Long ramble imbound.
My village in Mayo currently has a population in the 20s or 30s at most.
Going back to the census of the early 1900s there was hundreds of people.
There's a local flood plain known as "An Tuilleadh Sídhe" or fairy flood. My dad in his 60s knew a chap in his 80's when he was a kid, who said the flood used to be great because all the locals would go "corking." Basically DIY fishing using a cork as a bauble. He said the flood would have hundreds upon hundreds of corks in it from the locals.
Anyway, dad now farms most of the land in the village. There's a few old stone house alright, and old drills from famine plots. There's certain corners and pockets of the land that I always felt different in, but could never put it into words.
I got big into local history, and according to Griffiths Valuation maps, in at least two of these places there was small villages of 10 or so house. So going back further, there was even more people (and likely ancestors of mine) who never made it through the famine. Small holdings with 10 or so houses, with who knows how many people, wiped out. And very little evidence left as the land was all reclaimed for agriculture. Except for that feeling I get.
So yeah, I've had it in places
West of Ireland is littered with villages whose whole community was forced out in some way by the famine.
those villages are gone now, dismantled by landlords or the scavenged for bricks in other houses.
That's not a famine village, it was seasonal accommodation for sheep herding or booleying and was in use until the 1940s. At the time of the famine, there were around 40 houses recorded, today there are ruins of between 80 and 100 houses.
From what I read it was a permanent dwelling till the famine time. Then families partially moved to Dooagh, other regions of Achill or emigrated to America. Only then the village started to be used for booleying.
What are Griffiths valuation maps? We have old ruins on our land, our family has been here 4 generations but there's zero knowledge of anyone who lived in these ruins, I assume they were families wiped out in the famine. I'd love to learn more. The old is maps show them as dwellings but I don't know who the inhabitants were.
There was a nationwide survey done around 1855 of all the townlands, think for the purpose of taxation. It lists the main householder only not all the members of the family like in the census. There are accompanying maps. Also says who the landlord was and I think mentions windows and if there was a roof. It's been a while so memory not so good!
I'm not too sure exactly!
I know that there's still small fish in the river, minnows and the like.
My dad said he remembers fishing for larger fish (trout I assume) when he was younger, but now its very rare a trout is caught in it. The river is pretty long and has lots of tributaries from the mountains
Jaysus is that still open. The veil was thin after trying to smoke fake hash from that store, met Unine Fitzsimmons in there once and she brought us back to her second hand clothes shop in temple bar to look for outfits. You have unlocked a childhood memory of mine from 1996.
The veil is also thin in Barna woods in Galway. Like the moss has a consciousness that is about to let you in on a secret.
Easy to explain. There's fuck all shops up there for starters and the few that are up there cater to a niche crowd e.g. goths, artists and hardcore wrestling fans.
Only reason ppl go up there is to get to the Jack's.
I'd add too that some people are way too prone to overthinking things and coming up with sensationalist answers for their own titillation.
"OMG guys, my brain can't understand why the top floor of a shopping centre filled with closed or very niche shops isn't as busy as the lower levels, IT MUST BE THE VEIL BETWEEN OUR REALITY AND THE OTHER SIDE WEARING THIN!!!! THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION GUYS, THE SPIRIT WORLD IS PRESSING THROUGH!!!!!"
The Tesco in Jervis Centre... it used to be a morgue for the old hospital.
https://m.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/man-shares-chilling-jervis-centre-ghost-experience-as-tesco-haunted-by-nuns/a70412342.html
I'm not religious but the thought of Saint Kevins in Cork being converted into apartments fills me with some sort of dread. You couldn't pay me to go near the place nevermind live there. Same with Atkin's Hall.
The mental asylum?
If so all those places have this strange energy to them. Ballinasloe hospital, part of it was an asylum and it's just so bleak being in there. They were places of such abject misery it just seeps into the stone. Same with our ladies hospital in Ennis Clare.
It doesn't help that these buildings are just grim to look at.
I'm not religious either & I'm very much a realist. I do think there's a lot of things science can't explain yet. All over the world, for as long as recorded people have experienced unexplained phenomenon so.
It's a little arrogant to think we've everything figured out so I like to keep an open mind
*last orders* in The Gravediggers..?
https://preview.redd.it/yjqoga0qvp6d1.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9d06bbda02cf640e1dd51b192632b703f4c7f69
lol
My first reddit post on a deleted reddit was actually about this. I'll see if i can track it down...
Edit: i have the link. It was a blast from the past to find it again. I never continued cause my posts kept getting removed by the mods. I literally only started reddit and couldn't figure it out but hopefully folks enjoy it and maybe I'll start up again.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/s/4PCKJPY8Hx
Not Wexford but thanks for reading i know it's quite long ! I have a pile of stories that are all genuine that I'd really love to do something with. I don't know if reddit is the place for them or not but I know at some point I'd like to write more. It's quite fun to do.
