I loved this poem as a child, I could visualise the scene and every time I photograph a ruin it comes to mind. I find old houses and ruins enchanting.
The Listeners
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:..................
When my parents married in the mid 1950's they moved in with my Grandmother, my father's widowed mother. She lived in a rambling old house on Wises Hill in Sunday's Well in Cork City.
There had been a tragic death in the house some years before my grandparents bought the place. A young RIC man(Royal Irish Constabulary, who policed Ireland 1814-1922 before An Garda Síochána took over the Irish Free State)was found hanging under the stairwell. My mother said he was the son of a Butcher.
Mam told us about several occasions when she was alone in the house and she 'd hear footsteps coming to the closed sitting room door. She would be expecting my father to walk in but nobody would be there. Or she would hear footsteps coming down the stairs and the door of the room would open but again nobody would enter the room.
I was a home birth which wasn't unusual in Ireland then. Women didn't give the graphic accounts of their childbirths in those days. My mother said the doctor brought me in his bag. Apparently I destroyed his notes. Serves him right for carrying a bloodied baby in his bag. It could have been worse, my brother was found under a head of cabbage, but I digress.
Mam told us she never felt alone in the house. She said she was never afraid when she was on her own but always sensed a presence.
Older family members had similar experiences and also remember lights switching on by themselves.
Any member of our family old enough to remember is convinced that the house was haunted.
As I was born in the house I feel a bit of a connection with him. I feel that we must have met somewhere in the in-between before i entered the Real World. Who knows!
My photographs on this theme were taken in 3 locations, some in Cobh, Co. Cork and some in Galway and 1 in Ring Co Waterford.
Glenmore Cobh
Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 70-300mm@80mm, exp 1/80sec, f11, ISO 160
Renville, Galway
Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@67mm, exp 1/200sec, f10, ISO100 
Belgrove House, Walterstown, Cobh
Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@11mm, exp 1/400, f22, ISO 100
Mageen's House, Ring Co. Waterford
Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@16mm, exp 0.8sec, f16, ISO 100, tripod
Mageen's House, Ring, Co. Waterford
Camera Settings, Camera - Canon 70D, lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/100sec, f7.1, ISO 160
Valley Road, Cobh
Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/60sec, f11, ISO 100
Fota Cottages, workers houses, Fota Road, Cobh, Co. Cork
Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/50sec, f20, ISO200
