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The Horse-Man Of County Louth

Spookdaddy

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I was flicking through Graham J McEwan’s book Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland which covers all the usual suspects like Nessie, Black Dogs and ABCs when I came across a section which covers even more bizarre creatures. The one which really caught my attention was the "Horse-Man of County Louth".

One night in 1966 a couple driving past Lord Dillon's estate near Drogheda encountered a huge beastie which they described as having a horse’s body and a man’s head with a huge hairy leering face and “horrible bulging eyes”. The couple were terrified by the animal - well you bloody would be wouldn't you?

Unfortunately that’s about all the detail you get in the book. I think this is in the realms of the paranormal rather than cryptozoology. Does anyone know any more about this? Has it been seen again? And if the witnesses were pissed what in gods name had they been drinking?
 
There is a long Irish tradition of creatures called Horse-eels which
are seen grazing on the banks of loughs and are taken to be horses
till they slide into the misty waters.

The horse-man tale though seems to be something of a one-off.
A Ruatnec? :eek:
 
James Whitehead said:
The horse-man tale though seems to be something of a one-off.
A Ruatnec? :eek:

I love the one-off's not least because they make UFO's, shapeshifting power-hungry lizards and relict plesiosaurs seem positively banal.
 
Sounds like they probably saw something like an out of place Llama or an Alpaca. Mix this in with the darkness, drink and fright of something unexpected on the road and you can see how they would of thought it was some kind of half man half animal hybrid.

Probably - the alpaca at Bristol Zoo looks just like Whoopie Goldberg .
 
There was a thread abut this a few months ago... might still be in this forum but ill try to find it cos i think it had a link.
 
That's one of my fav fortean stories! I live in County Louth, and my uncle did some building work on Lord Dillon's estate in the 70s. The story isn't as well known as you'd expect though.
Apparently there is a window ledge with a hoof print and a window pane with a dog's paw print at Dillon's house. The legend tells that the local priest once went to Lord Dillon's house to appeal on behalf of parishoners who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. The priest and his horse, we are told, were beheaded and the accompanying dog killed also. In the struggle to unhorse the priest the horse apparently left the hoof print on the window ledge, and the dog left the paw print on the window pane - where they remain to this day.
My uncle claims that the then owners asked him to replace the window ledge and pane, which he did. Next day, however, the offending signatures had returned! Well, they don't call him the Bard of Julianstown for nothing!:)
 
Hey! I posted on this on the other thread over a year ago! Wow! Now I get to see how reliable my recall is by comparing the two tales... I never did get to track down the original witness - Margaret Johnson...
 
This is simply a case of zooform phenomena, animal mutants, bizarre chimera-types etc, etc, that appear as pretty unique cases, and probably correspond, or at least emerge from the same dark places as Owlmen, Black Dogs (some with human features), Satyrs etc. These cases certainly are not misinterpretations of native wildlife but one-off encounters with 'creatures' that have been haunting this planet years, but have been confined to mythology.
 
Interestingly, in Irish folklore, there are three "were" animals, the horse and the hare join the wolf.

Also, the pooka has traditionally been a wild horse that appears in the night to carry off travellers to the faery realm.

LD
 
I'm leaning towards alpaca after bumping into one on a stormy summer afternoon in a field just outside the village of Flash (on the North Staffordshire Moorlands). Gave me quite a turn so it did.
 
I was flicking through Graham J McEwan’s book Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland which covers all the usual suspects like Nessie, Black Dogs and ABCs when I came across a section which covers even more bizarre creatures. The one which really caught my attention was the "Horse-Man of County Louth".

One night in 1966 a couple driving past Lord Dillon's estate near Drogheda encountered a huge beastie which they described as having a horse’s body and a man’s head with a huge hairy leering face and “horrible bulging eyes”. The couple were terrified by the animal - well you bloody would be wouldn't you?

Unfortunately that’s about all the detail you get in the book. I think this is in the realms of the paranormal rather than cryptozoology. Does anyone know any more about this? Has it been seen again? And if the witnesses were pissed what in gods name had they been drinking?
I can confirm that the witness of this strange looking horse-man figure is my father, who was travelling with his then girlfriend that he was dropping home that night. We have just come across this thread after my dad was telling me of the night it happened.
 
Hey! I posted on this on the other thread over a year ago! Wow! Now I get to see how reliable my recall is by comparing the two tales... I never did get to track down the original witness - Margaret Johnson...
Margaret who is deceased was with my father that night, I came across this thread after he told me all about the infamous encounter and we were looking up news articles regarding it.
 
I can confirm that the witness of this strange looking horse-man figure is my father, who was travelling with his then girlfriend that he was dropping home that night. We have just come across this thread after my dad was telling me of the night it happened.
Thats incredible - this story has haunted me for years after reading it in the book! Did he have any more details about it not included in the book?
I first read about it 20 years ago on holiday in Scotland staying in a farmhouse with a somewhat disquieting atmosphere. It was late at night when I read the story anf the bulging eyes gave me a bit of a nasty shock and a sleepless night wondering if there was anything similar in the surrounding countryside waiting for me...
 
He explains that he was driving along and suddenly out of nowhere it appeared in the middle of the road, he stopped the car dead in the road, it starred at them both for around 2 minutes (felt like and hour)! The longest 2 mins of his life, he states. Some comments describe it coming up to the windscreen sreaming, however this was not the case. It literally stood glaring at the car and then vanished. He can still recall it had the body of a horse and the head of a human! I can assure any readers here, there was no drink or drugs consumed. At 77 years old my father (J Farrell) remembers it like it was yesterday. We have just discovered there is information about the encounter in a book, we have this book ordered and are looking forward to reading what the author believes happened!
 
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