IRISH GHOST-LORE. 

 By E. J. M'Kean, B.A., B.L. 



Even the most superficial collector of Irish folk-lore cannot fail 

 to see that in Ireland we have a really enormous number of ghost 

 stories. This statement is true of all parts of the island, and 

 these stories have been greatly neglected. 



Our Irish ghost-lore is scattered broadcast through town and 

 country. Perhaps no Irish town is without its ghost or spectre, 

 or at least a phantom carriage. Probably it is not too much to 

 say that every country parish has its "bad spot." A "bad spot" 

 means an uncanny place where eerie things happen, nothing very 

 alarming, but plenty to cause goose-flesh. These " bad spots " 

 are generally on the roadside, and often enough no one knows 

 how they come by their reputation. 



There are, too, abundant stories of wraiths. In and round 

 Belfast it is said that to see a wraith in the morning is of good 

 omen, and fortells a long life ; but if seen at night it bodes death. 

 W. S. Smith, in one of his pamphlets, says " sudden death," but I 

 have never heard of this belief, if he does not mean " speedy 

 death." A Waterford working-man told me that the wraith is seen 

 seven years before death, during which time the doomed man or 

 woman "is with the fairies." 



The stories I am going to narrate all came under my notice as 

 I was collecting folk-lore, and most of them are, so far as I know, 

 quite new. One of the tales is indeed well known, but I think I 

 am justified in telling it once more to a Belfast audience, if only 

 to show that it probably still lives in tradition. 



A ghost said to be well-known in several parts of Ireland is 

 Petticoat loose. There is a story that she is a woman who 

 danced her feet off, but this tale I have on no authority, nor do I 

 know whence the account comes. She used to appear at one 



