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‘THE TENDENCY IS for people to make ghost tales flamboyant – so I was trying to stay away from that’ – Tarquin Blake
Author and photographer Tarquin Blake loves ghost stories. But when he set out to write a book about Irish ghost tales, and photograph the locations, he hit upon one small problem:
“99% were purely fictional. They were about non-existent people and non-existent townlands.”
So he decided to find the ones that had truth to them, for his latest book Haunted Ireland.
“My concept was to find stories where there was something physical I could go photograph,” he explains.
“Also that the story could be backed up with historical fact or contemporaneous accounts from the time that could be verified, as I knew it couldn’t be made-up nonsense.”
If you scoff at the idea of a ‘ghost’, you might find that the historical facts that Blake found during his research could at least convince you that something weird did indeed happen in his chosen locations.
“It’s like a jigsaw trying to put the pieces together and figure out the full story,” explains Blake.
“The internet is absolutely a waste of time for anything like this,” he laughs when asked about his research method. “It’s mainly books, old books. If someone’s written about it before, it makes it easier to get into it.”
He also trawled through newspaper archives, census records (“you can establish if a certain person was in a certain location”), manuscripts, and libraries in his search.
Ghost stories that weren’t true
The book came from a long love of the supernatural and paranormal. “I’ve been really into ghost stories for a long, long time,” says Blake.
“I’ve been collecting short stories and books for over a decade and I have a massive collection of Irish stories. I’ve been reading all this stuff for a long time and I guess it was working on the first two books about mansions that I had this idea about doing a book on ghost stories and going around photographing houses and estates.”
A lot of the stories are rooted in history and folklore.
Key to the book is the spooky photographs that accompany the stories. Because “you can’t photograph a ghost”, Blake chose to take some of the photos using an infra-red lens, to capture the atmosphere.
“With the photographs, a lot of people like a very polished, colourful, sharp nice image, whereas I try and get the atmosphere behind the place.”
The poltergeist
Getting to photograph the locations meant experiencing some of the residual spookiness himself. And one location in particular left quite the impression on him.
“So many places, I am a little bit numb to the spookiness of them,” he explains. “You’d have to drop me into the most grim, terrifying place and it wouldn’t scare me too much now.”
But when he visited the site of a reported poltergeist haunting, it was very different. “I was totally freaked out when I went to the place to photograph it,” he recalls.
“The atmosphere of the place and how it looked – you couldn’t imagine a more haunted place.”
“I picked up my phone to call my wife and my phone was dead. It’s quite a new phone…”
“I picked up my camera and my camera battery was dead too.”
“I went back to the car and changed my camera battery – I was on edge and the hairs were standing on the back of my neck.”
Does he believe in ghosts? “I think ghosts are definitely real but I don’t think they’re on the same physical plane as us. I think you have to keep an open mind and try and not be too scientific about their existence… leave it a little bit to the imagination.”
One of the more fantastical stories is that of a ghostly ship that was said to have appeared in the air at Clonmacnoise in Co Offaly.
“This ship apparently appeared in the air and an anchor came out clouds. It got hooked on part of the structure… this account is recorded in loads of different very early books. There’s got to be a bit to this story. There was one book written in Irish and one in Norwegian – a Viking account of this thing, this strange ship that appeared. It makes you think when you see the same account in different languages there’s got to be something to the story.”
In his book, he recounts how there are sworn written accounts of 16 people who witnessed a battle between two ships that appeared in the sky.
Other tales include ones about the Hag of Beara, a black cat that haunts the Kilkakee estate, the curse of Castle Lyons, a vampire dwarf from Co Derry and the werewolves of Ossory.
Strange apparitions
Another strange site was Sing Sing, a former IRA holding cell in a graveyard.
Blake had visited there in the past and remembered how strange he felt in that location.
“It was only probably about a year or two later when I got to seriously research the place and found all the stories from people who were held in the cell, accounts of apparitions appearing before them. I was thinking ‘oh my God, I was in that place and I felt the same kind of things’.”
Who is the book for?
“It’s not aimed at paranormal researchers,” acknowledged Blake. “It’s for the intelligent reader who is open-minded and wants to learn a bit more about these things. Some of the stories are grim and have an amusing side to them, they’re not all gruesome.”
“I think ghost stories, they’re not really strong in Irish culture,” suggested Blake. “Ghost stories are not really a strong tradition, it’s more legends and fairy stories.”
But with these stories, he’s hoping to prove that there may be more to Irish ghost tales of old than meets the eye.
Haunted Ireland is published by Collins Press and is out now. All photographs above courtesy of Tarquin Blake.
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And there’s a big spooky building up in Dublin, with 166 useless wandering souls, tormenting the entire population in order to assuage for the sins of their previous lives as useless teachers and lecturers. Now that’s pure true.
Yawn
Funny, but assuage does not mean “to atone for something”. Use fancy words, but at least know what they mean.
Hats off to you Ian for my less-than-precise use of the word.
I didn’t know they were all teachers or lecturers.
I love sausages
Seriously can we not have a proper article with some nice halloween spookiness to it without commenters bringing politics into it? It is getting old.
Aoife this is a cool article, Tarquin is a nice chap and his work is brilliant, a few years back I was heavily involved in exploring abandoned places etc and never really felt or seen anything except for maybe one or two places 1. La Touche Hotel in Greystones and 2. The Old Convent in Baltinglass. He is right when he says you need to be open minded.
I vote no to politics.
Agree 100% on La Touche hotel. There’s something not quite right with that place.