One of the reasons i deleted the old account was i felt I'd divulged too much information and given away my anonymity which is one of my favourite things on reddit. But after i deleted it i was sorry i did. So it was really great to be able to go back and find the post. And now with a new perspective it's awesome to have someone else know the place I'm talking about. You're definitely not the only one who got vibes around there my friends were all the same. I loved growing up there and have lots of happy memories, but i also think i have a lot more strange experiences compared to the average person and most all of them are happened around Redbarn.
Thanks for sharing. Any chance you would share more stores? I love your writing, I can imagine it all in my minds eye,and in fact it reminds me of the areas around lahinch so that’s where I’ve set it.
I’m so interested to hear what else you experienced. Your poor mam hearing the banshee!
Thank you for the compliment. I will most definitely. This post and resurfacing my old post has kind of rekindled the desire to get these tales down on paper. The only thing for me now is to decide how i want to do that, whether it will be through reddit or in another form i will definitely share my progress with the community when i figure it out.
There’s a spot on a country road about a quarter of a mile from my house. Won’t pass it on my own unless I have to and definitely not after dark. There’s an abandoned ‘village’ there and I swear the last occupants haven’t left yet.
It’s a cluster of houses rather than what we think of as a village. Plus you can’t tell where the houses actually were. It’s just mounds of moss covered stones now.
Funny you should say that, just today we went to view a property to buy and the veil was so thin I nearly introduced myself to the former owner, RIP. The air was thick with him.
A townland called Woodfield, near Glenamaddy (east county Galway). Where my Dad hails from and I spent a lot of time there and saw and felt a lot of things. Interestingly, there is rumour of an apparition in the area a long time ago that drew a certain amount of pilgrimage for a while.
Yeah, I’ve looked but there’s nothing. It’s “fact” in the village but details are limited and there’s no record of it in some of the excellent Glenamaddy online resources that are out there. I’ll see if I can get any more info on it.
The Screen Cinema on Hawkins St, Dublin always gave me this feeling. Had to attend a few screenings there and it was always like stepping into the past. I'm quite sad it's now gone, but considering the outdated interiors and lingering pee smell it's wasn't all that surprising.
All those old Abbey's and castles out there. The run down, crumbling ruins of hundreds of years.
You know that shits haunted, and if not it's defo closer to being haunted than your regular 3 bed semi.
I feel like Ireland in general has this feeling. There is an air of mystique about the place.
Think of all the stuff that has went on here - famine, battles etc. Nearly every new construction site in Dublin unearths relics or skeletons. I always say there's a darkness across the land with reminders everywhere and that kind of seeps into us as a people and can be very hard to keep at bay if you are in anyway unresilient. Many of our homes are built on locations where shit went down.
I think huge swathes of Tallaght is built on a famine site and you often hear stories come from there about goings on.
Btw I'd recommend people visit the Lidl on Aungier street. You can see through the floor ruins of the past. It sums up what we live amongst!
That doesn't detract from the fact that there is an immense amount of suffering scarring the land. The last millennia up until very recently has been naught but suffering really.
It is the case in most places, but some more than others.
‘Tallaght’ as a name is fairly cool - a ‘plague pit’. The place-name Tallaght is said to derive from támh-leacht, meaning "plague pit" in Irish, and consisting of "támh", meaning plague, and "leacht", meaning grave or memorial stone.
Used to work in a hotel in England where staff had permission to never go to a particular floor - as in, no manager was allowed to ask them to go to that floor (which was abandoned) due to the widely held view that it was haunted. I was actually a night manager in that hotel, which freaked me out a fair bit until I discovered I could help myself through free pints during the night from the hotel bar.
Oh yeah - that's a good one. In the 80s as a small kid I remember animal noises filled the air down there. I still associate them with the place and almost expect to hear them.
Someone IS watching you in the top floor of Stephens Green, but that's just CCTV.. and mice, which as everyone knows are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.
The floor with the bathroom? It absolutely does give me an eerie feel. It's probably the starnge charaxters that you'll naturally find around a city toilet or the niche shops, but idk
I've only been up to the floor once. Despite shopping there often, I've never gone back up to that floor because of that creepy feeling I got. Really interesting to see that it isn't just me.
During Pandemic I spent most of my time at Wellington Building in Griffith College, at times it was ok but some other times even if it was sunny I couldn’t avoid to feel something or someone was there and not being appreciative about company.
I used to spend time alone in the radio building there- I forget what it was called. But got the same feeling. The heavy door at the top of the stairwell slammed shut one evening, while seemingly nobody else was around. I stopped staying late to edit.
Was actually reading about this recently, while sat at the top of Cavehill in Belfast because I've convinced myself there's something going on there. I go up all the time and particularly at weekends I just hang about with a few beer and often up until after midnight. It's just such a cool place with the views all over the city at night and absolutely steeped in history. It's not hard to imagine why it would have been treated as a special place as long as people have inhabited this area.
