Saga of the Greenland School.
By Kerry Campbell.
The story of how the devil ripped the Rev. Doctor’s buttons off circulates on the lips of Larne school-children. A story is exactly what it is. The Very Rev. Doctor Victor Lynas can tell you that, but the tale is only one facet of what is destined to become a modern-day legend – the saga of the Greenland Ghost. The ghost, supposed to be that of a Viking, has been causing all sorts of weird happenings at the caretaker’s bungalow at Larne’s Greenland Secondary School. The bungalow is less than five years old but its story rivals that of any ancient mansion. Two successive caretakers have reported hearing strange sounds “like the peppering of stones against the walls.” And it is rumoured that the ghost, which manifests itself only in the dark, brings with it a strange smell of roses.
The present caretaker, Mr John Brown, was tight-lipped about the happenings, but late last year Doctor Lynas was called in to offer prayers in the house. It is from this time that the story of the devil and the buttons arose. Doctor Lynas explained, “Before I left home I noticed that one of my coat buttons was hanging by a thread. My wife did not have time to sew it on and I forgot about it. While I was in the house praying and reading from the Bible the button finally fell off. It was nothing stranger than that, but now I have heard children telling a story of a ghost, or devil, ripping off all my buttons. (…)
Larne Times, 4th February 1977.