Ghostly Stratagem. Sacerdotal mummery of laying his ghostship. Discovery of the imposture.
We have been for some time cognisant of the following facts which have taken place in the lands of Islandmore, near Killarney, but have waited until we would have been put in possession of further particulars before we should take any notice of them.
The whole empire is aware of the foul murder of Spillane, who met his untimely fate occasioned by a stroke of what Mr J O’Connell, in his election harangues, was facetiously pleased to call a potato, in plain English, a stone, at the bridge of Killorglin, during th elast election, when accompanying H.A. Herbert, Esq., and other freeholders of this town. Spillane’s father and family still continue to reside on the lands of Islandmore, Glenflesk.
For some weeks past those poor people have been annoyed by stones being flung on their roof, down their chimney, and about their house, at midday and midnight, striking several persons. As no mortal agency could be discovered in the circumstances, it was at once concluded by the neighbours that it must be the troubled ghost of the murdered man that thus persecuted his relatives, and on one occasion nearly killed his own brother. The poor Spillanes were then persuaded to invoke the aid of the clargy, to lay this troubled spirit in the Red Sea; accordingly, three of their reverences (can it be believed that such superstition and priestcraft can be displayed and tolerated by the people of a civilised country in the nineteenth century? yet such it is in unhappy priest-ridden Ireland) proceeded to Glenflesk to lay the ghost of that hapless victim of religious intolerance and mob violence, and likewise to pocket the price of the mass – that universal remedy for everything in this country, from a sick pig or unlucky fishing boat, to the laying of a ghost or saving of a soul.
While the rite was being celebrated, and during the stay of the priests, the ghost durst not budge; but no sooner had the padres departed with the money snug and safe in their fobs, than the intractable phantom renewed his malpractices, and again began to assail the roof with stones. What was to be done? None but old Nick himself could have resisted three priests. It was therefore determined that Bishop Egan himself, as prime conjurer, should be invited to Glenflesk, and his lordship, it was expected, would be able to expel his satanic majesty, even should he dare to enter the house, in a blaze up the chimney (of course by reading mass – not by firing a silver sixpence at him.)
A different finale, however, prevented the clergy from getting any more money, and saved the Spillanes from greater loss. A servant maid seeing the inefficiency of the mass to lay the ghost, resolved that she would not sleep another night in the house, and therefore repaired duly at bed time to the house of a brother-in-law of Spillane, within two doors of her master’s. She had not slept above twice there, when she was missed from bed at midnight, and being watched the next night was caught in the act of throwing stones on her master’s roof.
Having acknowledged that she was the ghost whom the redoubtable Father Tom and two conjurers could not lay, she further declared in extenuation of her conduct, that she was suborned by her brother-in-law, who hoped by obliging the Spillanes to quit the haunted house, to obtain it and the annexed farm for himself – Kerry Post.
Londonderry Standard, 16th November, 1842.