A Belfast “Ghost”
Week-end comedy of stalking spirit
Posse of powerless police
(By a special correspondent).
“There is a ghost in a house in Trinity Street, off Clifton Street. The police are there now, keeping the crowds away.” That was the startling message handed me last night when I imagined that my something accomplished during the day had earned for me a night’s repose; but with a ghost stalking so near at hand as Trinity Street, Belfast, there could be neither repose nor rest.
My first inclination was to throw the message away, but there was something “circumstantial,” as they say in murder trials and mystery magazines, about the police “keeping the crowds away.” That decided it. Accordingly, I repaired to Trinity Street, where hundreds of men, women and children, many of whom, like myself, might well have asked with Pope: “What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade invites my steps…”
My journey to Trinity Street was short, but many and weird were the stories I listened to on the way. One man told me that a gentleman, on whose veracity and sobriety the most implicit confidence could be reposed had seen the ghost and that the spirit was “headless, with red eyes.” That was impressive, if not convincing. Another seeker after truth assured me that a friend of his had seen the ghost, and that it had assumed the form of a “man in dress clothes;” while a man who had spent many hours in the street declared he had distinctly seen the ghost “flitting about, dressed as a nun.”
It is not often the Belfast police have to confess themselves mystified, much less beaten, yet I forced the confession. The hardy members of the force in the danger zone were naturally reluctant to commit themselves or incur the spirit’s wrath, for they had a long night’s duty ahead; but when I approached headquarters, I found that the greater distance lent more confidence to the Force.
Willing to assist me, headquarters had to admit that, while the ghost had stalked, none of the officers of the law had interrogated it. It was true that “in consequence of information received” members of the force had “proceeded to” Trinity Street, and that “reports would be made in due course.”
Asked if there was any previous record of or against the Ghost of Trinity Street, the officer said there was no previous record. Its finger prints had never been taken, there was no official photograph of it, nor was it known whether the ghost’s eyes were red or green. For the present the Trinity Street Ghost remains at large; hundreds of people hang around in the hope of seeing it, or of hearing some fresh story, while stalwart policemen guard the house from which weird stories have emanated for a month or more, and others see that no over-inquisitive person enters Trinity Street.
Belfast News-letter, 18th January 1932.
Ghost comedy in Belfast.
Excitement round a “haunted” house.
Clutching hand.
Squeaks and banging of doors.
Creaks on the stairs, shadows on the walls, faces at the window, a clutching hand! Outside, in the dimly-lit street, thousands of excited people held back by cordons of police. This is not the opening of a chapter by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is an account of happenings during the weekend in one of the most prosaic streets in Belfast – Trinity Street.
Have you ever hunted a ghost? I never did before yesterday (writes a “Northern Whig” representative) and then I hunted until I felt like a ghost. But not one skinny hand or cowled head did I see. The ghost was said to be in Trinity Street – to be correct, in a house in Trinity Street – but I found on arrival there one of the most solid demonstrations of flesh and blood it has ever been my lot to see.
The street, like the court at Fagan’s trial, was packed from end to end with human faces. It seemed as if all Belfast had turned out to see the ghost, although the crowd were looking at nothing in particular. The police were there – half a dozen of them – and they were looking at the crowd. And I stood looking at the crowd and the police.
“He’s got no head” said a lad at my elbow with a Shankill Road accent, “and he flung a door at the fellas that went up the stairs.”
The boy did not look a nervous individual, and I gathered from his complacent appearance that he was not a witness of the brainless strong-man he described. But the talk of ghost which was in the air convinced me that I was on a concrete “story.”
The front door of the house could not be reached by an ordinary mortal, and unless ghosts fly I doubt if it could have been reached by a ghost either considering that some 3000 people were grouped around it in a compact, happy family party. But the backdoor – ah, the mystery could be penetrated from the back.
So into a dark passage which had the correct ghostly atmosphere I plunged with reckless abandon. “If there’s a ghost,” I muttered darkly, “the ‘Whig’ must get an interview.” I knew I had reached the right door when I came on a group of whispering people. My high spirits failed me for a moment, but only for a moment. They weren’t reporters! The ghost, then, was to be mine. I joined the party and talked breezily. No good. Then I talked sympathetically. Better. I began to learn of this ghost which threw doors and did not wear a hat or collar.