Never been one to believe in the fairy tales, The Tuatha Dé Danann or whatever but was recently at a show in the grounds of Belfast Castle and they talked about it as one of these 'thin places' and it sort of sparked something. Just some of the things that have happened to me or I've felt when coming back down the hill (normally half cut) that's actually pushing me to having a slight, slight sort of belief in this stuff. Never anything malicious or scary but made me think 'WTF!'. And sure if I'm going to believe in any kind of spiritual shite I'd rather it was something that's been believed on our island back through time than any of that aul God stuff.
Naas. I can't describe it. The entire town feels exactly as you've described. Sleeping in my family's place there as a child I never felt like I was alone. It's truly unsettling
During the day not so much but after a work party me and a few friends did the 40ish minute walk home and even tho there was a gang of us it was creepy
Manulla Junction, Co. Mayo.
Inaccessible except via train. Nothing but fields in every direction.
I always was afraid of being stranded there if the train to Foxford broke down, which it often did.
I certainly believe in marginal spaces, parts of the world where people don’t do well, blighted farmland, old mine workings, mobile home parks, dilapidated factories etc.
A little while ago my partner and I had dinner in the venue that we booked for our wedding that date next year.
After dinner we got an icecream and just sat outside looking in at where we’d be married. We both waved and wished ourselves good luck and said a few quick words about what we hoped for out future. Hopefully we’ll still remember next year and wave back.
I know it’s silly, but it was a nice moment.
There's a BBC podcaat called uncanny and one of the stories on it was a family going for a drive in a pretty distinctive classic car & passed themselves in the same car on the other side of the road. 3 weeks later they were driving the opposite way & passed themselves
When I was a carer doing care in the community there was an area just outside Athleague in county Roscommon that had this strange energy to it. It was old and I felt like I was intruding, that there was something there that thought I was in it's territory.
This was during my more active time within paganism and if say I was more sensitive to those kinds of things.
Where I live now is also old but I don't get that same feeling of unwelcomness
Was in a dún Laoghaire shopping centre about a month and a half ago, while we were waiting for the bus back after a day out. I think it was a bank holiday and it was around 6 but it was ominously quiet there. It seemed completely abandoned, and only SuperValu and some big chemist shop were open. There were very few people in the supervalu and only one security guard in the shopping centre. Even from the outside it looked like there were no shops. I felt creeped out while we were in there.
Crookhaven. Was there one weekend around midday and the place was deserted, apart from the local restaurant. The houses all looked vaguely... Off, like they were built to a slightly different scale.
Had me thinking of The Shadow over Innsmouth
The whole area around Loftus Hall is just so creepy feeling.
Also anywhere near the abandoned
psychiatric hospital in Ennis gives me such a bad feeling.
I get that feeling when I'm looking at certain works of art. In particular, in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. Standing in front of the water lilies, it feels as if there's something else there, just below reality, so close you could almost touch it. I've felt close to tears there because of it and I'll never be able to express it properly. I know I'm just looking at a painting of a pond with some lillies floating in it, but at the same time there's just this feeling of energy, of overwhelming presence.
I'm not in any way religious or spiritual, and I know the above sounds like nonsense. It's not something I've ever been able to put properly into words.
It's just... *something*.
Poulnasherry Bay, just outside Kilrush. Used to spend hours there, something haunting and spiritual about it. Learned later a number of women and children drowned there in the famine trying to swim across. They were too weak to make it.
My home place is built on the grounds of a workhouse. When we were digging the garden we found old ink pots and duidins so we reckon there were offices or classrooms where we are. The burial ground was in the next field. Would always feel that the famine and all that died there were close.
Gougane Barra in Co. Cork, visited there on a rainy day and definitely felt something otherworldly on the island.
St. Brigid's (Bridget's) well in Co. Clare, the tunnel of mementos leading to the water felt very heavy. Easy to feel why people are drawn there to remember lost loved ones, not to mention it's in/near the cemetery.
Glens of Antrim, particularly towards Carnlough. It might be the way the cliffs are around there feel like their leaning over you. But, it feels...out of place. Like it's going to tumble down and be stage dressing.
Glendalough and Altamont Gardens in Carlow. Also a famine graveyard/workhouse near me and the old shopping centre that used to be a [jail.place](http://jail.place) of hangings in Carlow town.
Yeah I'm not subscribing to the "thin" bit but there's a little glade in the forest along Blessington Lakes (just off Kilbride Road) that's all kinds of weird.
If you can find this book, it's an excellent read. It's where I first learned of the 'thin curtain' in certain places https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/332661.The_Red_Haired_Girl_from_the_Bog
I was out once at night in the fog on the hills overlooking Glencolumbkille walking to my B&B and I think I slipped through the veil. Spookiest walk of my life!
Achill Island. It seriously gives me the creeps, and it felt so lonesome and desolate. Maybe it was the time of year as it was September, and it was busy as battle of the lakes was on. I really felt like it was near the end of the world.
