Ghosts

Ghosts! Now there’s a thing. Do you believe in them? I don’t but seeing the season that’s in it, I’m going to tell you my own ghost stories. These actually happened to me and I sometimes think about them. I’ll tell them exactly as they occurred with no additions or subtractions.

The first took place when I was about 10 years of age in a little fishing village in County Down called Ardglass. The very place that Van Morrison sang about in that song of his, Coney Island. I know all the places in that song as I went to Ardglass for a month every summer as a kid to my grandfather’s house. I had really great times there and great memories. I am always amused by the song because following it on a map, takes you all over the place and a most unlikely route to follow. I’m actually convinced Van told the orchestra to play some nice music and he just made it up on the spot. Anyway, I digress. The house backed onto the sea with a small stone yard and wall at the back beyond which were rocks which were covered at high tide. We had a massive bay window in the back of the house overlooking this yard where you had a clear view of the bay, the harbour and the long hilly region across the water called Ardtole. On a stormy day, I would sit at this window watching the waves crash over the little wall right into our yard where they spent their fury in a mess of lather and water. Fabulous.

Upstairs there was a landing which led to the back bedroom where I slept. I don’t know why, but we always slept with the doors open in that house which meant I could see across into my mother’s bedroom, just able to make out the end of her bed. I loved sleeping in that back bedroom because a short distance away across the bay was a lighthouse, whose powerful beam swept through my bedroom, lighting up the night momentarily and then plunging it into darkness again.

I awoke one night and lay quietly watching the room as the lighthouse beam kept it’s rhythm perfectly, illuminating and darkening the room. Nothing stirred, not wind nor sea nor being. The silence was palpable. After a while I looked in the direction of my mother’s bedroom across the landing. There she was, a tall dark figure at the end of her bed stretching out her hand to switch on her bedroom light. I turned away to get back to sleep assuming my mother was making a visit to the bathroom. But no expected light came on and suddenly the fear slammed into me. I was instantly drenched in terror and sweat. With a yell I jumped up in the bed at the same time turning towards the ghost. The bottom half of the woman was missing and slowly the rest of her vanished as well. The lighthouse beam lit up the room to reveal absolutely nothing. But now my real mother had appeared and this time the light did switch on. She came into me and asked what the matter was as I had screamed pretty loudly. I told her what had happened and she told me not to worry as it had been a bad dream. Didn’t feel like a dream to me but I accepted what she said and settled down to sleep again. For some reason I didn’t have much trouble doing just that.

The funny thing was that my mother told me years later that the house in Ardglass was haunted.

My second ghostly experience happened in my home in Raheny. A simple ordinary semi detached house in a Dublin suburb and certainly not old enough to be haunted. I can’t remember what age I was but I was around 12 or 13. I used to sleep in the same room as my brother, his bed was near the window while mine was near the door. Once again I awoke in the middle of the night, or so I assumed until I realised that there was a low level of light in the room. Naturally I thought it was the early dawn until I noticed that the light wasn’t coming in through the curtains, but from behind me. I sat up in my bed and turned around to see the wall which usually stood between my parent’s bedroom and mine was gone. In it’s place stood my father in his pyjamas and holding a rosary beads in his left hand. The light was coming from behind him and wasn’t defined. For some reason I didn’t feel any fear at all and calmly asked him who he was, even though I can see he was my dad. He made no reply and I picked up a flashlight I kept on my bedside table and turned it on. Everything reverted to normal. The wall was back where it should be and my father was gone. I don’t know why, but I felt a strange sort of calm, enough to be able to switch the light off and go back to sleep. When I told my brother in the morning what had happened he just said I was nuts.

I’m not sure how to categorise this following story but it was the most frightening of them all. Once again I awoke in the early hours and just lay in the dark thinking about one thing or another. Suddenly I felt this terrible presence in the room. It’s not easy to describe as I couldn’t place it in one area of the room, it just seemed to fill the space all around me. And it was incredibly evil. An almost tangible substance seemed to hover all around me. Now, don’t laugh (well, laugh if you want, I do now), but the only thing I could think to do was to put my head under the bed covers. In fact I think every other part of my being was paralysed with fear and it was the only thing I could actually do. Lying there under the covers I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry out. The only thing between me and this diabolic malevolence outside was the sheet and blanket under which I hid. Hide? That’s a joke! The fiend knew exactly where I was and I had to get rid of it. I prayed. I thought “Jesus, please make this thing go away”. And with that, the fear suddenly left. I felt a rush of calm through my body and was able to stick my head out from under the covers. Whatever it was, it was gone. I can tell you, I never felt such relief in my life before. And because I was so strangely calm I was able to return to sleep.