I think there is a legend about a former owner Lady la Touche who apparently haunts the place, they had a live radio show one halloween dedicated to it. It is a very odd place alright.
This is not relevant to Ireland but if you ever visit Auschwitz. It’s surreal the atmosphere. I dunno if everyone felt the same way as me but to me was the most intense feeling ever. I did however observe two asian girls bursting into tears as they entered the compound.
I grew up in Greystones and know a lot of people that worked there over the years including siblings of mine. Spent quite a bit of time there too myself during the summer festival etc. I normally don’t buy into ghost stories etc (I always think there’s an explanation) but the stories I’ve heard from people I know well are consistent and disturbing. The feeling I used to get in that place is hard to describe, but it certainly wasn’t a good one. Always felt as though you should be looking over your shoulder.
Agree on Auschwitz too, Patrick. That’s certainly somewhere I never want to go again.
@ Patrick, it was a mind-altering experience, i’ll never forget. People need to visit to understand, words cannot explain it.
Anyone ever notice Dublin bus’s “Ghost Bus Tours” sounds like Ghostbusters?
No? Just me then…
Well, the Busters need to pay their bills too, don’t they *lol*
I’ve been saying it for years, we need a properly run government funded ghostbusters unit.
Did you hear about the 2 gay ghosts? They put the willies up each other :)
I really don’t believe in ghosts but I’ll read any book written by a man called Tarquin.
It was probably an iPhone 5 he was using to call his wife
Don’t believe in ghosts, but would read this!
Sounds very interesting and something I’d love to read. What’s the name of the book? I checked the article but it doesn’t seem to mention the title.
Yeah I was just going to ask the same. Doesn’t seem to give the name of the book anywhere. Or I’m going blind!
http://www.collinspress.ie/haunted-ireland.html
Followed the link and looked around and found this!
Hi, it mentioned it at the end of the piece, but I’ve now also included it at the beginning in case people didn’t read to the end.
Cheers!
What did one ghost say to the other ghost?
Do you believe in people…
Deep man deep
Werewolves of Ossory. The less successful follow up to Werewolves of London.
My dad had an encounter with a female ghost whilst serving in the army in 1943 at rockgrove, little island, cork (its now an industrial estate). He was assigned to clerical work so slept alone in the office, one night he was awoken by a very cold chill looked up to see a woman in old fashioned riding attire who seemingly floated towards him then placed one foot on the locker beside his bed, bend down and stared at him closely, he struck out at her and she disappeared in a ball of smoke.
With the aid of a local priest they investigated the history of the estate and found out that many years before when a local priest was crossing the rockgrove estate bringing the Eucharist to the locals was encountered by the landowner of the estate who was out riding, the owner kicked the Eucharist out of the priests hands and the priest cursed him and all his kin to die tragically.
This landowners daughter was killed off of her horse on the spot where my dad encountered her.
Coincidence ?
Maybe.
I dare you to go and stay the night in the light keepers cottage at Loop Head Lighthouse. Ghostbusters surveyed it and found 24 Ghosts. 14 males and 10 Females. Allegedly one of the ghosts is Enda Kenny’s grandad who was a light keeper there once. Next Friday, being Halloween, should be a great night to stay there. http://imgur.com/gUK72zS
Bring back Most Haunted – and Derek Acora lol
On a side note – does anybody remember many years ago – the BBC did a live Haunted House Event in a family’s home – which was staged – but the TV viewers didn’t know – and was billed as a big haunted house experience –
I remember it affected a lot of people back then – just wondering does anybody else remember this
I do, frightened the bejaysus out of me as a kid would love to know what it was called to see of its on youtube
It was Ghost watch. It’s on YouTube and you can get it on DVD!
I don’t think ghosts exist..I do believe that if enough hype is created about a building or area and you go there,then that is all that’s needed to spook you. Any noise or gust of wind can be a ghost coming up behind you..but then,no-one can prove the existence of ghosts any more than I can disprove them. I just can see how any part of a person is left behind when they die
A good book to read as well would be hungry souls. It’s a Roman Catholic book on purgatory and stories and relics that have survived today that show marks of those left behind from purgatory looking for peoples prayers. Check it out, “hungry souls” .
I ain’t scared of no ghosts (because there aren’t any).
Aoife have you been taking lessons from Neil Jackman on Articles ;-).
Not sure what you mean, Sean? Neil’s articles are fantastic – we both tend to cover Irish history or events, but our articles are different in style. I wish I had his knowledge!
The only ghost I’m afraid is the ghost of the reckless housing boom coming back.
What do ghosts eat? I mean how do they exist ?
It’s all nonsense without any evidence but so many believe it.
I guess around Halloween it’s a bit of fun.
If ghosts could eat they wouldn’t be ghosts =P
David Acora in a haunted house said a spirit was talking to him,he started screaming “Mary loves Dick” several times…Its on YT.
Stuff of nightmares, just like our current government I think !
Hi Tarquin,
In relation to your book ‘Haunted Ireland’, I have some questions regarding your comment about Edward Gill Croker coming to Ireland as part of the New Model army etc. and I would like some clarification on the dates that were mentioned in the book if at all possible. I would really appreciate if you could cite your sources for me about this family.
Many thanks,
Helena Nugent
The one in clonmacnoise was a reflection if what was happening in galway bay due to weather
I’m perplexed as to why otherwise intelligent people can be so credulous.
Aoife have you been taking lessons from Neil Jackman on Articles ;-).
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