises as far back as more than thirty years ago. We have had a letter before us for some days which states that many a night master and mistress and servants have searched the house after hearing iron bars, &c., banged down. In time they became accustomed to it, and did not mind it, but the noises continued. This letter was private, so we have to ask pardon for this allusion to it; but Mr SPRING will see from it that if he has “captured the Ghost,” his Ghostship has been more than “six months” at work. We presume there must have been a mistake about the raps which announced that “the spirits” did not intend to follow Mr STUART. The “ingenious contrivance” could scarcely have managed that, so the ears that fancied it might have been deceived. If there were only the noises, we would ask, may not rats have been the cause? We are told the house is infested with them, and any one who has lived in a house so plagued may be aware how audable they make themselves, how on a lobby or a stairs the steps of a number of them sound as the steps of a human being, and how if there be pots or pans on a kitchen floor their efforts to get in and to get out of these will make one fancy that irons are being knocked about. What if this is the explanation?
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The Noises at Aughadown.
To the Editor of the Cork Constitution.
“Parturiunt montes,” &c., Sir – Although Mr Spring finds fault with me for stating a fact, yet it appears from his letter that there were noises at the Glebe, as he says he has “captured” the cause of them. What is it? – A “pocket” full of ghosts? or – but, perhaps, dear Sir, you can kindly inform me, as I defy any one who reads his letter to tell. But whatever the capture may be, I have only to deal with the concluding portion of his epistle, where he states that the “Parish Register has revealed the learned gentleman as in temporary charge of the Parish for six months.” Now, Sir, I was not above half that time “in charge”; and, as to my having or not having had “more sense than to have written and published” my former letter, I beg to assure him that even if it was “calculated to amuse or frighten babies in a nursery,” &c., I only stated a fact, which I again most solemnly beg to reiterate. I rejoice, however, to find that he is not such a “baby” as to be scared either by the letter or by the noises. The noises were most distinctly heard by two relatives of mine then staying in the Glebe. Whether caused by rats or not I cannot say. The house at the time was much invested by those vermin; but I did think the noises entirely too loud to be caused by them – possibly I may have been mistaken.I am glad that my statement has been in some measure corroborated by the “private letter” alluded to in your editorial remarks in this day’s Constitution. Yours very truly, A CLERGYMAN. December 2, 1864.Skibbereen and West Carbery Eagle, 3rd December 1864.
“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus:
The Latin phrase roughly means “from out of the labors of a mountain, a laughable mouse is born.” (Horace). It describes wasted, pointless or uninspired effort, also encapsulated in the saying, “all that effort poured in and yet nothing to show for it”.
several more to do in polt oct 2020 folder
“Manifestations at Aughadown Glebe” – The detected ghost.
To the Editor of the Cork Constitution.
Dear Sir – As you don’t seem entirely satisfied as to the “rapping” powers of the “ingenious contrivance,” allow me to assure you that it can do it beautifully. The statement that the ghost “rapped out” its intention of not following the family to their new abode is not correct. When interrogated on that point it did not rap at all, which was interpreted by some of those present on that dreadful night (17 ult.) of falling trees, flying slates, and dancing ghosts, into a negative response.
I have, however, heard that when asked to express, by two “knocks,” its dislike to a gentleman who had been provoking its ire by fulminations of defiance and abuse, it mose condescendingly did so. This, in a dark room, could of course be done even with a tap of the knuckles or pound of the heel. The steward told me that a night he was there himself, when he “made a grab to catch the ghost,” he caught the leg of a domestic raised from the ground in the position one would expect to find it in when preparing to produce one of those occasionally heavier sounds than could be accomplished by the little contrivance that has fallen into my own hands.
You are aware that, true to the principle of John iii., 19,20, “his Ghostship” would only perform on condition of the total exclusion of light, his aversion to which he carried so far that the mere sound of a lucifer match would cause him instantly to stop.
You have been rightly informed respecting the rats. The house is infested with them, and troublesome nocturnal customers they are – far more troublesome and noisy than either cluricauns or lenaueshees; but I hope to be able to silence them by a few doses of Dawson’s Rat Powder or the Phosphoric Paste.
As I have in each of my letters made myself responsible, by my proper signature, for the accuracy of my statements, may I respectfully suggest that you will require the writers of any other letters you may receive on the subject to make themselves similarly responsible. Indeed I should not have troubled you or the Eagle with a communication at all relative to this now widely-celebrated affair had not my name been honoured with a place in the first newspaper publication of it, as that of a witness of the mysterious doings. I have now expressed my well-satisfied conviction – and, I hope, satisied the public too – that from beginning to end it has been a well-managed trick. Should the “manifestations” return after I shall have gone to reside in the house myself, I shall as freely and as publicly acknowledge my mistake.
I had written thus far when I received the Constitution of this day containing the second letter of “A Clergyman.” In the passage which he quotes from mine, ‘arouse’ is a misprint for ‘amuse’. It seems that in my hurried glance at the Parish Register I mistook the precise number of months I incidentally referred to as the period during which he had charge of the parish in the year ’35, but this in no wise affects “the ghost” question.
I am glad he admits that the terrible noises which made so indelible an impression on him may, after all, have only proceeded from rats, thus exemplifying the well applied “Parturiunt montes” &c., at the head of the more sensible of his two letter, merely for “ridiculus mus” substituting “a rat”. What I “found fault” with him for was, that a clergyman of his character, learning and sense should have written, and at so inopportune a time, a letter, the tendency of which was to foster in the minds of the weak-minded and superstitious a mischievous delusion in progress of being exposed.
He wishes to know what the instrument made use of to produce the late “rappings” and “knockings” was. If, in the “one step” descent “from the sublime to the ridiculous,” I must tell – the dreadful ghost of Aughadown was simply a small boot attached to the end of a long string! occasionally supplemented by the cracking of the finger nails!! with any other little convenience next to hand, the use of which the ingenuity of the operator might choose to extemporise!!
I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours, Edward Spring. Kilcoe, Skibbereen, Dec. 3rd 1864.
P.S. This mischievous “spirit” used sometimes whack people on the shoulders and box their cheeks, creating unpleasant sensations not easily got rid of for several days. One of the servants told me she got a slap from it which caused her cheek to swell, as visible to many on the following day. Not a pleasant customer surely to be brought into too close contact with.
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>> There is no occasion for any further writing. Mr Spring has detected one delinquent, and very culpable was it in either domestic or visitor to have been the cause of so much disquiet to the family; but how about the noises as of falling irons, and about their continuance through so long a period as have been alleged?
Are the rats accountable for them? or has trickery been at work undiscovered for forty years, if not for more? Some occupants of the glebe, after fruitless efforts to discover the cause, had an impression that they proceeded from a smuggler’s cave, though they had no knowledge of one being near.
The selection of darkness, on the part of Mr Spring’s friends, is not perhaps in itself suspicious, as before daylight, and we presume before any light, goblins disappear; but the touch of a flesh and blood foot encased in shoe-leather is proof that the owner had not yet taken rank among “the spirits.”
The misprint Mr Spring speaks of was the fault of the office, not of our correspondent.
Cork Constitution, 6th December 1864.