“It’s in the attic,” a youth told me, “but sometimes it comes downstairs and goes out into the yard.” Does it only walk at night? I asked. This was fine progress.
“Press?” queried the young fellow. I nodded dismally. “I thought so,” he said, “directly you started askin’ questions.” I wished for a minute or two that Pressmen could wear the transparency of ghosts when asking questions. A chilly silence had fallen. Upstairs in the haunted attic, a light was burning faintly.
“Do you know, ” I said at length, “I was once wakened by a ghost, and he rattled a bunch of keys…” “I don’t believe in ghosts,” said the young man. “But there are ghosts,” I persisted. “D’ye know,” he said, “I’d take ten bob and sleep in that attic.” “Certainly,” I replied. “The ghost couldn’t hurt you.”
“But that ghost,” said another young man, “is different. It doesn’t matter if you tie the doors, he pulls them open, and he kicks up a frightful banging. I hear he chased three men downstairs the other night, and he makes people faint.” “Well, well,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Do you think I could get into that house?” “Ask at the front door,” came the reply.
An eternity of pushing and squeezing, and at last I reached the door. A young, handsome constable stood guard over it. “I’m wanting to see the ghost,” I said. “Believe you me,” said the constable, “you’ll have to do some looking. We’ve been through the house, and could see no ghost.” “But I’d like to try.” “All right, you knock at the door.” I knocked, and having knocked, knocked and knocked again. (That sounds ghostly, doesn’t it?) “We know no defeat.” I think I heard that at the declaration of the municipal election results last Friday. Anyhow, I’ll apply to reporters. I am in a position to announce that I entered the spook chamber – it doesn’t matter how.
To lead up to the great climax properly, I must tell of the people in the “haunted” house. They received me courteously, almost eagerly. Who wouldn’t after being haunted by a rotten specimen of a ghost, and having only sceptics to receive the tale. Now, a reporter believes everything. I mean the more unlikely a story is to ordinary mortals the more likely a reporter to accept it, and enthuse over it, and investigate it, and embody in the literature which is the Press. If a dog bites a man it isn’t news, but if a man bites a dog…
So I listened to the story of the ghost. Apparently it is at once a silent and a noisy ghost. It heralds its appearance by a nerve-shaking squeaky noise, and then passes silently, as a good ghost should, across rooms and through walls. It had last appeared twenty minutes before my arrival, and as a divergence had emerged inch by inch from the ground outside the kitchen window. And having raised itself to a comfortable five feet six inches had pressed a pale masculine face against the glass, stared mournfully into the kitchen and – well, vanished of course.
Sometiems it passes across the scullery. It likes the scullery, by all accounts. The other night it flung open a window in the kitchen and on that occasion only vouchsafed a glimpse of a skinny hand. But it has not always been so modest and retiring.
Last Friday three young fellows heard it in the attic, ah, that attic. I’m coming to that in a moment. They climbed three flights of stairs and tied the handle of the attic door with string. And after they started the descent one adventurous youth turned back to see that the door was secure. The ghost must have seen him because that door danced about on its hinges, adn created hullabaloo. And the young men quite naturally fled.
And the door-ty ghost played a similar trick in the kitchen a short time ago. It pushed open the door with such a bang that a young man inside was hurled several feet.
There are three families in the house, and a young wife told me that one night she woke up to find a ghostly hand hovering over her face. Her six-year-old son also caught a glimpse of the unbidden guest.
Now to come to the attic. I was invited to go up, and I went, but not by myself. Five other men made the great ascent, adn the party was armed with a guttering candle and an electric torch.
Up and up, past tied doors and over a barricade of string, we climbed to the spook’s den. It was a depressingly bare, distorted chamber, like a cavern. But the ghost was out. On the wall was pointed out to me the impress of a hand – nothing very ghostly about it. The candle flickered nastily, and still no ghost appeared. And then we decided to go down with an apparent display of reluctance to go downstairs.
