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Keith from Irish Ghost Hunters at the Hellfire Club Irish Ghost Hunters via YouTube

A ghosthunter picks his favourite spooky places in Ireland

Irish Ghost Hunters investigate where most of us would fear to tread…

NOT JUST ANYBODY is born to be a ghosthunter.

The prospect of spending a night in the dark basement of a possibly haunted castle is enough to send some of us running in terror, but for the gang from Irish Ghost Hunters, it’s all in a night’s work.

With Halloween just around the corner, some of you might be looking forward to scaring the bejaysus out of yourselves in the name of some craic.

Tim Kelly is from Irish Ghost Hunters, who spend their free time roaming the hallways of some of Ireland’s oldest buildings, and told us where he thinks Ireland’s spookiest locations are.

The group, which numbers eight, started about four years ago. Kelly is driven by his love of the paranormal, and the ‘rush’ he gets during investigations. Here are some of the spooky places that left an impact on him

  • Charleville Castle (Tullamore)

“That has got to be the iconic haunted castle,” said Kelly. “It’s like something out of a Scooby Doo movie. We heard the strangest noises and bangs and flashes and stuff. The atmosphere in the place is bizarre.”

There is an underground network of dungeons or tunnels here, which Kelly described as “very weird”.  “It’s one of the key places that we will return to,” he said.

  • Kinnitty Castle

image

Pic: Wikimedia Commons

This 19th century castle is a hotel, and Kelly says there are rumours that one of its apparitions is a monk. “Two team members were walking down to the lower levels when they saw a full apparition [of a monk],” he said. They didn’t, unfortunately, have cameras on them at the time.

The team was working with a psychic who was sent down to the old schoolroom in the jail, dressed in an old matron’s outfit. She put her torch down – while in total darkness – and when she went back to get it, “it did a 45-degree sweep before she touched it”.

  • Powerscourt Estate, Co Wicklow

Powerscourt House was built using the walls of a 13th century medieval castle, and Kelly said that it has a network of tunnels beneath it.

While investigating here, they opened a steel red door and “heard a voice in a growling tone saying ‘get out’!” “One of the guys jumped and hit his head on sewage pipe – everyone jumped back,” said Kelly.

  • Dublin Castle

image

Pic: Wikimedia Commons

Rumours are that Dublin Castle is haunted by a dog, said Kelly. While IHG were investigating in the apartments in the main areas of the castle, two of them “heard sound of a dog scratching and barking”. “We went in and heard it – we were getting repeats of it all night.”

Even more frightening, while underground in this area, where the River Poddle still flows, they heard “what sounded like kids crying in the distance” but it was “like slightly out of dimension”. It transpired that the area above where they had been standing used to be an orphanage.

  • Connolly Station

(irishghosthunters/YouTube)

Dublin’s Connolly Station is not a place most people think of when they think of ghosts. When IHG were doing an investigation there, the stories from security guards and staff were “unreal”, said Kelly. They told them that one security guard was watching the security monitoring system in the middle of the night, “looking at the platform area when suddenly he saw two people dressed in military gear”. He ran down there, but they were gone. There are also doors that “seemed to be closing on cue”.

  • Wicklow Jail

At Wicklow Jail’s dungeon, at 2am, they were doing electronic voice recording, which involves asking questions. When listening back to the tape, though they had heard nothing at the time of recording “we heard these hobnail boots” on the floor, said Kelly.

Paranormal

For the disbelievers, Kelly points out that ghost hunters don’t automatically believe everything that happens has a paranormal reason, and they look at things rationally.

“If something presents itself as paranormal, you have to rule out all the normal signs first,” said Kelly. “Roughly 90 per cent of the time or so, everything can be explained. It’s that remaining 10 per cent that you get things you are curious about, and then one per cent of that again you get things where you say ‘wow’”

As for Kelly’s scariest moment? When he fell asleep in a cellar while on an investigation – and had his walkie talkie turned on full blast. No spooky behaviour was needed to frighten him awake.

