Why young couple left County Dublin House.
Frightened by strange happenings.
The fully story of the “haunted” house at Finglas, Co. Dublin, was told for the first time to an “Irish Weekly Independent” reporter by the young married couple who were so frightened after a fortnight in the house that they moved out of it. They decided to tell the story after previously refusing because of what they described as “exaggerated and fantastic” reports that have already been published.
“I do not believe in ghosts, but I would not go into that house again for all the money in the world,” said Mrs Mary Burke. With her 25-year-old husband, Barry, a bookbinder employed by Messrs. Alex Thom and Co., and nine-months-old son, she had been in the house for over a week before she fled from it in terror. “It happened last Friday night week,” she said. “My husband had gone out to leave back his father’s car and I was sitting at the fire in the dining-room. Immediately after he went out I heard the lock click on the dining-room door. I thought he had done it as a joke, and that I would not be able to go up to the baby if he cried.”
She said that then she noticed that the sweeping brush was standing against a curtain of the window. She wondered how it had got there. “I got up to look out the back window and then I saw the brush was right beside me at the chair. It was standing up and leaning against the chair as if someone had brought it over and left it there. I got terrified and started praying out loud for my husband to come back. She added that her husband heard her cries as he returned, and rushed in to find the dining-room door locked on the outside. Before he came back she had heard the sound of footsteps in the back bedroom over the dining-room. She decided it was their dog, but then she remembered that the bedroom door was locked.
There had been previous incidents which they had overlooked or explained away in one way or another, she said. Once she found the child’s cot moved into the middle of the bedroom. On another occasion the sliding steel bars were bent as if someone had put their full weight on them.
Next morning Mrs Burke left the house and has not gone back there since.
Mr John McCormack of Wellmount Park, Finglas West, described the night he spent in the “haunted” house. Mr Burke, a close friend, asked him to sleep there with him after his wife had gone to stay at her mother’s home. “I was scared out of my wits,” he said. “For four nights afterwards I was not able to sleep and I would not go outside the house in the dark without someone with me.” He and Mr Burke stayed in the house on last Saturday night week but nothing happened. On the next night they returned there again. “I took my docker’s hook with me in case anything came at us,” said Mr McCormack. “I pulled the cot over against the bed where we slept and hung the hook on it.”
At about 2 a.m. he heard a tapping sound, he went on. There was only a dim night-light in the room. “The cot started to creak,” continued Mr M. McCormack. “I gave Barry a nudge. Then I saw the cot turn away from the bed to the middle of the floor. There was no hand or nothing near it. Barry jumped up and began to pray and started sprinkling holy water.” They got up and replaced the nightlight with a 100 watt bulb. Then they heard the dining-room table moving about as if it were being pulled over the bare boards of the floor. The dining-room door opened and slammed. “Then we heard footsteps coming up the stairs,” said Mr McCormack. “They were shuffling as if wearing slippers and it sounded as though someone was carrying a heavy load. They came right up to the bedroom door and seemed to stop outside the adjoining bedroom door.”
Mrs Burke said that no one else had spent a night in the house since, despite statements in reports already published. She, her husband and baby are staying at Mr McCormack’s house and she goes to sleep in her mother’s home. The family have applied to the Corporation for a house to rent or purchase.
The “haunted” house was first occupied when newly-built last March. The family left after three weeks. A Corporation housing official said they knew no reason for the family leaving, and could not say where they were living at present.
Irish Independent, 23rd January 1958.
So you don’t believe in ghosts?
Fear has caused eight families to leave a new house in a lonely part of Finglas, Co. Dublin, in the last three months. Recently dozens of “fearless” men have volunteered to stay in the house overnight. After their experiences, they have admitted to being scared out of their wits. One of these, 35-year-old Dublin baker, John Thompson of Nottingham Street, North Strand, told a reporter what happened to him when he offered to stay in the house at night time.