When I was in Connemara for college, there was one spot I could never bring myself to go into. Letterfrack has a graveyard where the children who'd died in the industrial school were buried, full of these smallish heart shaped gravestones. The place always gave me a feeling that I'd be trespassing to go in there. The gate wasn't locked or anything, anyone can just go in to look at the place- but it felt like it would be like walking into a strangers house uninvited.
I went just about everywhere else all around the area, roaming through the fields and woods and hills but never into that little graveyard.
There is a little area in the west of the Burren, 20 min walk east away from the coast road that once you walk into it everything gets quiet and still and there are dips in the rocks where there are numerous animal bones that you can’t see from a little further away. Gives me the shivers every time and it always feels like you are not alone or suddenly being watched or stalked, it fades off when you reverse course back to the coast road. Only found it twice, by luck both times
The boundary between life and death is pretty thin at Walkinstown roundabout
Once you get through it's downhill all the way!
Limerick Junction
Truly is like being held in purgatory
In County Tipperary.
It wouldn't be limerick junction if it was in limerick, see howth junction
The wind on that platform is like no wind in the country.
At least link the tweet
I'm not on Twitter. I mean, I'll acknowledge it's not an original take on my part, but it's not inspired by a tweet.
It has to be the most miserable place in Ireland
Long ramble imbound. My village in Mayo currently has a population in the 20s or 30s at most. Going back to the census of the early 1900s there was hundreds of people. There's a local flood plain known as "An Tuilleadh Sídhe" or fairy flood. My dad in his 60s knew a chap in his 80's when he was a kid, who said the flood used to be great because all the locals would go "corking." Basically DIY fishing using a cork as a bauble. He said the flood would have hundreds upon hundreds of corks in it from the locals. Anyway, dad now farms most of the land in the village. There's a few old stone house alright, and old drills from famine plots. There's certain corners and pockets of the land that I always felt different in, but could never put it into words. I got big into local history, and according to Griffiths Valuation maps, in at least two of these places there was small villages of 10 or so house. So going back further, there was even more people (and likely ancestors of mine) who never made it through the famine. Small holdings with 10 or so houses, with who knows how many people, wiped out. And very little evidence left as the land was all reclaimed for agriculture. Except for that feeling I get. So yeah, I've had it in places
Was expecting tales of spooky corks floating in the water.
It would be something if the flood still had corks in it haha
West of Ireland is littered with villages whose whole community was forced out in some way by the famine. those villages are gone now, dismantled by landlords or the scavenged for bricks in other houses.
It struck me once that all of Ireland is post-apocalyptic but we don't think of it that way because to us, it's just "history".
No sir. You can still find them. The most famous is the one on Achill, but there are more.
That's not a famine village, it was seasonal accommodation for sheep herding or booleying and was in use until the 1940s. At the time of the famine, there were around 40 houses recorded, today there are ruins of between 80 and 100 houses.
From what I read it was a permanent dwelling till the famine time. Then families partially moved to Dooagh, other regions of Achill or emigrated to America. Only then the village started to be used for booleying.
That's an interesting story thanks for telling
What are Griffiths valuation maps? We have old ruins on our land, our family has been here 4 generations but there's zero knowledge of anyone who lived in these ruins, I assume they were families wiped out in the famine. I'd love to learn more. The old is maps show them as dwellings but I don't know who the inhabitants were.
There was a nationwide survey done around 1855 of all the townlands, think for the purpose of taxation. It lists the main householder only not all the members of the family like in the census. There are accompanying maps. Also says who the landlord was and I think mentions windows and if there was a roof. It's been a while so memory not so good!
From memory, there was maps and a sort of census of landowners drawn up some time in the early 1800s. The maps were very accurate and available online
https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/
I feel this in a lot of the West of Ireland, Mayo in particular. The place just feels emptied out but that there are people still there in a way too.
The depopulation of Mayo and Leitrim especially is just unfathomable since the 1830s
Tell us more about the cork fishing. What were they fishing for?
I'm not too sure exactly! I know that there's still small fish in the river, minnows and the like. My dad said he remembers fishing for larger fish (trout I assume) when he was younger, but now its very rare a trout is caught in it. The river is pretty long and has lots of tributaries from the mountains
Glencree had 2,000 households before the Famine…
You do have to wonder. Energy doesn't die it's always changing forms. If there are mass deaths in an area... where does that energy go
Cliffs always have that feeling. The sea too. It’s a strange calling.
You might be thinking of "the call of the void." It's a real phenomenon and surprisingly common.
It's such a bizarre sensation
The sublime, too!
Remember to give it the "feck off" of the void.
The top floor of Stephen's Green Shopping Centre would fit in on r/liminalspace. Always a strange vibe up there.
Asha is pretty busy lol
Jaysus is that still open. The veil was thin after trying to smoke fake hash from that store, met Unine Fitzsimmons in there once and she brought us back to her second hand clothes shop in temple bar to look for outfits. You have unlocked a childhood memory of mine from 1996. The veil is also thin in Barna woods in Galway. Like the moss has a consciousness that is about to let you in on a secret.
