Irish superstitions, urban legends and local tales

steddyeddy · 11-11-2015 11:12PM #1

My granny was full of stories of banshees, fairies and local myths. She was a Dubliner so most of what she told me centered around Dublin. The Hellfire club is a famous one but she also told me about a huge black dog that people had seen in the area that some people could see and some couldn't.

She lived not far from Mount Jerome cemetery and she used to tell me spooky stories about the graves there. One grave has the statue of a dog on it which had lain on it's master's grave after he passed away.

The other one I remember is about the Rotunda hospital. The story goes that a gypsy approached a heavily pregnant rich woman asking for money. The rich lady said "go away you pig" and the woman's son was born in the shape of a pig. The lady felt so bad that she paid to have the Rotunda built.

Now of course these aren't real but I enjoy hearing them. Anyone remember any other old superstitions that were passed down to you?

fleet_admiral · 11-11-2015 11:15PM

Mount 'argos' LOL

Where all the bargains go when the reservations arent collected

deathtocaptcha · 11-11-2015 11:16PM

going for 'the cure'

steddyeddy · 11-11-2015 11:18PM

fleet_admiral wrote: »

Mount 'argos' LOL

Where all the bargains go when the reservations arent collected

Ha ha well I meant Mount Jerome. Although Mount Argos is a church in Kimmage.

Fleawuss · 11-11-2015 11:18PM

I forgot all that Shyte years ago.

steddyeddy · 11-11-2015 11:20PM

Anyone remember the child of Prague and the effect it was supposed to have on weather?

Hammer89 · 11-11-2015 11:20PM

Mount Argos is where you buy the tombstones. They come drifting through some flaps on a little conveyor belt and then your one stamps your receipt.

cml387 · 11-11-2015 11:23PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Anyone remember the child of Prague and the effect it was supposed to have on weather?

Only if it had no head.

BlueLass · 11-11-2015 11:26PM

If the owner of a donkey cuts a bit of hair from its back where the cross is and puts in under the pillow of a person who suffers from asthma it is supposed to cure them!!!!!

NachoBusiness · 11-11-2015 11:29PM

My relatives down in a rural part of Monaghan always tell this tale of a banshee following one of them home the night before their mother died back in the 70s. If us unmannerly Dublin folk so much as sniggered whilst these tales were being told we'd have got the back of a brush. They are factual happenings as far as they are concerned. Knocks on doors before bad news another.

I always just laughed at them but many years later had something very strange happen in my apartment before I myself received some bad news and have to say I don't think I am as strenuously dismissive of strange goings on as I once might have been.

fleet_admiral · 11-11-2015 11:32PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Ha ha well I meant Mount Jerome. Although Mount Argos is a church in Kimmage.

Mount Jerome is the cemetery, Mount 'Argus' is the church almost next door

blindside88 · 11-11-2015 11:35PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Anyone remember the child of Prague and the effect it was supposed to have on weather?

I hadn't heard of this until my wedding day, I was at the church and a neighbour of my wife's was telling me that she had left the child of Prague out the day before and that it had worked. I had no clue what she was talking about and had to ask my wife about it on the way to the hotel..... In fairness it was a cracking day for weather

steddyeddy · 11-11-2015 11:37PM

fleet_admiral wrote: »

Mount Jerome is the cemetery, Mount 'Argus' is the church almost next door

It's not next door it's (Jerome) is in Harold's Cross. Argos is in Kimmage.

Day Lewin · 11-11-2015 11:46PM

The little old footbridge over the Dodder above Milltown is said to be haunted.
I've heard this from several people but the oddest of all was from my grandmother: a tough, common-sensical kind of little woman who otherwise wouldn't have had any time at all for imaginary nonsense.
But once, walking home at night and passing that bridge, she sensed a "presence" and heard some kind of sound that frightened her so much she muttered her prayers the whole way home and "was never so glad to see her own front door". I think she thought it was following her.

All the more impressive, to me, for coming from someone who otherwise was so robustly down-to-earth.

XR3i · 11-11-2015 11:51PM

my uncle woke up one night and heard loud banging on the window,

he went over and opened the curtains and there was a leprechaun banging on the window with a 50p piece

he was laughing telling me the story but he was definitely a bit shook after it

ceadaoin. · 11-11-2015 11:55PM

NachoBusiness wrote: »

My relatives down in a rural part of Monaghan always tell this tale of a banshee following one of them home the night before their mother died back in the 70s. If us unmannerly Dublin folk so much as sniggered whilst these tales were being told we'd have got the back of a brush. They are factual happenings as far as they are concerned. Knocks on doors before bad news another.

I always just laughed at them but many years later had something very strange happen in my apartment before I myself received some bad news and have to say I don't think I am as strenuously dismissive of strange goings on as I once might have been.

Can you elaborate on the strange occurrence? Love a good spooky story

The Backwards Man · 11-11-2015 11:58PM

I've roamed manys a highway and byway for manys a year in the dead of night and I've never met anything worse than myself yet.

XR3i · 11-11-2015 11:59PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I've roamed manys a highway and byway for manys a year in the dead of night and I've never met anything worse than myself yet.

you can sing that

Pedro K · 11-11-2015 11:59PM

Local cures... What a pile of ****e.