On the way we passed an open door. Inside, in a brightly-lit room, were two old-age pensioners, peaceful, interested in the “goings on” – but not haunted. They were reassuring, those old folks, and so were the police officers at the foot of the stairs. The crowd had been cleared from Trinity Street by a detachment of police from Glenravel Street barracks, and all was peace. We talked about the ghost for little longer – in fact, we seemed to be waiting for him, gathered there in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. But the black robe, and slim figure, and pale face, and clutching hand – not a hint.
“I wouldn’t sleep in that attic for all the Irish sweep,” said a man who frequently glanced up the dark staircase. But, remembering visions conjured up by a 10s ticket which I burned not long ago, I did not agree.
Northern Whig, 18th January 1932.
Trinity Street’s Ghost.
Psychic Student’s Investigation.
Traced to yard.
Police regulate curious sensation-mongers.
A Belfast “psychist,” it is stated, has located the ghost of Trinity Street. Its habitat is the yard of the haunted house, according to this gentleman, who visited the premises yesterday, and remained for some time investigating the occurrences said to have been experienced.
The publicity its doings have received may have offended the “ghost” as it was stated that he had not been seen yesterday, or it may be he was aware of the presence of an individual interested in psychic phenomena and of the plans that are perhaps being perfected to “lay him.” Whatever the reason the spirit rested in peace yesterday.
There were endless stories related of the supposed reasons for the ghost’s visits, and no less varied and fantastic were the accounts given of the supposed discoveries of the psychist, one being that it was the spirit of an individual who had been interred in the yard forty years ago. The psychist, it was whispered in the crowd, had declared that he possessed powers which could compel the “ghost” to come forth and show himself to the people whom he was haunting. Perhaps the occupants of the house which he is accredited with having visited during the weekend are not anxious to obtain another view of the “gentleman” who had emerged from the ground outside the kitchen window, who had wrenched off doors, and had bent over beds and awakened the sleeping occupants from their rest. Anyhow the psychist is to pay another visit to the house to-day. Whether it will be early in the morning or in the afternoon cannot be stated, nor is it known if it is contemplated digging up the yard.
Crowds of sightseers visited the district yesterday, and throughout the day cordons of police were posted at all entrances to Trinity Street, and only residents or those who could give a valid reason were allowed to pass into the thoroughfare.
Northern Whig, 19th January 1932.
The “Ghost”
Locality visited by huge crowds.
Belfast spiritualist stages seance in house.
Belfast continues to be exercised about the apparition reputed to have been appearing in a house in Trinity Street. Public curiosity is expressing itself in the large numbers of persons who are daily and nightly visiting the vicinity of the “haunted house.” The house continues to be guarded by police, and constables stationed in the vicinity discourage the close approach of the merely curious to the dwelling. Since the fierce light of publicity began to beat on Trinity Street there have been no further ‘apparitions’ reported, and the sarcastically sceptic suggest that ‘it’ is shy in face of all the attention focussed on ‘it’.
Families are being divided against themselves and homes have taken on the atmosphere of debating societies in Belfast during the last few days, and all because of the activities -or to be strictly impartial, the alleged activities – of the thing, the nuisance, the ghost, or whatever you like to call it, which is said to have taken up residence in Trinity Street. The controversy has extended to offices, workshops, factories, and street corners. “Pro-ghost” enthusiasts have pitted their verbal resource against the cold scepticism and heavy sarcasm of the “anti-ghost” opponents.
Every ghost story that has been known for generations is told and related with forcefulness. Like all stories of spirits, these have gained substance and colour with the passing of the years. But the sceptics were not to be shaken from their pinnacle of incredulity. They just smile and look pityingly at the “believers.”
However, curiosity seems to be a trait common to the nature of both parties, and hundreds flocked to Trinity Street to see the “haunted” house on Monday. Fearing a recurrence of the scenes witnessed during the week-end, the police have taken special precautions to keep the crowds out of the street. They congregated and stood at strategic points for hours, however, watching and waiting for something to happen. The crowd dwindles and grows as interest slackens or quickens. The atmosphere is such that the mere appearance of an occupant at the window of the house is enough to set the crowd shivering with apprehension, which turns to speculation as to the earthliness or otherwise of the form.
Schoolboys in the district have foresaken play. Their whole recreation consists in watching for the door to open, upon which they make a concerted rush to view the interior before they are scattered by the police. The domicile of the spirit is a commodious terrace house, with nothing in its outward appearance to suggest uncanniness. Rather has it a comfortable air of respectability.