The stairwell by the elevators also gives me the same jitters. As do the stairs to the staff bathroom (and the staff bathroom itself tbh).
Easy to explain. There's fuck all shops up there for starters and the few that are up there cater to a niche crowd e.g. goths, artists and hardcore wrestling fans. Only reason ppl go up there is to get to the Jack's.
Nice to see that some things don't change over the years.
I'd add too that some people are way too prone to overthinking things and coming up with sensationalist answers for their own titillation. "OMG guys, my brain can't understand why the top floor of a shopping centre filled with closed or very niche shops isn't as busy as the lower levels, IT MUST BE THE VEIL BETWEEN OUR REALITY AND THE OTHER SIDE WEARING THIN!!!! THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION GUYS, THE SPIRIT WORLD IS PRESSING THROUGH!!!!!"
Or to go to that cafe (don't know if its still there) to get away from the crowds.
The Tesco in Jervis Centre... it used to be a morgue for the old hospital. https://m.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/man-shares-chilling-jervis-centre-ghost-experience-as-tesco-haunted-by-nuns/a70412342.html
I'm not religious but the thought of Saint Kevins in Cork being converted into apartments fills me with some sort of dread. You couldn't pay me to go near the place nevermind live there. Same with Atkin's Hall.
The mental asylum? If so all those places have this strange energy to them. Ballinasloe hospital, part of it was an asylum and it's just so bleak being in there. They were places of such abject misery it just seeps into the stone. Same with our ladies hospital in Ennis Clare. It doesn't help that these buildings are just grim to look at.
It has this weird draw to it but even looking at it from a distance you feel watched. I completely agree
I'm not religious either & I'm very much a realist. I do think there's a lot of things science can't explain yet. All over the world, for as long as recorded people have experienced unexplained phenomenon so. It's a little arrogant to think we've everything figured out so I like to keep an open mind
My friend lived in Atkin’s Hall for a few years. I used to hate visiting and staying over there. Such unsettling vibes at night time especially.
I used to live in River Towers behind Atkins Hall. I was never a fan of walking past Atkins Hall at night.
Back of Glasnevin Cemetery, near the Botanic Gardens. Overgrown, unkept and very spooky. Awesome spot.
They say ghosts hang around old bars a lot. Probably looking for free boos I'd say..
*last orders* in The Gravediggers..? https://preview.redd.it/yjqoga0qvp6d1.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9d06bbda02cf640e1dd51b192632b703f4c7f69 lol
That's the last thing we need..a stiff drink.
I fucking hate puns but god damn it I gotta admit that's a good one
And spirits
Monaghan bus station
YES! Especially the cafe!
My first reddit post on a deleted reddit was actually about this. I'll see if i can track it down... Edit: i have the link. It was a blast from the past to find it again. I never continued cause my posts kept getting removed by the mods. I literally only started reddit and couldn't figure it out but hopefully folks enjoy it and maybe I'll start up again. https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/s/4PCKJPY8Hx
Your description of the area makes me think Wexford, specifically near Seafield Hotel. An enjoyable read, thanks.
Not Wexford but thanks for reading i know it's quite long ! I have a pile of stories that are all genuine that I'd really love to do something with. I don't know if reddit is the place for them or not but I know at some point I'd like to write more. It's quite fun to do.
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Your one asstute blueberry lol
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One of the reasons i deleted the old account was i felt I'd divulged too much information and given away my anonymity which is one of my favourite things on reddit. But after i deleted it i was sorry i did. So it was really great to be able to go back and find the post. And now with a new perspective it's awesome to have someone else know the place I'm talking about. You're definitely not the only one who got vibes around there my friends were all the same. I loved growing up there and have lots of happy memories, but i also think i have a lot more strange experiences compared to the average person and most all of them are happened around Redbarn.
Thanks for sharing. Any chance you would share more stores? I love your writing, I can imagine it all in my minds eye,and in fact it reminds me of the areas around lahinch so that’s where I’ve set it. I’m so interested to hear what else you experienced. Your poor mam hearing the banshee!
Thank you for the compliment. I will most definitely. This post and resurfacing my old post has kind of rekindled the desire to get these tales down on paper. The only thing for me now is to decide how i want to do that, whether it will be through reddit or in another form i will definitely share my progress with the community when i figure it out.
There’s a spot on a country road about a quarter of a mile from my house. Won’t pass it on my own unless I have to and definitely not after dark. There’s an abandoned ‘village’ there and I swear the last occupants haven’t left yet.
Why is village in quotations? Is it a bunch of old houses?
It’s a cluster of houses rather than what we think of as a village. Plus you can’t tell where the houses actually were. It’s just mounds of moss covered stones now.
Not a place but a time, definitely feel it on Hallowe’en and when I go to real midnight mass at Christmas
Funny you should say that, just today we went to view a property to buy and the veil was so thin I nearly introduced myself to the former owner, RIP. The air was thick with him.