Turning sods of turf under sick cow's feet, licking lizards bellies, passing a whopping cough infected child under and over a donkey 7 times..

The Backwards Man · 12-11-2015 12:02AM

XR3i wrote: »

you can sing that

ðŸŽµI've travelled manys a highway and byway for manys a year in the dead of night and I've never met anything worse than myself yetðŸŽµ

NachoBusiness · 12-11-2015 02:56AM

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Can you elaborate on the strange occurrence? Love a good spooky story

Well, not really spooky but two weeks back I was lying in bed reading and on the top shelf is some old 45s of mine and my brothers from when we were kids. They are were / are up there for around 11 years now, from when I moved in here. Dust them or whatever a few times a year and it had been a month or so since I had last touched them. Anyway, as I was reading, around 3am, they came off the shelf and slammed against the opposite wall. They didn't fall. If they did, they wouldn't have hit the other wall. I remember think about posting on the AH thread about stuff like that but fell asleep shortly after. At around 8.30am I received a phone call from my sister-in-law in Holland sounding very worried and telling me she needed to contact my mother but she couldn't and I asked her what was wrong and she said my brother had suffered a serious head injury in a quarry explosion in Finland. He's still in hospital now but doing better now thank God and hopefully with time he'll be one hundred percent.

Maybe it's all just coincidence. I don't know.

The Backwards Man · 12-11-2015 03:02AM

Chinese Lanterns

fizzypish · 12-11-2015 08:57AM

Jasus. Going by this thread investing in a donkey is better than health insurance. You can stick your medical card, I'll have an ass.

corner of hells · 12-11-2015 10:05AM

fizzypish wrote: »

Jasus. Going by this thread investing in a donkey is better than health insurance. You can stick your medical card, I'll have an ass.

You try and get an ass into your wallet.

Badly Drunk Boy · 12-11-2015 10:23AM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I've roamed manys a highway and byway for manys a year in the dead of night and I've never met anything worse than myself yet.

The leprechaun with the 50p says the same thing, with the exception of the night he met you.

12-11-2015 10:31AM

This is more in the urban myths style one of the many my mother believed.

That the shipping registration of the Titanic spelled no pope if read backwards or upside down one or the other.

_Brian · 12-11-2015 10:35AM

I knew a builder who was asked to come into a local house and build up the door to a bedroom.
Someone had died a natural but long horrific death in the room and the remaining people in the house insisted it was haunted ever since.
The room remained blocked up until the house was demolished on recent years.

I spoke with the builder about it and he said while he didn't believe he did say it was creepy and unnerving. Big old cold poorly lit house. The owners added holy water to the mortar mix.

As a younger lad I use to pass the house all the time and it was hard not to watch the room window as I passed bye.

sonny.knowles · 12-11-2015 10:39AM

XR3i wrote: »

my uncle woke up one night and heard loud banging on the window,

he went over and opened the curtains and there was a leprechaun banging on the window with a 50p piece

he was laughing telling me the story but he was definitely a bit shook after it

Was it a millennium 50p coin or a standard one?

diomed · 12-11-2015 10:47AM

Praying to St Anthony to find things that you lost.
I have a TV in my bedroom and lost the remote last week. Nothing worse than having to press buttons on the TV.
After a prayer to St Anthony I pushed the bed to one side and found a TV remote. But not the one I had just lost. It was one I lost a months ago back. I had looked for hours for that one when I lost it, and had to buy another. My guess is it got jammed into the underside of the bed as I pushed the bed around searching for it.
Anyway I was looking at TV for a while using the remote I just found. About an hour later I saw in a direct line to the TV on the cream coloured duvet the remote control I lost earlier that evening. I had turned over everything when looking for that remote. It shocked me.

donegaLroad · 12-11-2015 10:48AM

on Tory Island, the locals felt it was / is bad luck to know how to swim, because if your boat gets into difficulty and you can swim ashore, the sea fairies will come and claim 2 members of your family the next time they are at sea.

The colour green is unlucky on Tory.

On Aranmore and Tory it is considered unlucky to talk about fish on your way out fishing. You are supposed to turn the boat towards the sun in the morning as you are heading out.. this is also for luck.

I knew a lady who used to swim for Ireland, and the family would go on holidays to Tory. She sued to dive in off the rocks wearing a green Ireland swimming cap, the locals were afraid of her.

_Brian · 12-11-2015 11:07AM

donegaLroad wrote: »

on Tory Island, the locals felt it was / is bad luck to know how to swim, because if your boat gets into difficulty and you can swim ashore, the sea fairies will come and claim 2 members of your family the next time they are at sea.

The colour green is unlucky on Tory.

On Aranmore and Tory it is considered unlucky to talk about fish on your way out fishing. You are supposed to turn the boat towards the sun in the morning as you are heading out.. this is also for luck.

I knew a lady who used to swim for Ireland, and the family would go on holidays to Tory. She sued to dive in off the rocks wearing a green Ireland swimming cap, the locals were afraid of her.

My wife's family here in Cavan also believe the whole Green is bad luck thing. No green clothes, car or anything green if possible.

Irish superstitions, urban legends and local tales

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