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Irish Weirdness

A

Anonymous

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Does anyone have any, especialy in the Cork or Munster area?
 
There was one of a lepricorn stealing some lucky charms off some bloke called Paddy!:D
 
Hey I reckon us celts should stick together..... !! You'll get no cheesy jokes from me !!

As for weirdness in the Cork area just take my Dad - we spent a summer there (and surrounding countryside)in about 1981 or 82 (I was only a small thing then !)... Anyway he took to riding about the lanes on an ancient rickety bicycle with various old sheep bones and sculls strapped to it - bless him !!

So I'd be interested to know if there are any reports from that time of the 'Wild Bone Man of Cork' (or similar?).... As my Dad also had a rather distinctive appearance of long hair & beard, patchy & tie dyed shirts and (usually) trousers with different coloured legs (left over from the 60's you understand ?!)...


HAARP
 
Some years ago my wife and me had a wonderful holiday in the isle of man, one day we booked up for a day trip to castle rushen, the bus was full and we were all having a laugh together, suddenly the driver stopped at the side of a country lane and told us that we were about to cross the fairy bridge and we should all say out loud, please fairies may we cross your bridge, we all laughed but most went along with it but a few youngsters at the back refused, we proceded across and there was an almighty bang, a tyre had burst and we lost about an hour from our trip, needless to say all complied on the way back.:eek:
 
Green, White & Orange links

Here are some Irish UFO Mags & newsletters – some are free
http://ufoinfo.com/magazines/ireland.shtml

Here is some general eerie Ireland stuff
http://www.xprojectmagazine.com/archives/paranormal/eerieland.html

Neither are specific to the Counties you mentioned but I bet you might find some info there.

Also, if you get a chance check out McEWAN, Graham J., Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland (Robert Hale: London, 1986).

Which I only included as a way to gratuitously include my favorite poem about the Beasts of the Islands. Oh what a coincidence!
http://www.tao.ca/~vegans/poetry/beasts.html
 
I know of some wierd stories about County Sligo. (See Real fairy tales in general forteana for a fairy sighting)
 
I was nursing a patient today who heard the bean sighe!
She's irish of course. She did a blood-curdling rendition of the bean sighe song and I for one was down the Fresh Pants Shop before you could say knife!
 
My grandmother (not the one mentioned in another thread) claimed to have happened upon an off-duty bean si on the banks of the River Nanny in County Meath. She was going to do her washing (1920s) when she noticed a little old ladywith an abundance of hair, which she was combing with an ivory and pearl looking comb. The lady turned, looked at her and slowly vanished. There were no subsequent deaths in the family - although the bean si apparently only does Celtic bloodlines, my grandmothers family being of settler lineage.

A less trustworthy tale is the one of a local character who had a pearl and ivory looking comb on his mantlepiece. He claimed to have snatched it from a bean si who was waiting for him on the pillar of his gate one night as he returned home from a night's boozing!

As a child, I remember much hushed whispering amongst the grown-ups on my street on the death of an elderly woman> Apparently the bean si had been heard wailing whilst all us kiddies were fast asleep (and the grown-ups wanted to keep it that way!) and had been heard by many people on the block. (This was in a town of 27,000 pop.

Other variations on the bean si include the three taps on the window for the O'Connors (mentioned on another thread). Also there's the landed gentry of Gormanstown house, where dozens of foxes would gather n the front lawn and howl on the death of the head of the family. If I remember correctly the last one died in the 1960s, and the oxes duly obliged with a final send off.

IS there an equivalent of the bean si etc. in England? What about Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Isle of Man?
 
I've heard of Americans with Irish ancestry who have heard the banshee. Can't remember where I read it though!
 
An old family friend had a spooky story from his chilhood in the bogs of Southern Ireland , his father would often make him or his brothers travel across the bog at night to fetch him tobacco , I suppose from a pub . The route included a path under a bridge in the middle of nowhere . Under this bridge 'lived' a terrifying 'hollow donkey' , I suppose it did nothing but be there but that was enough , he would close his eyes and run very fast until the bridge was passed . I think it was more than just a ghost , and was particularly fear inspiring .
Marion
 
This just reminded of my nana. Not in a spooky way but she always used to cook extra in case of any1 coming across the bogs.
 
Hate saying it Marion, (but I will). But this sounds like typicaly a***holish, adult behaviour. Defined as :- "Ain't it just great to screw the kids up with stupid stories?"

I got the penny pinching version, which meant that I was given a sum of money a penny or two sort of the price of the baccy & when I got home having paid the difference out of my own (meagre) pocket money, was told: " If you'd gone to the next shop, (about two miles further on), you would have been able to get the baccy for the money I gave you. (So I ain't gonna refund the difference). And why did it take you so long?"!!!!
 
Originally posted by David
Hate saying it Marion, (but I will). But this sounds like typicaly a***holish, adult behaviour. Defined as :- "Ain't it just great to screw the kids up with stupid stories?"

Maybe , I know the father was a violent and generally not nice person , the family friend only told my mother though , not us kids
so he didn't pass on the nastiness . Perhaps it was made up to make the kids hurry ! I'm pretty sure he actually saw the thing though , or maybe his fear of his father and the myth of the ghost donkey combined to make it seem real .
Marion
Click to expand...
 
we were about to cross the fairy bridge and we should all say out loud, please fairies may we cross your bridge, we all laughed but most went along with it but a few youngsters at the back refused
Click to expand...