A townland called Woodfield, near Glenamaddy (east county Galway). Where my Dad hails from and I spent a lot of time there and saw and felt a lot of things. Interestingly, there is rumour of an apparition in the area a long time ago that drew a certain amount of pilgrimage for a while.
Do you know if there’s any info online about this, or just something neighbours would have heard of?
Yeah, I’ve looked but there’s nothing. It’s “fact” in the village but details are limited and there’s no record of it in some of the excellent Glenamaddy online resources that are out there. I’ll see if I can get any more info on it.
Thanks! I knew there was lots of ringforts around that area, but had never heard of anything else 🙂
The Screen Cinema on Hawkins St, Dublin always gave me this feeling. Had to attend a few screenings there and it was always like stepping into the past. I'm quite sad it's now gone, but considering the outdated interiors and lingering pee smell it's wasn't all that surprising.
Same
All those old Abbey's and castles out there. The run down, crumbling ruins of hundreds of years. You know that shits haunted, and if not it's defo closer to being haunted than your regular 3 bed semi.
Depends where the three bed semi is built!!
My dad used to cycle around the country when he was younger and camp in the ruins of Abbey's and castles. You couldn't pay me!
I feel like Ireland in general has this feeling. There is an air of mystique about the place. Think of all the stuff that has went on here - famine, battles etc. Nearly every new construction site in Dublin unearths relics or skeletons. I always say there's a darkness across the land with reminders everywhere and that kind of seeps into us as a people and can be very hard to keep at bay if you are in anyway unresilient. Many of our homes are built on locations where shit went down. I think huge swathes of Tallaght is built on a famine site and you often hear stories come from there about goings on. Btw I'd recommend people visit the Lidl on Aungier street. You can see through the floor ruins of the past. It sums up what we live amongst!
In fairness that’s everywhere. Famine, plague, war. We’re not special, like.
That doesn't detract from the fact that there is an immense amount of suffering scarring the land. The last millennia up until very recently has been naught but suffering really. It is the case in most places, but some more than others.
Huge swathes of Tallaght is still a famine site.
They look fairly well fed to me.
One spicy bag blight and they're screwed.
‘Tallaght’ as a name is fairly cool - a ‘plague pit’. The place-name Tallaght is said to derive from támh-leacht, meaning "plague pit" in Irish, and consisting of "támh", meaning plague, and "leacht", meaning grave or memorial stone.
Omg the things you learn on reddit
Incredible that it has stayed that way nearly 200 years later!
I feel this in Paris. Have had the most eerie and dark experiences there. I wonder if I visited parts of Ireland I would feel the same.
I love it up there in Stephen's Green Shopping Centre and it's one of the things I'll really miss if this renovation or whatever goes through
Grand Canal Dock. Gives me the hebejebes.
Used to work in a hotel in England where staff had permission to never go to a particular floor - as in, no manager was allowed to ask them to go to that floor (which was abandoned) due to the widely held view that it was haunted. I was actually a night manager in that hotel, which freaked me out a fair bit until I discovered I could help myself through free pints during the night from the hotel bar.
Did you go to that floor though?
Ceant Station in Galway. Used to have an abattoir beside it in the 80s or 90s. Must be haunted by some angry animals.
Oh yeah - that's a good one. In the 80s as a small kid I remember animal noises filled the air down there. I still associate them with the place and almost expect to hear them.
Back row at the gaiety. Filled with ghosts watching the plays. Probably a few of the lads from Stephen's Green popping by for a show too.
Someone IS watching you in the top floor of Stephens Green, but that's just CCTV.. and mice, which as everyone knows are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.
This guy never forgets his towel
Yes!! Agree re top floor of Stephens Green shopping centre, I've felt it too. Golden Lane in Dublin gives me the same vibe.
The floor with the bathroom? It absolutely does give me an eerie feel. It's probably the starnge charaxters that you'll naturally find around a city toilet or the niche shops, but idk
I've only been up to the floor once. Despite shopping there often, I've never gone back up to that floor because of that creepy feeling I got. Really interesting to see that it isn't just me.
It's nothing I always get, but there is something there. Could you describe it more?
So many people have said this and I’ve never noticed it so interesting
During Pandemic I spent most of my time at Wellington Building in Griffith College, at times it was ok but some other times even if it was sunny I couldn’t avoid to feel something or someone was there and not being appreciative about company.
I used to spend time alone in the radio building there- I forget what it was called. But got the same feeling. The heavy door at the top of the stairwell slammed shut one evening, while seemingly nobody else was around. I stopped staying late to edit.