It appears that in October, 1931, the present tenants moved into the house, and sub-letting subsequently increased the number of residents. The ‘ghost’ did not give them much time to settle down. “It” soon made its presence known – rather forcibly, be it said – by tramping up and down the stairs. It varied its perambulations occasionally by opening a window here and slamming a door there. So, at any rate, says the wife of the tenant.
Another married couple who have rented a room in the house are vehemently loquacious in their description of the eerie experiences, which, on their face value, constitute a strong case for the veracity of the whole affair. In every case is the description the same. A black figure, with or without a cape and hat, ‘floating’ along the ground when seen, violently active when invisible.
The ‘dressing room’ of the apparition appears to be the coal shed, and its stage entrance is made by way of the pantry. It does not stop to eat there, but continues its ghostly way through the kitchen, up the stairs to the attic at the top of the house. It allows nothing to stand in its way. Doors that have been closed by the schoolboy trick of tying rope from door-knob to bannisters have been found with the cord burst and the doors swinging back on their hinges.
Since Friday evening the families in the house have slept little or at all. Their haggard faces betray their fear of the unknown. “When will its next appearance be?” is the unspoken question portrayed in their countenances. In sharp contrast to the fear of the inhabitants is the perfect equanimity displayed by an aged couple who live in a room off the second flight of stairs. They do not seem to fear the apparition or its effects. In perfect peace they pottered about their usual household tasks, leaving the ghost scare to take its effect on others of a less balanced temperament. Does one lose fear of noisy ghosts with the passage of years, or is it that time merely blunts the edge of one’s imagination? At any rate, the old couple do not intend to allow “ghosts” disturb the routine of their lives.
The younger occupants of the house still continue to speak in awesome tones of feeling “ghosts”, seeing “ghosts” and hearing “ghosts” – in fact, “ghosts” are the sole topic of their conversation.
Mr Frederick McKibben, the agent of the house, however, expresses the view that “the whole thing is a hoax” – a view which he said was taken by residents of the street to whom he had spoken. The police, he said, were inclined to treat the affair as a practical joke. The occupants of the house do not seem to be very much inclined to give any further information, an ‘Irish News’ reporter found when he visited the house on Monday. The younger people were gathered in teh lower rooms, while it was stated that the aged couple had again retired to bed.
This is the situation at present, and it seems the next move lies with the “ghost.” No one has yet proved that ghosts are not vain and dislike publicity, yet there is a fear that the Trinity Street phantom may consider that he has come into the limelight far enough, and may, therefore, seek a quieter abode. A house beseiged by curious crowds and guarded by police is not, one would imagine, a suitable place to reside from a ghost’s point of view. Like human beings, he likes peace, but it is to be hoped that if he does decide to retire he leaves his new address, so that the curious will be able to find him. After all he has created much interest and amusement and it would be rather a pity to lose him.
Spiritualism Invoked – what medium is said to have revealed.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has “passed on” – leaving a number of disciples behind. One of these reached Trinity Street on Monday in the person of Mr Campbell, a well-known Belfast Spiritualist, who has a firm faith in the Spiritualistic solution of ghost problems. His accessories included a bag of flour, sealing wax, and a planchette, and with these the process of laying the ghost, or ant any rate of discovering the cause of its unrest, was commenced.
“There is the possibility that these manifestations may be the work of a practical joker,” said Mr Campbell, “so to preclude the chance of further ‘take-in’ I will make use of this simple trick.” So saying, he took the bag of flour, and guided readily, nay eagerly, by the residents, he proceeded to scatter flour over the stairs leading to the attic whence the ghost was supposed to emerge. Openings in the attic will receive their share also, and the top front room was liberally besprinkled as a further means of baulking any would-be joker. Observe the genius behind Spiritualism, thus disclosed. If a “ghost” of mortal calibre “appeared” there would be tangible evidence of its passing, in the condition of the staircase. But if on the other hand the ghost were genuine it would float along leaving no trace on the befloured steps of the stairs.
Next the usual Spiritualist incantations were uttered. But the ghost would not “bite.” Sulking, perhaps, because the flour was not Self-Raising!