I know that this is slightly off topic since we're a few miles from Ireland - but since the Fairy Bridge has been mentioned:

As a youth, back in the days before I had a car, I used to sometimes take a bus ride which took me over the Fairy Bridge. The elderly and middle aged used to quite openly greet the fairies. Whilst the 'hard' kids on the back seat used to mumble their greetings whilst looking into their laps. Too tough to admit their superstitions.

These days we normally only ever drive that way en route to the airport. So of course we say "hello". Doesn't do to tempt fate before a flight.

Someone told me recently that the 'real' Fairy Bridge was elsewhere and was / is a true place of ancient mystery.
 
Not exactly what I was looking for....

....but interesting stuff none the less. Thanks.

What I was actually looking for was strangeness along the lines of the stories in Weird New Jersey.

Things like local weirdos and abandoned places , most of the weirdness that's easy to find info on is of a ghostly and supernatural nature.


Richard.
 
I love Weird New Jersey

Too bad it doesn't give exact locations, I'd like to check some of the places out, but NJ is a good 3 hours away.
Someone needs to start a Weird Vermont. All I know of is an abandoned Radar Station.
 
County Wexford

It's a bit late now, as I've just returned from the above...but any good stories from that bit of Ireland?
 
J.G. Farrell's excellent novel "Troubles" is set there.

Other types of stories ... it's only 12.30 but my mind is zonked, and I keep thinking "there's a reallly obvious story I haven't thought of connected with Wexford"

I think their hurling (one of the national sports of Ireland, not vomiting) team might have had a curse by a witch. I know that County Clare had a curse put on their team by Biddy Earley, who said something along of the lines that they'd never win an All Ireland with a married man on the team. They disproved her in 1995. I might be getting mixed up with that story, but I think that Wexford had their own curse, since they went years without an All Ireland (until 1996)

... just looked at Maeve Friel's "Here Lies", a compendium of Irish graves. Some interesting ones for Co. Wexford: in 1875 workmen on a bridge over the Slaney in Bunclody unearthed a mass grave, presumably rebels from 1798.

In 1807 a duel took place between John Colclough and William Alcock of. Neither candidate was inhibited by their chronic myopia, although Alcock had glasses. Colclough was, perhaps unsurprisingly, killed, and was treated to an enormous funeral with 15,000 horsemen, footmen and a procession of carriages. He was buried in the dramatic ruin of Tintern Abbey (there's one in Wexford too)
 
Everywhere I went there were monuments to those who died in the uprising. To my delight, I discovered that my ancestors were from that part of the world, meaning I can now be smug and not feel pangs of inherited guilt. Apart from about the Vikings on me Dad's side who burnt the place down repeatedly.

I did have a small Fortean event of my own over there...but I'm not going to tell you about it, so I appear mysterious and wise and get me own thread on 'Chat'.

(Or because I'd like to do a little more research on it first. You decide.)
 
fortean stuff in West Ireland?

OK, didn't get any responses when I asked this about Cyprus earlier in the year, but here goes..

Anything fortean in nature or generally interesting and worth a look if time allows around the W/NW part of Ireland? Specifically around the Galway/Mayo area?

I'm slowly working my way up the coast, year by year...

Steve.
 
Not exactly in the right area, but this site is nicely odd and has sections on myths and scary stories :)

Jane.
 
A bit late, I know, but I have loads of stuff on my site about the west of Ireland. Achill Island is a favourite... it's got lake monsters stories, and stigmata, as well castles belong to Grace O'Mally, the 16th century pirate.
 
Intergalactic tourists hit cork


also:

AN IRISH CHUPACABRAS?
Mention was made to me only this morning by one Gerry Minehan of 'goat sucker'-like creature which alledgedly haunted the Gougane Barra Forest Park area in Co. Cork during the 1930s. First I heard of it, though Doc Shiels does make mention of the Ballyvourney Beast in Fortean Times 34:20, seen about 10 miles north-east of Gougane Barra by Seamus Creagh and Pauline Dodds, way back in 1981. They reckoned they had seen a lynx. Apart from it being the haunt of Saint Gobnate, the Pooka and a Spirit Horse got up to no good around Ballyvourney, according to Thomas Crofton Croker [link dead: http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil/faerie/Croker/]. Morty Sullivan had a bit of a run-in with the Pooka, in the shape of an old woman, 'a sulphureous puff coming out of her mouth, her nostrils distending, and her eyes growing redder than ever'. He was found batter and bruised the next morning by a bunch of pilgrims to St. Fin Barre's church at Gougane Barra, or so we're told. Unrelated of course, were the goings-on in a funeral home there in March 1997, involving an assault against a corpse by an former U.S. Marine (*The Irish Times* 19 June 1997).

In the same Doc Shiels article, according to a letter from a Miss Kathleen O'Shea of Cork City, had a bit of a weird experience on 4p.m. on the 9th of August, while walking near Smerwick on the Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry. She was heading towards Ballyferriter, and the sky was "dark with rain clouds". As she made for shelter, "a giant black animal like a bat flew up. I screamed and fell forward. When I dared to open my eyes it had gone. I ran all the way to Ballyferriter. . ." An Irish Owlman, Mothman, Goatsucker or a Devil?

http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no8.html
 
I shall keep my myopic, astigmatic eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary round these here parts (West Cork) :cool:
 
Good old Grace - she seemed to get everywhere. I think every castle I found dotted around that part of the coast apparently belonged to the pirate queen at one time or another. Didn't make it to Achill Island, but did spend a rather sunny day on Clare Island.

Ta for the info though, will check out your site before my next trip..

Steve.
 
This is the thing, she owned land everywhere from Lousburgh up as far as Achill, and married into families that controlled some of Connemara too, including an island in Lough Corrib!
 
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