Read: Psychic mediums to ‘take away mystery of spirituality’ at Cork event>

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    Mute Michael McLoughlin
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    Jul 29th 2017, 9:52 AM

    Still use my nano for runs and the gym , it’s great.

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    Mute Seeking Truth
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    Jul 29th 2017, 9:47 AM

    We had the classic iPod, then our daughter got the nano5 and our son the nano7. His has broken since, but hers still works.
    Would be nice to have an mp3 player not reliant on the internet to give kids to let them have music in their bedroom….tjat did not have a camera, text messaging, etc. In other words, can we have separate devices for each activity? Oh wait….we used to have it that way…..

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Jul 29th 2017, 12:57 PM

    @Seeking Truth: I bought my daughter a low tech stereo system and CDs! She loves that the radio never buffers!!!

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    Mute Seeking Truth
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    Jul 29th 2017, 5:04 PM

    @Deborah Behan: she has a CD player and can listen to the radio on her iPod nano. But Spotify makes things tricky!! Looking at a Sonos wireless speaker that runs from an app anywhere in the house so the device can stay downstairs but they are fairly spendy!!!

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    Jul 29th 2017, 9:46 AM

    Still have me 2gb nano and 80gb iPod 2nd edition and they are still going strong!

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    Jul 29th 2017, 10:30 AM

    I still use my 120gb iPod. Long may it last !

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    Jul 29th 2017, 9:32 AM

    I wish I had any iPod

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    Jul 29th 2017, 11:12 AM

    I won an iPod nano 4th gen in college in 2004. I wasn’t into music really turn so I gave it to my sister who was. A few years later she gave it back when she got a phone that could store music. I used it for podcasts and music then. In 2010 I got an iPod touch 4th gen and used that instead. A couple years ago I gave the iPod nano back to my sister and she uses it for music in her car. It’s a great little device.

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    Mute Catherine Sims
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    Jul 29th 2017, 1:07 PM

    What’s a Walkman ??? :) I’m still hauling a record player around with a long extension lead :)

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    Jul 29th 2017, 12:09 PM

    I have the first Generation IPod, took great care of it and think I even have the original box for it.I’m hoping it will be worth something in the future

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    Mute Revolting Peasant
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    Jul 29th 2017, 10:57 PM

    @Melina Roberts: It probably will be. Apple recalled them a few years back due to battery issues and replaced them with a newer version (the small square thing whose button always breaks). If the screen wasn’t broken we wouldn’t of sent ours away. It was the original classic design.

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    Jul 29th 2017, 10:20 AM

    Pity…
    very tough to get a device these days that children want and can satisfy parents at the same time.

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    Jul 29th 2017, 1:42 PM

    Over rated over priced just like VW Audi cars.

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    Jul 30th 2017, 12:02 PM

    @Alan Scott: I got a nano 9 years ago and still works fine. Worth every cent!

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    Jul 29th 2017, 3:13 PM

    I had a 5th gen Nano about 10 years ago. It was a perfect piece of kit and had I not lost it it would probably still be my preferred way to listen to music.

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    Jul 29th 2017, 2:21 PM

    I had a 160gb iPod classic and have an iPod touch but never use it now. I use Spotify on my phone as my main source of music these days.

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    Jul 29th 2017, 6:00 PM

    I waited for the first generation iPod touch. I still have it (though for a time I thought I lost it and got a 4th or 5th generation iPod touch and found the 1st generation one a few days later.)

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    Jul 29th 2017, 7:28 PM

    never liked apple devices

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    Jul 30th 2017, 7:59 PM

    Classic

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    Jul 29th 2017, 8:08 PM

    I have a one of those iPod classics U2 edition jobbys somewhere in the house, never even been used as I can’t find it. I’m sure that it is a great little device when it turns up! : O

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    Jul 29th 2017, 7:55 PM

    Never owned an Apple product and never will.

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    Jul 30th 2017, 8:11 AM

    My neck’s killing me carting this boombox about.

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