I'm following on from my last blog post A haunting we will go..... and keeping with the haunting theme.
I told you about the house my family lived in in Sunday's Well in Cork. I was only 2 when we left the house so I don't have any memory of it. The story i told you was told to me by my parents. Several of my cousins lived in the house at different stages and they all have memories of the place being haunted.
I was chatting with one cousin yesterday who lived in the house with her parents, my father before he was married and my grandmother . ( her mother was my father's sister) . The story she heard was that the man who was found hanging in the house was Polish and he was found behind the bathroom door not under the stairwell. As a child she didn't know this but remembers always being afraid in the bathroom. She said there was always a chilling breeze flowing through the room. My father heard her crying in the Bathroom one day and knowing she was afraid used to stand watch outside the room to mind her.
She also spoke of a room where the light used to come on by itself.
My grandmother sold the house after my mother took ill on Christmas eve, 1960. Mam was 8 months pregnant with my sister at the time.
My father, an electrician was in the Bar next door repairing the Christmas lights and no doubt having a pint and a drop. Mam was hanging up Christmas decorations when she collapsed with a brain haemorrhage and was found by my father unconscious on the floor.
My grandmother was convinced that my mother saw something in the room that night. My mother recovered eventually, she was in a coma for a long time in the North Infirmary Hospital in Cork's Northside.
My sister was born while mam was in a coma. She arrived quite unexpectedly. A priest was doing his rounds and heard the baby crying in the bed. She was called Catherine, Louise after 2 of the nursing nuns. She was then placed in the drawer of a chest of drawers in the room as they weren't equipped for babies as the hospital was not a maternity hospital.
Can you imagine the excitement.
Mam never recovered her memory so wasn't able to tell us if anything happened in the house that night to cause her illness.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back for my grandmother, she felt the house had brought nothing but bad luck to the family and she sold it.
The house changed hands several times afterwards. Eventually it was knocked and some fine apartments have been built there recently. I'd love to know if the residents are having any strange unexplained experiences there.
The following photographs were taken in a graveyard in Cobh recently. I took them especially for Halloween. I wasn't alone, I had an accomplice. Most women bring their daughters to shopping centres, fashion shows, cinema etc I bring mine to graveyards. What makes me laugh is how normal it is to them. One night, I asked my youngest daughter Marie to accompany me to Ballymore graveyard in the pitch dark, apart from the full moon. Ya she said, no bother. The only stipulation was that we bring the dog.
Camera settings. Camera - Canon 70D, lens Canon 18-135mm. All these images were taken with the same lens at focal lengths between 18 and 41mm. exposures between 22 and 50 seconds. f16, ISO 100. The camera was on a tripod, using a remote release. My daughter used a torch to light up the statue from different angles.
There was a lot of tripping over gravestones and giggles had in the process.
I told you about the house my family lived in in Sunday's Well in Cork. I was only 2 when we left the house so I don't have any memory of it. The story i told you was told to me by my parents. Several of my cousins lived in the house at different stages and they all have memories of the place being haunted.
I was chatting with one cousin yesterday who lived in the house with her parents, my father before he was married and my grandmother . ( her mother was my father's sister) . The story she heard was that the man who was found hanging in the house was Polish and he was found behind the bathroom door not under the stairwell. As a child she didn't know this but remembers always being afraid in the bathroom. She said there was always a chilling breeze flowing through the room. My father heard her crying in the Bathroom one day and knowing she was afraid used to stand watch outside the room to mind her.
She also spoke of a room where the light used to come on by itself.
My grandmother sold the house after my mother took ill on Christmas eve, 1960. Mam was 8 months pregnant with my sister at the time.
My father, an electrician was in the Bar next door repairing the Christmas lights and no doubt having a pint and a drop. Mam was hanging up Christmas decorations when she collapsed with a brain haemorrhage and was found by my father unconscious on the floor.
My grandmother was convinced that my mother saw something in the room that night. My mother recovered eventually, she was in a coma for a long time in the North Infirmary Hospital in Cork's Northside.
My sister was born while mam was in a coma. She arrived quite unexpectedly. A priest was doing his rounds and heard the baby crying in the bed. She was called Catherine, Louise after 2 of the nursing nuns. She was then placed in the drawer of a chest of drawers in the room as they weren't equipped for babies as the hospital was not a maternity hospital.
Can you imagine the excitement.
Mam never recovered her memory so wasn't able to tell us if anything happened in the house that night to cause her illness.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back for my grandmother, she felt the house had brought nothing but bad luck to the family and she sold it.
The house changed hands several times afterwards. Eventually it was knocked and some fine apartments have been built there recently. I'd love to know if the residents are having any strange unexplained experiences there.
The following photographs were taken in a graveyard in Cobh recently. I took them especially for Halloween. I wasn't alone, I had an accomplice. Most women bring their daughters to shopping centres, fashion shows, cinema etc I bring mine to graveyards. What makes me laugh is how normal it is to them. One night, I asked my youngest daughter Marie to accompany me to Ballymore graveyard in the pitch dark, apart from the full moon. Ya she said, no bother. The only stipulation was that we bring the dog.
Camera settings. Camera - Canon 70D, lens Canon 18-135mm. All these images were taken with the same lens at focal lengths between 18 and 41mm. exposures between 22 and 50 seconds. f16, ISO 100. The camera was on a tripod, using a remote release. My daughter used a torch to light up the statue from different angles.
There was a lot of tripping over gravestones and giggles had in the process.
I have to thank my cousin Rosemary Connolly for giving me her account of how she felt as a child in the house, Sunnyside, Wyses Hill, Sunday's Well in Cork and the stories she overheard.
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful memory jogging post Mary, I have memories of playing outside the house but none of the inside... wonder what childhood sense of foreboding may have caused me to block out that house
ReplyDeleteYou were only 3 when you left that house bro so you wouldn't remember it. I was 2 so all i'm going on is other people's memories. It left a lasting impression on everyone who dwelled there, that's for sure.
DeleteGreat selection of photographs, Mary. Yes, that house definitely had "presence".
ReplyDeleteThanks Fionnghuala, I think there was a very unhappy Spirit lurking about the place alright x
DeleteHi Mary, wonderful blog and photos! My mum often spoke of Sunnyside. The usual stories of the front door opening and closing at night with the footsteps going up the stairs, which really scared mum as her bedroom was next to the bathroom at the stop of stairs!
ReplyDeleteAnother story was that there was something left baking in the oven once, a cake I think, which later was found removed from the oven and left on the table to cool. Problem was no one in the house said they had removed it!
Mum once went to the house and found the front door opened and nan’s bags left on the floor. Nan later returned with a priest who performed an exorcism on the house. She refused to tell my mum what had happened!
That's brilliant, thanks for adding your memories to the story Linda. Telling the story and hearing the additions from family members has helped greatly. My father always resented the fact that the house was sold leaving us virtually homeless. We moved to Donegal for a year to my mother's parents, while my mother recovered from the brain haemorrhage and while my father stayed in Cork and tried to find accommodation for us.
ReplyDeleteI think it was uncle Larry who pulled some strings and got us a corporation house on the North side.
i think my grandmother did the right thing x