From Rushlight Archives

Some Ghostly Tales From The Rushlight Archives.

The Trinity Street Ghost

By Joe Graham

Perhaps the most repeated ghost story concerning Belfast is that of the Trinity Street ghost, which first appeared which first appeared in Belfast newspapers back in the winter of 1931, and Rushlight must take credit for keeping this little bit of lore in focus for nothing was written again of the incident until i included in in a little book of Belfast Ghost stories in 1974.

Reports of the incident at the time gave many points of views which mostly led to confusion as to what really happened, or what dark evil apparition was seen, a headless man ?, a banshee like figure?, all agreed that ornaments and furniture had been hurled around the house by an unseen figure. This describes the actions of an Irish Dollaghan, an angry ghost, a poltergeist, which is said to latch onto a feeble old lady or an innocent child through which it could act. It did seem the ‘ghost’ had a bit of an identity problem, but let’s start at the beginning.

In October 1931 a family rented a house in Trinity Street, just off Clifton Street, shortly afterwards they ‘sub-let’ rooms in the house to other tenants and before long the house became quite over crowded. It was about then that the strange goings on began, doors opened and were banged with out any one being near them, windows opened of their own accord and crashed closed again morning or night. This eeriness increased when many tenants began to hear loud pitiful moans and groans coming from a coal shed, an outbuilding, at the rear of the house.

Then some spoke of having seen the ghostly figure of, “ a young man surrounded by a bright light” in different parts of the house, the stairs, landing and bedrooms. Most described him as ‘a black figure dressed in a cape and hat ‘. others said he wore no cape or hat, some tenants even tied their room doors closed at night, only to find the cord broke and the door wide open, swinging freely as though in a gentle mocking fashion, some of the them moved out.

Word began to get out and about of the strange goings on and before long crowds of people began to assemble outside the house at night, gaping at the windows hoping to catch a glimpse of the now much talked about mysterious figure,

Apparently a medium was even called in to try and put the noisy ghost to rest all this activity even caught the attention of the newspapers across the water who promptly sent journalists over to investigate the ghost story. The sightseeing crowds increased until eventually regular peelers were posted on duty to keep the crowds in line, interestingly one of the peelers in charge was the well known ’Head’ McKenzie. One ‘expert’ alleged that at some time a young man by the name of Edward or Edward’s had been murdered in the house and his body buried under the coal house floor. It was further alleged that requests had been made of the landlord to did up the floor to check out if or not a body was buried there and he stubbornly refused.

Finally the whole thing came to a sudden end on Sunday night 17^th January 1932, the tenants apparently had had enough and they all moved out leaving the house to the ‘ghost’. before long the whole thing quietened down and there were no more reporting of ghostly sightings at the house, not even when the house was later occupied by different people.

There were many rumours at the time concerning the whole event, some said the landlord was behind goings on, somehow he staged the noises and ‘sightings’ to frighten his unwanted tenants out of his property whom he resented sub-letting his property and denying him extra that income. But that was only one story that was put out by those who tried to explain away a good ghost story, true or staged the fact is the Trinity Street ghost has been spoken of now for many decades.

THE GHOST OF HABIT

There are many stories of the ghost of habit, for instance, the old gas street lamplighter who for many years dutifully patrolled the streets of the old Pound Loney area lighting and turning off the street lights at the appropriate times. He was such a familiar sight that most people just took him for granted ... that is, until he died and his ghost took to trudging round the lamp posts of the area and the lamps began lighting and switching off on their own, it seems the spirit of the poor old man just wasn’t ready to quit the thing he obviously enjoyed doing for so many years and it wasn’t until the new electric street lights were installed that the sightings of the Lamplighter ceased.

Old John Savage was a rich mill owner and behind his mill at Flax Street he built little “Half Houses”, a family lived upstairs and another lived downstairs. Behind his mill and the little street was known as “Savages Row”, later these were demolished and the wee street took on the grander name of “Ardilea Street”, named after his fine house near Greenisland, Co Antrim. Anyway, the bold John was a very busy man, town councillor, Magistrate and up to his eyes in municipal matters and it all got too much for him, so one night he took an open razor and cut his own throat and died. Witnesses claimed he had been heard in the days before his death muttering non stop, “I can’t take much more of this”

However, for many years locals in the Bone area at the time well recalled that John would walk round his mill and little street every day and then after his untimely death many reported having seen him taking his regular walk ... but now they said he was bent over and muttering to himself, “I can’t take much more of this ... it has to end “ Needless to say, that other mill owner the famous Galloper Thompson was a ghost of habit, being seen riding on horseback in different parts of North Belfast, sometimes headless and as often with his head on.