The Paranormal Database

Just William

Location: Ballinfull - Lissadell House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Another building haunted by W B Yeats, Yeats himself saw the ghost of one of his friends on the staircase. The site is also reported to be the home of two phantom women who walk through the garden carrying flowers and paints.

Vanishing Island

Location: Ballysadare Bay - Off coast
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Fishermen were aware of an enchanted island that would briefly manifest off the coast.

Pippa

Location: Collooney - Markree Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A mischievous ghostly child nicknamed Pippa who would lock doors and drop items can be appeased by giving her gifts. The cellar is home to another paranormal entity.

Black Haired Girl

Location: Easky (aka Easkey) - Private residence
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This property is said to be haunted by a girl with long black hair. Poltergeist activity also occurred, with electrical items being switched off, and a fork being thrown at one occupant.

Vanishing Island

Location: Enniscrone (aka Inniscrone, aka Inishcrone) - Off coast
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid nineteenth century
Further Comments: Many of the townsfolk were said to have spotted an island which appeared and disappeared off the coast.

Armada Figure

Location: Grange - Streedagh Beach
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 01 October 2022
Further Comments: A local Sligo man featured in the local press after photographing a 'glowing figure' walking on water at Streedagh Beach. The witness thought the apparition related to the Spanish Armada, from which a ship floundered in Streedagh Sound in 1588.

Storm Calmer

Location: Inishmurray - Tobernacoragh (well)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Nineteenth century practice, unknown if still well present
Further Comments: If a storm raged, the water of this well could be drained into the sea. As the contents reduced, so would the force of the storm.

An AI impression of a Dadharchu, an Irish cryptid.

Pair of Dadharchu

Location: Lake Glenade - Waters of the Lake
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Translated their name means 'Hound of the Deep'; two Dadharchu lived in this lake until one of the beasts killed and ate a young bride. Her husband exacted revenge by shooting one of the creatures and taking a sword to the other. Regardless whether this is myth or legend, there have been reports in the twentieth century of four metre long creatures seen swimming in the lake.

Flood

Location: Lough Gara - General area
Type: Other
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A village that showed no compassion to a wandering widow and her child was flooded soon after, the waters forming the lough which drowned all the inhabitants.

Tapping

Location: Rosses Point - Elsinore House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid - late nineteenth century
Further Comments: William Butler Yeats spent some of his childhood here, later writing that he and his siblings would hear the ghosts of long-gone smugglers tapping on the windows. A smuggler known as John (or Jack) Black had originally built the house.

Footsteps

Location: Sligo - Private apartment close to cemetery
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2018
Further Comments: Items would disappear around this property, only to turn up again elsewhere. Five people on the site all heard stomping feet from the empty rooms on the floor above.

Egyptian Curse

Location: Sligo - Seaforth House
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Early twentieth century?
Further Comments: Poltergeist activity broke out in the house shortly after the arrival of Egyptian and Syrian artefacts brought back from the Middle East by Owen Phibbs. Servants were driven away, while the house sometimes shook to the very foundations. Eventually the family moved away and left the house to rot.

Sound of Firearms

Location: Streedagh - Somewhere along the Sligo/Bundoran road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1930s
Further Comments: Ten years after an ambush occurred on the site, a witness returning home reported hearing gunfire and seeing misty shapes in wearing peaked caps.

Spanish Soldiers

Location: Streedagh - Staad Abbey Ruins
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The abbey is reputedly haunted by the ghosts of Spanish Sailors who were brought here and executed by British soldiers in 1588, after a vessel from the Spanish Armada. The ghostly presences manifest as shadowy forms accompanied by a cold atmosphere.