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Phantom hitch-hiker stories in Ireland ?
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02-03-2011 12:24am#1
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In Roscommon on the Racecourse road there is a house that is supposedly haunted, a friend of my mother's was driving past it one day when a headless man appeared in his back seat! The driver pulled in and ran into the house for help, when the occupant opened the door he said that this wasn't a good time because his father had just died. The man stayed in the back seat and was seen by guards and the monsignor, and didn't leave until the monsignor said prayers.
That's really cool.
Can anyone else confirm that story?0 -
MrMojoRisin wrote: »That's really cool.
Can anyone else confirm that story?
Oh I don't know lol, I mean loads of people saw it and know of it but I doubt most of them are on Boards!0 -
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Rhys Essien wrote: »About the girl appearing in the back of your car when you look in the rear view mirror on the Fota road in Cork.I heard a story where it happened to a lad in his early twenties and supposedly he was so shocked he hardly spoke for a few days later.
Yeah, I heard about that one too. There's an excellent book out at the moment called 'Haunted Cork' by Darren Mann (you can get it on amazon.co.uk or www.thehistorypress.ie - my cousin tried to get it in regular bookshops and none of them had it).
This is what Darren writes about the Fota Road...The Fota Road heading towards Cobh is one covered in tales of paranormal activity. Over a pint people may crack a joke about the headless horseman said to gallop at full speed, or the phantom carriage pulled by a team of phantom nags, but a couple of of the stories are ingrained in Cork's paranormal culture. I heard about the Fota ghosts from a Greek long-distance delivery driver I bumped into in Cobh. He told me that he hated travelling the road at night as his cab would become icy cold, no matter which setting he selected on the air conditioning. I was intrigued, and started to dig out other stories of the road.
The first ghostly stories of the Fota Road appear to date from around the early twentieth century. As a small group of people returned from a local dance, they watched as a coach pulled by a team of headless horses drove past them. Although the occupants of the carriage are not described, it is said a hand appeared from the coach and waved at the witnesses. Further down the road the coach was seen again, this time by a lad riding his bicycle. The cyclist was forced to mount the footpath to avoid hitting the coach hitting him (or passing through him, of course). The sighting of the phantom coach coincided with the death of a prominent woman who lived close by, and those in the know agreed that the vehicle had come to collect her soul.
It is now said that half an hour before midnight is a bad time to be driving in or out of Cobh. As the traffic is reduced to a handful of cars, a single woman stands by the roadside. Her thumb is stuck out, trying to attract the attention of passing male motorists. Unlike the normal vanishing hitchhiker who waits to be picked up before revealing itself to be a ghost, this woman disappears when a car stops for her. If a driver passes by without thought, the female phantom manifests in the back seat of their vehicle, disappearing a few seconds after being noticed.
Another version of the story says it is a man who suddenly appears and will only vanish once the car crosses the Fota Bridge.
A similar story concerns a young child. Driving alone just after midnight, one driver glanced into his rear view mirror to see a girl sitting in the backseat of his car. He spun around, but the child had disappeared. The driver was said to have been so shaken he drove to the side of the road, and with a quivering hand phoned his father to come and pick him up. It has been speculated that the young girl in question fell off a wall and died just outside Fota House in the late nineteeth century and her confused spirit occasionally enters passing cars.
The main problem with these latter stories is the lack of first-hand witnesses. The stories are all told by friends who heard them from mates, whose sister had heard the tales from their former boyfriend's cousin... They become impossible to track back to the source, and the more cynical amongst us would say that this is because they never happened.
These urban myths may serve as a type of warning; the woman vanishes if the driver stops to pick her up as a reward for chivalry, and those who are impolite are punished. The story of the little girl appearing after midnight could date back hundreds of years, warning horse riders of the perils of travelling alone on treacherous roads. But unravelling these myths is never that straightforward. Stories change and evolve, but they often have a foundation in fact.
The tale of the phantom woman by the roadside may have developed traits of an urban myth in the constant re-telling, but this alone does not prevent the phantom female from existing, and maybe, manifesting once again in front of an unsuspecting witness.
Well, I was down in Cork for the weekend and I headed out along the Fota Road both before and after midnight (just to be thorough, like!). I did bring a friend with me, but I left him off just after the bridge (where that old castle ruin yoke is) while I did my little 'ghost-drive'. I told him if I didn't return within the hour, to assume I'd been abducted by a ghost, or run off the road by one!
I set up the cameras in the car - one at the back right-hand corner of the back window and another stuck down to the dash in front facing the back seat - and drove towards Cobh and then back again. I kept the light on inside and put another small torch in the back seat to make sure everything was illuminated. It was all over and done with by 12:20pm.
Then I got Paul (friend) to drive back and forth each way on his own, so it was 12:45pm by the time the whole thing was done. We went back to his gaff and had a look through the footage and, truth be told, we didn't see anything unusual. Not a thing. In the excerpt above from Darren Mann's book, he mentions how he spoke to a Greek delivery driver who said the cab remained icy cold no matter what setting he put the air con on. We didn't have any trouble with the heater on Saturday night anyway. What a laugh though.
I will say one thing about that Fota Road though. When I was last home before last weekend, in January, and I went out on the piss to Cobh, I had to get a taxi home afterwards sometime after 11:30pm at least and when I told the driver (a young bloke, no more than 28 or so) I wanted to go back into town (Cork City), I noticed he sort of shifted uncomfortably. There was definitely a reaction in him. And, when we were going along the road, despite me being about as chatty as a mummified courgette, he was making a mighty effort to expound at length on the crappiness of the weather.
So, taxi drivers definitely do seem to be nervous about driving along that stretch of road late-ish at night, whether the tales are true or not.
Oh, and in Darren Mann's book, boards.ie is mentioned at the end of the book under 'websites'! We're famous now, lol! :pac:0 -
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In Roscommon on the Racecourse road there is a house that is supposedly haunted, a friend of my mother's was driving past it one day when a headless man appeared in his back seat! The driver pulled in and ran into the house for help, when the occupant opened the door he said that this wasn't a good time because his father had just died. The man stayed in the back seat and was seen by guards and the monsignor, and didn't leave until the monsignor said prayers.
Wonder how did he hear the prayers if he had no ears !
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