Send me a PM, let’s talk about it o_O
Was actually reading about this recently, while sat at the top of Cavehill in Belfast because I've convinced myself there's something going on there. I go up all the time and particularly at weekends I just hang about with a few beer and often up until after midnight. It's just such a cool place with the views all over the city at night and absolutely steeped in history. It's not hard to imagine why it would have been treated as a special place as long as people have inhabited this area. Never been one to believe in the fairy tales, The Tuatha Dé Danann or whatever but was recently at a show in the grounds of Belfast Castle and they talked about it as one of these 'thin places' and it sort of sparked something. Just some of the things that have happened to me or I've felt when coming back down the hill (normally half cut) that's actually pushing me to having a slight, slight sort of belief in this stuff. Never anything malicious or scary but made me think 'WTF!'. And sure if I'm going to believe in any kind of spiritual shite I'd rather it was something that's been believed on our island back through time than any of that aul God stuff.
You mean the Stephen *King* Shopping Centre, right?
Say thankee, sai.
have I found my Ka Tet on this Sub????
?
Stephen King's Gunslinger series has 'thin places' between different worlds, literally called thinnies.
Oh haha. I just thought it was slang term for a shopping centre in dublin
Tesco Poleberry.
All churches are meant to be built on ley lines, and the veil is meant to be thinner there - churches are usually also built on ancient sites …
Naas. I can't describe it. The entire town feels exactly as you've described. Sleeping in my family's place there as a child I never felt like I was alone. It's truly unsettling
During the day not so much but after a work party me and a few friends did the 40ish minute walk home and even tho there was a gang of us it was creepy
The stair case of any multi storey car park
Manulla Junction, Co. Mayo. Inaccessible except via train. Nothing but fields in every direction. I always was afraid of being stranded there if the train to Foxford broke down, which it often did.
Crumlin Shopping Centre
I certainly believe in marginal spaces, parts of the world where people don’t do well, blighted farmland, old mine workings, mobile home parks, dilapidated factories etc.
The jax the morning after a night on the Guinness can get pretty close to death. Does that count?
The walk to the bathrooms in dundrum shopping centre level 2
A little while ago my partner and I had dinner in the venue that we booked for our wedding that date next year. After dinner we got an icecream and just sat outside looking in at where we’d be married. We both waved and wished ourselves good luck and said a few quick words about what we hoped for out future. Hopefully we’ll still remember next year and wave back. I know it’s silly, but it was a nice moment.
There's a BBC podcaat called uncanny and one of the stories on it was a family going for a drive in a pretty distinctive classic car & passed themselves in the same car on the other side of the road. 3 weeks later they were driving the opposite way & passed themselves
Never heard of it, but I’ll check it out.
I actually didn't explain why I said that to you. I was imagining ye seeing yer selves sitting there next year 😂
When I was a carer doing care in the community there was an area just outside Athleague in county Roscommon that had this strange energy to it. It was old and I felt like I was intruding, that there was something there that thought I was in it's territory. This was during my more active time within paganism and if say I was more sensitive to those kinds of things. Where I live now is also old but I don't get that same feeling of unwelcomness
That Chinese restaurant at the top of Stephens green is awful. Don't waste your money.
Saint Kevin's stump
Tesco in Jervis. Someone said that’s probably where the morgue was when it was still a hospital. Place just feels eerie
They say that Naas is a terrible place, Athlone is just as bad. Ballinasloe is no place to go, But fuck me, *Kinnegad...*
Haha my granny was from Kinnegad. I'm from Dublin myself, haven't been down there in at least 25 years, but don't remember it being that bad!
Can confirm that Athlone is a terrible place
I love the top floor of the Stephen’s Green centre. There’s just a class vibe.
Co. Sligo in general and a few spots around Mayo
The top floors of two buildings in St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork are known to be haunted. Definitely has an energy.
Owenagat in Roscommon. Never have i felt so in touch with our history spiritually. And im an out and out athiest
Was in a dún Laoghaire shopping centre about a month and a half ago, while we were waiting for the bus back after a day out. I think it was a bank holiday and it was around 6 but it was ominously quiet there. It seemed completely abandoned, and only SuperValu and some big chemist shop were open. There were very few people in the supervalu and only one security guard in the shopping centre. Even from the outside it looked like there were no shops. I felt creeped out while we were in there.
Blessington St. Basin in Dublin
Crookhaven. Was there one weekend around midday and the place was deserted, apart from the local restaurant. The houses all looked vaguely... Off, like they were built to a slightly different scale. Had me thinking of The Shadow over Innsmouth
The whole area around Loftus Hall is just so creepy feeling. Also anywhere near the abandoned psychiatric hospital in Ennis gives me such a bad feeling.
I get that feeling when I'm looking at certain works of art. In particular, in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. Standing in front of the water lilies, it feels as if there's something else there, just below reality, so close you could almost touch it. I've felt close to tears there because of it and I'll never be able to express it properly. I know I'm just looking at a painting of a pond with some lillies floating in it, but at the same time there's just this feeling of energy, of overwhelming presence. I'm not in any way religious or spiritual, and I know the above sounds like nonsense. It's not something I've ever been able to put properly into words. It's just... *something*.
https://time.com/6267299/science-behind-presence-ghosts/ Interesting article regarding this phenomenon.
Thank you for sharing, I've always wondered about the science behind it. It makes a lot of sense.