And that’s my three ghosts for you. Of course, the last one was surely more than a ghost? I don’t believe in the devil, but that time I came close. And if it turns out that there is a living entity called Satan, well, I met him that night.

Other than the usual things one can amuse (or more correctly terrify) oneself with like conjuring up faces in the dark when alone, I have nothing else to tell except for my Ouija board experience which I relate below. I’ll add here that it is not a good idea to dabble with the unknown, not because there is anything there to jump out at you in the dark, but the mind can play tricks. So if you want to spend a night in a haunted house, bring a friend.

Finally to the Ouija board. Many years ago (in my early twenties) I was with a couple of friends in their house when one of them suggested we try calling up a couple of spirits (and not the bottle variety either). They had a Ouija board and got it out. I don’t know how these things work, some psychologists say your mind moves the planchette subconsciously, although I’d prefer to think one of the people controlling it actually do the moving. In this case I was with a very good friend who I trusted implicitly. She said she wasn’t moving it and I sure as hell wasn’t. I believe her, I think. Anyway, we didn’t have a proper planchette so we used an upside down glass. We both put two fingers each on the glass and began.

“Is there anybody there?” said my friend. I just smiled. Nothing. So she repeated the question.

To my surprise the glass started to move slowly towards the Yes word on the board.

“You’re moving the glass,” I accused her.

“I swear I’m not,” she replied.

So we asked the spook what it’s name was. I can’t remember if it actually told us, but it did say it was the soul of a little girl who had lived in this house at the turn of the century. She didn’t tell us much else about herself, but did appear to lose her temper once or twice as the glass fairly moved in circles around the board till we told her to stop. I can only recall today two things which stuck in my mind. Once was that I would marry a girl called Mary Stephenson and I would die in my early thirties. Well, she was wrong about my death as I’m now in my early sixties (and hopefully will reach more than my early nineties) and I actually married a girl called Mary Jameson. Wowee! Wowee! Ain’t that creepy!

So what do you think? Did I see any ghosts or not? Some people will say definitely, but personally I doubt it. But I find the experiences fascinating to look back on.

The woman in Ardglass had to be a dream. Or else my mind fooled me into thinking I saw a woman when it could easily have been a shadow, perhaps caused by the rotating lighthouse beam or car lights passing outside. Your mind, as I’ve mentioned above, can really play tricks on you. I remember once awaking one early summer morning with the daylight streaming into my bedroom. I was only about a year married and we didn’t have much money after purchasing a new home and we didn’t have any wardrobes, just a rail with clothes hanging on it. I recall lying in the bed looking at this clothes rail and in my half awakened state somewhere between sleep and fully awake I could see clearly that a guy from work was standing beside the rail. Because I knew I had just awoken and my eyes were still blurry, I knew nobody could be standing there. But there he was, as large as life. Naturally I had to solve this mystery and I lay still, watching him. As my eyes became less hazy from sleep, he gradually turned into a white shirt which was hanging from the rail. So easy for your mind to fool you.

The more intriguing ghost, however, is the one of my father. I was left sitting up in bed with a flashlight in my hand, so I was fully awake. Perhaps initially it started as a dream which caused me to wake and pick up the flashlight. The strange thing is how calm I remained during the aftermath, calm enough to turn the light off and go back to sleep.

But the most intriguing of all was the episode with the evil entity and me shivering in fear under the bedclothes. What had brought that terror on? And why when I thought to pray (and these in the days when I was a full blown atheist) the mind numbing terror lifted and was replaced by a heightened sense of peace? Ah, once again the believers will say I had a visit from the dark one while the sceptics will say it was all in my mind.

So there you have it, my small contribution to Halloween this year. The night when the gates of Hell are opened and all sorts of ghouls and demons prowl the highways and byways. Oh, I saw a few demons that night, but they were all drunk!

I’m a complete sceptic in these matters. There simply is no such thing as a ghost. And I’m always amused by people who swear this house or other is haunted, who suddenly tell you that you can’t visit it anymore as it was torn down when you ask where exactly it is. How convenient! Of course, we can thank the arrival of electric light to deal the whole ghost business a death blow. You see a spectre, you turn on a light, and bam! The spectre is gone!

However, if there turns out to be an afterlife, well then I’m going to come back and haunt all those sceptics like me. That’ll show ‘em!