Policeman exorcises three ghosts and a finger less corpse comes to life

And there’s a double-helping today - a haunted house with a twist in the tale and a twice-dead woman from Drogheda.

Following on from author Doreen McBride’s recent account here of the ‘gruesome’ cadaver tombstones at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Drogheda, a Roamer-reader e-mailed another grave-story from the same cemetery.

Doreen told us about the two gravestones inset in St. Peter’s boundary wall, “one for a man and another for a women. They once covered the bodies of Edward Goldying (sometimes spelt Golding) and his wife Elizabeth Fleming, who died from the Black Death sometime between 1348 and 1350.”

The Drogheda cadaver stones bear grisly sculptures of semi-decayed, partially shrouded bodies, hewn memorials that would have originally been horizontal rather inset vertically on a wall. Edward died soon after his wife but Doreen also described “smaller memorials commemorating his other three wives” beside the two larger cadavar tombstones in the graveyard.

According to an e-mailer, another popular attraction in the graveyard is Ann Hardman, who died in 1884 and was buried in a tomb rather than a conventional grave. This was actually her second burial! Ann was wealthy and some 20 years previously she ‘died’ and was buried along with a lot of her jewellery, something that didn’t go unnoticed by her servants.

One of the servants opened the grave the night after her funeral and stole the jewellery, except the rings on Ann’s fingers. They fitted too tightly, but undeterred the servant decided to cut off Ann’s fingers to remove the rings.

During this gruesome act Ann suddenly regained consciousness and was ‘raised from the dead.’ The terrified servant bolted from the graveyard and boarded the first ship that he could get. It was sailing to Liverpool and when he arrived there the servant noticed that his hair had turned white from shock.

Understandably, he never returned to Drogheda.

Meanwhile Ann Hardman had climbed from her grave and gone back to her house, at 2am, where she had the difficult task of convincing her terrified family that she wasn’t a ghost. Ann was treated for loss of blood from her severed finger and went on to live for a further 20 years before being interred in a safer, more secure, stone tomb.

Today’s second ghostly tale was sent to Roamer by Betty Lyttle, Honorary Treasurer of the Upper Ards Historical Society. It’s recounted in the society’s most recent journal “our 44 th , compiled despite lockdown and no monthly meetings” explained Betty, adding “I hope you enjoy the ghost story.”

The tale was submitted to the journal by J. J. Tohill, who came across the story years ago in a newspaper.

Though it was written originally in ponderous and “somewhat archaic language and writing style” it’s shortened and (mostly) updated here today!

Entitled ‘An Ards Peninsula Ghost Story’, a note in the introduction confirms that “its provenance cannot be verified but it contains factual elements that readers will recognise!”

It all happened two miles from Portaferry in a large old house and farm called Innisfallen, which was “credited with being the abode of unearthly denizens and the haunt of spooks and fairies.” The last owner of Innisfallen was “a good, charitable, kind-hearted nobleman” whose death was shrouded in some kind of mystery that no one would talk about.

He was buried near Strangford Lough but “ghostly apparitions”, lights and noises, remained evident all around Innisfallen. The young man who inherited the house moved to England “being unable to suffer its unearthly yells and shouts”!

A prominent Belfast merchant who rented the property also couldn’t bear the spooks. So Innisfallen was left in the hands of a manager called Billy Willcox who looked after it in return for his cattle grazing the land - not a bad deal! Though it was well-known to be haunted, Innisfallen’s young owner in England advertised a reward of £50 to anyone who would consent to sleep there for a week.

A police constable called Davie Behan agreed to the “ghost laying” challenge and moved in. Having partaken of a “little stimulant” to give himself some courage “eleven o’clock came and he stretched himself on a couch…with a view to having a reposeful sleep until morning.”

In the middle of the extremely stormy night, lights started flashing in the corridor, and loud noises echoed around the house. With truncheon drawn, Constable Behan listened as a door swung open and a ghostly voice echoed through the house, reciting a threatening poem.

“Ruthless mortal, Davie Behan,

Thou wilt never see thy home again.

Mark my words ere it’s too late,

Get thee beyond the manor’s gates.”

Three ghosts, one with a sword and two carrying a black coffin, confronted the terrified Constable who stood his ground and gave them “the full benefit of his truncheon”! They turned out to be none other than Billy Wilcox and his two sons Sam and Hugh. Mr Wilcox was “punctually dismissed”! Constable Behan got his cheque for £50, and became the new manager of Innisfallen.

Visit the Upper Ards Historical Society’s Facebook for details of the journal or write to Betty Lyttle, Mount Ross House, 20 Ballygarvigan Road, Portaferry BT22 1JT.

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