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A Ghost Story with a Twist
My father was a blacksmith who came from Drumaney in Aughnasheelin, but worked in Ballinamore. He walked home from town after work.
It was not a nine to five job. He worked until late and there were always people in the forge at night for the craic. His mother was always giving out, as all mothers do, that something would happen to him going home so late.
One night, while walking home at Drumbibe Cross, he saw a lady running towards him in a long white dress and long hair. As she came near him, he grabbed her and said, “Who or what are you?”
She scraped him on the hand and he let her go. She ran back the road she had come. He stood looking after her, up the lane. As he wondered what was happening, a man ran past him wearing a nightshirt. “The ghosts are out this night”, he thought to himself and continued home.
Next morning, when his mother mentioned how late home he had been again he said that it would never happen again as her prediction had come to pass. Then he told her the whole story of what had happened to him the night before.
"That was no ghost", she said, and explained that it was a neighbour's girl who walked in her sleep. “The man was her father who woke and missed her. He then ran to the spring well in case she got into it. He saw her running back to the house and followed her back when he knew she was safe. He didn't want anyone to know that the girl walked in her sleep”.
By Tess Gallaghy
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