He said: “I was a friend of the young married couple who had moved into th ehouse only a fortnight ago. The young married man told me that one night he left the house for a short while leaving his wife to look after the child, who had been sleeping in the cot upstairs. While he was away his wife had been sitting in the chair in the dining room when suddenly the sweeping brush which had been resting against the far wall glided over to her.”
Mr Thompson, who has travelled many parts of the world, continued: “Then she saw the closed door open of its own accord and heard rumblings of furniture upstairs. She screamed in terror. When her husband arrived shortly afterwards they both searched the house, fearing thieves, but were convinced that no one had entered the house. They found that the cot in which the child had been sleeping had been moved from one side of the room to the other. The following days the husband told his workmates about this, and they decided to investigate.” Two groups of men stayed in the house and they say that at about 1 o’clock in the morning they heard the crashing of furniture, sounds of running water and footsteps on the stairs. The disturbances lasted about five minutes, said Mr Thompson.
Mr Thompson added: “I went with the young tenant of the house to remove the furniture. Carrying the tables and chairs out we felt an invisible force pushing against us. However, we removed the articles but I was still not satisfied and decided with another friend to go back to the house that night. This we did, and what followed I will never forget. The time was about 11-30 p.m. when suddenly a gushing wind rushed through the room. It blew all around my head. A peculiar feeling gripped me as I have never experienced before. My hair literally stood on my head with terror. I heard the sounds of running water and footsteps like that of a limping person. This lasted about five minutes, and when it was over an unpleasant odour enveloped the room.”
Mr Thompson said that on another night a docker and other man equipped with a grappling hook saw the cot in the bedroom being tossed against the ceiling.
Dublin Corporation workers later sealed off the house with strips of corrugated iron nailed over doors and windows. On the other side of Finglas, at Wellmount Park, where they are staying with friends, the young couple who fled the house talked of the strange happenings which broke up the home they loved.
Said Barry Burke: “A priest advised me to talk as much about it as possible. He said it would be a good way of getting the thoughts of it out of the system. Now I can speak about what happened freely enough, but I still get an odd shiver down the spine. ”
And he told again of the doors slamming, the cot moving, the light switch clicking on and off, the steps on the staircase, the strange, musty smell. He told too of the priest blessing the house and of the night he and John McCormack stayed there alone. When the cot moved, he jumped from the bed; sprinkled holy water and called out: “In the Name of God, who are you and what do you want?” There was no answer. “We were petrified,” he said, “but when I sprinkled the holy water we calmed down a lot.”
And then he told about the dogs. First, their own dog, a brave, friendly little animal. But within the last fortnight it would suddenly stiffen and stand tensed. Then there was the strange dog. It was trotting peacefully along the footpath. Just opposite the door of the house its hair stood on end and it broke into a mad, frenzied gallop. “It was a lovely house and we were very happy in it,” Mr Burke said. “But I would not go back there again for all the money in the world.” He added: “When I told a priest about it first, he did not laugh, like so many others. He advised me to get out. I thought, perhaps, things would be all right. But it didn’t turn out that way. Now we have applied to the Corporation for a transfer. Only for the kindness of John McCormack and his wife, we would have no place to go.”
Frontier Sentinel, 1st February 1958.
Finglas Ghost.
It is a long time since Dublin had its haunted house. I can only remember one in a long period of years, and that turned out to be a fake. The curious fact about the Finglas Ghost is that it is alleged to have made its appearance in a brand new house built by private enterprise, convenient to the village. Beside the site is the old road along which King James travelled in considerable hurry from the battle of the Boyne. Centuries later William Carleton had many stories to write about Finglas which he passed through on his way into Dublin from Tyrone. But this Finglas Ghost has obviously no association with Carleton or King James. It is a modern spectre mainly interested in frightening new occupants of the house. At the moment the ghost is in possession of the whole house, three tenants having cleared out in double-quick time.
Frontier Sentinel, 1st February 1958.