Scary tales from school pupils about ghouls, curses, witches and fairies taken from the 1930s Schools Folklore Collection

By PAULINE MURPHY

WEST Cork brims with stories of the supernatural and you can find many of them in the digitised Schools Folklore Collection from the 1930s. Pupils from national schools across the region offered scary stories about the undead, curses and fairies. There are many tales about the haunted roads of West Cork where ghosts and ghouls terrified travellers. Here is a taste of some of those eerie encounters.

From Corran North National School near Drinagh a pupil told a tale about a ghost who frequented a road at Keelinga, Leap. One night a man was walking down this particular road when he saw a figure in white stooped behind a hedge. Frightened by what he saw, the man walked briskly on but “the stranger quickened his steps to an equal pace. On mounting a rising ground he perceived that the stranger was gigantic in height, had beaming eyes and exceedingly pale countenance, an air of stately melancholy and his hair shone in the moonlight. A little further on was a house into which the man went. As he entered he cast a glance back at the stranger who made a dash as if to catch him”.

The man shut the door and ran to to the window. When he looked out the stranger who had terrified him lingered briefly before he vanished in a flash of fire.

A pupil from Rossmore National School told a tale about a man who set off for the Ballineen fair. “When he came on the Rossmore road a man came out of the ditch and walked on the road. The man did not speak. They went on this way until they came to Hobbs Bridge. There the man suddenly disappeared. It is said that ghosts cannot cross water.”

Another spooky story from a Rossmore pupil concerns a local witch called Máire Gaedhealach who lived in a house at the side of the road in Carhavolour. “The road outside her house was the main road going to fairs and when the people used to be travelling there in the night she used to jump into the cart in the shape of a dog. The horse would get in great trouble pulling the cart and froth would come from his mouth.”

When Máire died her ghost haunted the road. Petrified locals went to a priest for help who is said to have banished Máire’s ghost.

Máire turns up in another tale from a pupil of Bealad NS near Clonakilty. Rather than call her a witch she is known as a fairy woman called Máire Gaolach who terrified the locality. “She used to appear at sunset and used to be seen on the following roads: Bealad, Rossmore, Bandon, Clonakilty and Ardfield. This woman’s spirit was a terror to the men in the early hours of morning going to Bandon or Ballineen fairs, she used to jump on the horse’s back behind the rider or jump into the carts. So great was their terror that they appealed to the priest to banish her. After long and tedious waiting she was banished by Fr O’Hea.”

Drinagh National School offered many eerie tales and one pupil told of a man going to a fair outside the village. “A man suddenly jumped up on the horse’s back. The rider took rosary beads from his pocket and held them in his hand and then asked him for god’s sake to leave. At that time the man disappeared and was never again seen. That frightened man never went to a fair after nor never went out after dark.”

A pupil from Kilnadur National School told about a scary ordeal a local family experienced. The Cahalanes were returning from Coppeen to their home in Shanacashel one night “when at Lisheenleigh a funeral passed by them. It was after midnight. They plainly saw a coffin being borne by what seemed to them living men and a number of carts following behind. The Cahalane family were so frightened that they could not proceed on their journey. They struggled to a small house by the roadside where the Lordans lived. They brought them in and they remained there for the night.”

A pupil in Gortacloona school near Bantry told how a local man went to a neighbour’s house one evening and on his return home late that night he noticed a woman following behind him. “A few weeks before that night one of his sisters died and when he looked back he thought it was the ghost of his sister. At last he came to a stream and when he crossed it the woman disappeared. When he went home his other sister was sick and died a few days after. It is since thought in the locality that one dead person comes to meet another and that one of those sisters came to meet the other.”

From Kilbrittain NS a pupil told a tale about a ghastly ghost known to kill people on a local road. “A red-haired woman was seen on the road for several nights near Ashgrove between Timoleague and Clonakilty. She would beat all persons passing by and one man died a short time after he had arrived home. His body was black and blue. A priest was told about what occured and he went to the scene and read some prayers and sent the woman in a blaze of fire into the sea. She was never seen after.”

A pupil at Castlenalacht National School had a story about a white lady who haunted the quarry at Kilpatrick. “She is supposed to be seen crossing the road on a moon lit night. The tradition is that long ago a horse bolted on the Macroom road and that a girl dressed in white was driving it and she was killed near the Black Quarry, Kilpatrick.”

Another tale from Castlenalacht concerns the ghost of Sally Liston. “Said to appear at Pike Cross in Gurteen. Sally Liston is often seen there in the evening combing her long black hair.”

More hauntings on local roads were recounted by another Castlenalacht pupil. “A ghost was supposed to haunt Kilmore Road below Murphy’s. There is a story told that a certain man went every evening to Ballinacurra drinking. One evening the men of the place decided that one of them would dress up as the ghost to give him a fright.

“A man dressed up and waited at the haunted ground. As the night passed, the man who had been drinking returned but he said that he saw nothing strange on the road. So the men of the place went to look for the man who played the ghost, and found him dead in the bog. The belief is that the real ghost resented his actions and strangled him.”