To get in touch with the unknown, demanded something more drastic, so Mr Campbell decided on a little seance. It was arranged to hold it in the front room, just beside the attic. Chairs were arranged. The women, without whom a seance was impossible, were very backward in offering to participate. Mr Campbell, however, succeeded in inducing one of the women to act as a “medium,” and, holding her hand, he exerted his personality and persuasiveness, and she appeared to relapse into a trance.
And now comes the denouement. An extraordinary expectancy had been aroused among the watchers of this absorbing drama. The seance was held in a closed room, and the opening of the door and what it would disclose was awaited with bated breath by a by this time crowded house. When the door at length opened only the ‘Irish News’ representative was beckoned into the room.
“Do you know anybody of the name of Edward or Edwards?” asked Mr Campbell. “No,” I replied. “But why do you ask that?” In a dramatic whisper he imparted the information that a man of that name had been foully murdered in the house in which we stood. “But where,” I cried aghast, “where did the body go?” Tensely he replied: “Wait without.” And the seance was resumed, this time to discover where the body might be.
After some time I was again beckoned into the room. “Where is the body?” I gasped. “Only one word could be obtained,” replied Mr Campbell gravely. “And that was ‘brickyard’.” “Brickyard,” I repeated. “Are you sure it was not backyard?” “We’ll try that,” said Mr Campbell, with sudden resolve, and a general trek, or perhaps I should say stampede, was made thither.
No brick other than those in the wall could be found in the yard, but while exploring the coal-hole Mr Campbell suddenly dropped on his hands and knees and began scooping away the layer of accumulated garbage. A brick flooring was revealed, but so soft that it could be scraped with a pen-knife. Some of the bricks were prised up, and with a knowledge born of his trade as a plasterer. The next step, I was informed, will be to dig beneath this brick floor. Then, and only then, will it be possible to discover whether the directions given by the “medium” to Mr Campbell for finding the “body” of the “murdered” “Edwards” were that it lay beneath “bricks” (in the) “yard.”
Mr Campbell is confident that when he initiates his excavation work he is going to make an interesting discovery. As for me, I merely propose to be there to see what – if anything – he does succeed in unearthing.
Girl says she saw “it”. Spiritualist collapses after encounter with “it”.
About 6 p.m on Tuesday evening, a girl in the “haunted” house in Trinity Street alleges that she saw the eyes of the “spectre” peering at her through the back window. That, writes an “Irish News” representative, is the latest act in the drama that is being enacted in what has now become Belfast’s most famous house.
She screamed in terror, and in an instant, Mr Campbell, the Spiritualist, was at her side staring intently into the dusky gloom of the yard. He could not see “It,” at first, he told me subsequently, but ere long, he added, the eyes of the “spectre” burned their way into his brain – and he saw. Saw a shadowy form, he says, as of a human from the waist upwards. He released the girl, whose arm he was holding, and dashed for the yard. Here the story was taken up for me by a man who was an eye-witness.
“Mr Campbell reached the yard,” he said, “and we saw him spreadeagled against the wall, as if held there by some invisible force.” Mr Campbell resumed the tale, and graphically related to me how he saw the apparition “floating” up to him until it seemed to merge into his straining eyes. Then receding rapidly it passed through the back door. He followed after it, he says, and falling over the ash-bin he collapsed against the door.
“I saw the spirit sink into the ground to the left as you come out of the door,” he said. “I re-entered the house, and then it fose from the floor of the coal shed, and I felt its power triumphing over my will. As it sank to the earth whence it came, it irresistably drew me with it and I felt my knees giving. I could not resist. I thought it had me in its power, when somebody lifted me and I remember no more.”
Turning to one of the men, who said he had been there during this performance, I asked him: “What happened then?” “We carried Mr Campbell into the house,” he replied, “and we spent two hours and a half reviving him, after which he had to be led home. We revived him with whiskey and rum,” he added, in reminiscent longing.
Any further discoveries that might have been made towards the solution of the “Haunted House Mystery” were nipped in the bud later in the evening by the arrival of the police. Their anxious enquiries about Mr Campbell betrayed an interest which cannot have boded well for the Spiritualist but he intimated by his absence that he had no desire to collide with the law. The law was baffled, whilst the progress of Spiritualism was baulked.