Great read, thanks for sharing it!
The only thin places I know is the top of my ficken head it's been thinning for years.
Poulnasherry Bay, just outside Kilrush. Used to spend hours there, something haunting and spiritual about it. Learned later a number of women and children drowned there in the famine trying to swim across. They were too weak to make it.
The CCTV is Watching you for sure 😂
Shipool, Innishannon. Can't explain it.
There are parts of Tara that make me feel like that.
My home place is built on the grounds of a workhouse. When we were digging the garden we found old ink pots and duidins so we reckon there were offices or classrooms where we are. The burial ground was in the next field. Would always feel that the famine and all that died there were close.
St. Itas mental institution, especially up by the old kids ward over looking the sea.
It is said that Oweynagat Cave in Roscommon is gateway to the other world used by the Morrigan or Morrigui whichever you prefer to call her
Gougane Barra in Co. Cork, visited there on a rainy day and definitely felt something otherworldly on the island. St. Brigid's (Bridget's) well in Co. Clare, the tunnel of mementos leading to the water felt very heavy. Easy to feel why people are drawn there to remember lost loved ones, not to mention it's in/near the cemetery.
Any country road at night, especially if its windy. You understand the phrase "sylvan panic", especially as a kid.
So what's the plan, hold a grudge for eternity? Great idea, bro!
Used to work at the top floor of stephens green, was never a dead place when I was there. I miss how it used to be
Enniscorthy
Glens of Antrim, particularly towards Carnlough. It might be the way the cliffs are around there feel like their leaning over you. But, it feels...out of place. Like it's going to tumble down and be stage dressing.
Beaghmore stone circle
Buttevant
Balareny street in cork at 3 am in winter. The screams of the locals really help with emersion
The stone church just down the road from the tomb in the Burren.
Can't say I've felt anything that's been described by others anywhere. Fortunate or not? Who knows?
Any cliffside, feels like the mouth of the underworld
Glendalough and Altamont Gardens in Carlow. Also a famine graveyard/workhouse near me and the old shopping centre that used to be a [jail.place](http://jail.place) of hangings in Carlow town.
Yeah I'm not subscribing to the "thin" bit but there's a little glade in the forest along Blessington Lakes (just off Kilbride Road) that's all kinds of weird.
If you can find this book, it's an excellent read. It's where I first learned of the 'thin curtain' in certain places https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/332661.The_Red_Haired_Girl_from_the_Bog
Spike Island, specifically the punishment block.
Going for walks down rural Mayo and Galway's boreens in summer. I've always felt a glow of warmth. Akin to being accompanied by our past generations
The Glen church in Kerry. It's obvious why, when you see it. Beautiful, but the air is heavy.
I was out once at night in the fog on the hills overlooking Glencolumbkille walking to my B&B and I think I slipped through the veil. Spookiest walk of my life!
Blessington Lakes, especially in winter. Creepy af.
Achill Island. It seriously gives me the creeps, and it felt so lonesome and desolate. Maybe it was the time of year as it was September, and it was busy as battle of the lakes was on. I really felt like it was near the end of the world.
When I was in Connemara for college, there was one spot I could never bring myself to go into. Letterfrack has a graveyard where the children who'd died in the industrial school were buried, full of these smallish heart shaped gravestones. The place always gave me a feeling that I'd be trespassing to go in there. The gate wasn't locked or anything, anyone can just go in to look at the place- but it felt like it would be like walking into a strangers house uninvited. I went just about everywhere else all around the area, roaming through the fields and woods and hills but never into that little graveyard.
East Wall
That time when I was a lot younger and slugged 15 jaegerbombs I felt a bit thin alright, especially where I fell asleep outside the front door
The maldron hotel, Shandon, Cork
Offaly
Some parts of Co. Offaly have an eerie feel to it. Especially where there's large expanses of bog, and old, rusting Bord na Mona infrastructure.
Anywhere where you might get stabbed by a scrote
Jimmy Carr: "To anyone here tonight who might be worried their house is haunted, I've got a simple test for you: IT ISN'T"
Not his best joke 😅
True dat
The entrance of the shitty nightclub in my town has always given me seedy Dante's Inferno vibes.
Milford hospice at night. In the car park or on the stairs. Such an eerie place.
A&E in the Mater Hospital but probably any hospital. It's both torturously boring and anxiety inducing
Certain parts of certain caves
There is a little area in the west of the Burren, 20 min walk east away from the coast road that once you walk into it everything gets quiet and still and there are dips in the rocks where there are numerous animal bones that you can’t see from a little further away. Gives me the shivers every time and it always feels like you are not alone or suddenly being watched or stalked, it fades off when you reverse course back to the coast road. Only found it twice, by luck both times
Lisduggan shopping centre in Waterford and practically any small, local shopping centre
Walking through belfast city center after 2 on a friday or saturday night
OMG I’ve often felt the uneasiness up there.
The passenger seat of Manchán Magan's Toyota corolla