A Real Ghost in Cookstown

(A story from newspaper archives first published in 1874. Cookstown is in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland)

“Cookstown has lately been singled out for the attention of a visitor whose freaks and doings have caused no little wonderment and curiosity. Were the time a little further advanced, the narrative of the manifestations which have so completely upset the ordinary tranquillity of this community might be embodied in a fairly exciting Christmas story. 

The haunted house is situated on Old Town Hill and is occupied by Mr Allen, who carries on a respectable business as a grocer. The manifestations of something unusual, and untoward, first became noticeable some eighteen months ago. The phenomena were then mainly confined to breaking the windows. It may be thought there was nothing very extraordinary nor ghostlike in such a procedure: but there was. 

When several panes were broken, and the how and means escaped attention, a strict watch was put upon the windows, but all was useless: the cause was still undiscoverable. Sometimes stones were used as the media, but by whom or what nobody could see; and more frequently again the glass broke, apparently of its own accord. Even the frames began at last to get abused, more especially at the rear of the house, and the strictest and most constant guard could make nothing of it. The house, by the way, is a small two-storey building, with three windows behind, and the ordinary shop and front windows before.

The yard is small and surrounded by a wall ten feet high, from whence extend the open fields. All the glass at the back of the premises having been repeatedly broken and every effort of protection avoided, one of the windows was barricaded with a shutter, to which was affixed a bell in such a position that if the shutter were removed the bell must ring.

Men were also placed at each window with loaded guns, so that it was impossible for any individual to approach without being at once observed and in their power. Notwithstanding this, the shutter was taken down, the bell simply noting the fact when it was accomplished, and that in such a gentle tinkling monotone as to be almost unheard. In the front of the premises glass was broken with the same security and freedom from observation. 

Fear now commenced to grow into serious alarm, which in no way decreased, as other incidents, equally if not more, bewildering in their character, became a daily occurrence. Bowls took a fancy to rotate with various degrees of swiftness upon the tables, and then, as if smitten with the same idea of self-martyrdom, shot off at a tangent, ending sharply and forever their symmetrical usefulness upon the floor. 

Coats, which formerly hung with all staidness and propriety upon their respective pins, now shivered and fluttered, as if seized with an ague, and again expanded in all their proportions, as if each were enveloping an invisible Falstaff or an aspiring claimant. Hats took unto themselves wings, and boldly flew away. In sooth, the natural order of affairs in the house was completely deranged, and the more agitated became the inanimate articles, the more excited became, naturally enough, the members of the family. 

Every conceivable project that could possibly be devised for elucidating these mysteries failed utterly in pointing out a cause which could be understood. Even the potatoes boiling in a pot on the fire became mashed, and leaped behind the fire. And when ten or twelve were entered for a boiling, a tot up in a few minutes revealed the startling fact that several had altogether and unaccountably disappeared, though many pairs of straining eyes were watching with almost painful eagerness every motion of the immovable pot. 

Latterly, also, large stones, weighing on an average about three pounds or three and a half pounds, have rolled slowly down the stairs, bobbing with leisurely ease from step to step. These have sometimes been damp and wet with clay, as if just removed from the ditch or roadway, and at other times, dry and clean, as if preserved from the weather for a considerable space of time. 

No persons have been in the upper portion of the house where such events have happened, and not the vaguest shadow upon which to found a belief in the collusion or complicity of any parties in the causing of them has been at all afforded. These manifestations will serve to show the cruel and persistent manner in which Mr Allen and his family have been afflicted, though they are far from exhausting the minor details of a system of persecution as vexatious and hard to be borne as it is strange and unexplainable both in cause and result. 

The family consists of Mr and Mrs Allen, two sons, and a daughter. One of the male branches, a young man of twenty-two or thereabouts, resides constantly with his father, and is said to be an apt student of the art of legerdemain. Rumour will insist on accusing him of the occurrences but they have been known to take place when he was away working on the farm. Mr Allen has ceased to accept, or even to listen to any interpretation or explanation of the facts. He is not by any means a nervous man, not superstitious in his way of thinking, but having seen these things occur, and being totally unable to assert a reason for them, he would at the present moment to be an easily manipulated disciple of the most ardent spiritualist. 

The whole affair in its recital might seem quite a ludicrous matter, were it not for the very great pain suffered by those most concerned.”

(From The Belfast Newsletter and published in The Irish Times on Wednesday, November 18th, 1874)