Mr Campbell, in a specially-granted interview, told me on his arrival on Tuesday he found all the work of the previous day undone. He had sealed the doors of teh different rooms with cord and sealing wax, as in his opinion anything supernatural would scorn such bonds, whilst a mortal intent on a practical joke would have to burst the seals. Who or what burst the seals? Burst they were and by somebody or by something? Was it by the police? Who can say? Was it a party of ghost-hunting revellers with a superfluity of energy and bravado? We can but guess, and our answer must needs go unchecked.
The episode brought all the preceding day’s plans to nought, and the arrival of the police prevented the prosecution of the sequel to the seance, or another session of it.
The whole affair is candidly beyond my comprehension. There is the girl’s story of having seen “it.” Mr Campbell has no doubt he saw “it” too, and points to the consequences of his unhappy encounter with “it” as proof. There is certainly independent evidence that collapse the spiritualist did. The cause of his collapse is another matter. “It” has never appeared during any of my frequent visits to the house, though I have been repeatedly assured that “you were only just gone out when she saw ‘it'” – “she” being one of the innumerable women who are always present.
The affair has intrigued me so much that I have decided to spend the greater part of Tuesday night in the house to see, hear and feel for myself.
Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 23rd January 1932.
This Ghost Business.
This ghost business goes on apace. Since beginning to contribute my weekly diary not so many weeks ago I have twice referred to ghosts. In each case a rectory was the scene of the haunting activities. Now, however, we have a ghost in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in the practical city of Belfast. It is all rather amusing. There are so many city folk think that the countryman is a poor, simple fellow, and they can laugh heartily at him should they consider he believes in the uncanny. Yet, the good people of Belfast – they are quite good, despite their not infrequent scorn of the countryman – talk about their supposed ghost as if it were an item of tremendous moment. The stories I have heard and been told on the subject are as different as they are numerous. The Trinity Street spectre has become the talk of the city, and perhaps it will remain so for some time longer. It is most mysterious, but I fancy the explanation is simpler than most people imagine.
Ballymena Observer, 29th January 1932.
All quiet in Trinity St.
Despite wild rumours in circulation.
Innumerable rumours, all of them of the most fantastic nature, were in circulation on 21st inst. in Belfast about the alleged Trinity Street “ghost”. All sorts of stories were current about what was supposed to have been “seen” by various persons in the reputedly “haunted” house. Most of the tales in circulation, however, concerned themselves with establishing the identity of the alleged “apparition.” The antecedents attributed to “it” ranged from connecting “it” with five and 10-year-old murders down to associating “it” with the recent Carrick affair.
One circumstantial story current was to the effect that the “ghost” had murdered a child.
All was in reality, however, quiet on the Trinity Street front, which nevertheless continues to be the mecca of numbers of curious persons.
The inhabitants of the house, though still suffering from the effects of the experiences which they state they have undergone, are recovering.
Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 30th January 1932.
An Ulster Log, By Eddie McIlwaine.
Violent ghost.
The ghost of Trinity Street used to hurl furniture about the house it haunted, says Joe Crawford, now of Skegoneill Flats, Shore Road, Belfast. He lived directly opposite and heard the rumpus of the restless spirit night after night.
Oldtimer Tom Mitchell, home from America, wonders if anyone else recalls the time the ghost stalked Trinity Street that was in the Carlisle Circus district.
“Some of us,” says Joe Crawford “decided to sit in out in the house – but the ghost scared the life out of us. Then the peelers came and sat in. My wife used to give them cups of tea. It went on for ages. No one would live in the house. People said there was a curse on the place. I remember the clergy coming to deal with the spirit and my brother took pictures of the crowds who turned up every night.”
Barney McGreevy, now of Drumbo, was a policeman stationed beside Trinity Street and given the job of keeping the ghost-seeking crowds under control. “At least six of us were on duty at that house for weeks. I never saw the ghost, but people living there said they heard strange goings-on.”
Herbie Louden (80) says people came from all over the city to see the ghost of Trinity Street. “Perhaps a few more ghosts nowadays would bring the folk back together again.”
But so far no one has told me what happened in that mysterious house in Trinity Street in the first place.
Belfast Telegraph, 25th August 1983.