Speaker 1: Hello, This is Richard mcclinsmith here. Unexplained. Season seven has
Speaker 1: now finished, but we'll be back on Friday, September sixth
Speaker 1: to begin season eight. In the meantime, I'm replaying some
Speaker 1: of my favorite episodes from the archives. Most of the
Speaker 1: time when writing for Unexplained, I like to find stories
Speaker 1: with far more information than I can possibly pack into
Speaker 1: one episode. But once in a while, a story is
Speaker 1: just too good to ignore, even when the details are
Speaker 1: a little thin on the ground. The tale of the
Speaker 1: so called Cooneen Ghost House in Ireland just so happens
Speaker 1: to be considered one of the most compelling haunted house
Speaker 1: stories of all time. This is Unexplained, Season four, episode nineteen,
Speaker 1: A View from a Hill. Any regular listeners of this
Speaker 1: show will have gathered that Unexplained is rather fond of
Speaker 1: a good old haunted house story. Such stories often have
Speaker 1: the magical ability to conjure a sense of unique and
Speaker 1: specific places, while at the same time leave us feeling
Speaker 1: as though the hauntings are in fact occurring wherever we
Speaker 1: happen to be, as if the story itself were the
Speaker 1: portal through which distant, ghoulish specters can seep into our lives.
Speaker 1: The story of the Coonian Ghost House of Ireland is
Speaker 1: just one such tale, a strange and troubling thing, owing
Speaker 1: mostly to the fact that, despite it often being regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the most compelling supposed true life hauntings,
Speaker 1: there is so little on record with which to support
Speaker 1: this claim. Much like the apparent ghost or spirit at
Speaker 1: the heart of it, the story is a slippery and
Speaker 1: amorphous one, seemingly rooted in real time tangible things, but
Speaker 1: existing mostly as fable told and retold over the years,
Speaker 1: passed from one generation to the next, never quite keeping still,
Speaker 1: the facts, never quite staying fixed. What we do know
Speaker 1: is the Murphy family, the owners of the home at
Speaker 1: the time and apparent focus of the phenomena, were very
Speaker 1: much real, appearing in a census recorded in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: The house too, very much existed and in fact still
Speaker 1: stands in the County of fer Manor, located today just
Speaker 1: to the north of the border in northern Ireland. That
Speaker 1: we have anything of record about it at all is
Speaker 1: due largely to the work of Sir Sean Leslie, a
Speaker 1: writer with many broad and varied interests and avid chaser
Speaker 1: of supposed true life ghost stories, born John Randolph in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five, the sun of wealthy socialite Leone Jerome
Speaker 1: and aristocrat John Leslie, the second Shawn Lesley grew up
Speaker 1: within the palatial walls of the family stately home, Castle Leslie,
Speaker 1: in County Monaghan, just twenty miles to the east of Coonyon.
Speaker 1: The castle is said by many to itself be haunted,
Speaker 1: though it isn't known whether Leslie, who changed his name
Speaker 1: to the Irish shorn out of affection for his homeland,
Speaker 1: ever experienced this himself. Though Leslie credits his time at
Speaker 1: the English boarding school Eton College with fostering his fascination
Speaker 1: in the possibility of ghosts and the paranormal, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until his time at Cambridge University that his passion for
Speaker 1: the ghost story was truly cemented. There he was introduced
Speaker 1: to Provost Montague Road's James, otherwise known by his pen
Speaker 1: name m R James, considered by many to be the
Speaker 1: finest purveyor of ghost stories that ever lived. It is, ever,
Speaker 1: from his own fictional writings that Leslie was greatly influenced
Speaker 1: by the prolific m R James. However, it was potentially
Speaker 1: real accounts of ghosts that Leslie was most interested in.
Speaker 1: Having spent much of his life collecting and recording as
Speaker 1: many accounts of true life hauntings he could find, Leslie
Speaker 1: would eventually collate those he felt especially compelling in his
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six publication Sean Leslie's Ghost Book. It is
Speaker 1: there that Leslie presents what he describes as the last
Speaker 1: word on the famous series of phenomena known as the
Speaker 1: Coonian Ghost, from which much of the following story is taken.
Speaker 1: When Leslie asked m R James shortly before he died
Speaker 1: what he really thought on the subject of ghosts, he
Speaker 1: is said to have replied, depend upon it. Some of
Speaker 1: these things are so, but we do not know the rules.
Speaker 1: You're listening to unexplained, And I'm Richard MacLean Smith. The
Speaker 1: small brick farmhouse stood silhouetted and still in the night,
Speaker 1: a black monolith under moonlight, perched up high on the hill.
Speaker 1: To observe this quiet scene from a distance is to
Speaker 1: participate in the grand illusion of permanence, or the world
Speaker 1: seeming for a moment like a grand tableaux fixed in time.
Speaker 1: Should we gaze on this house a little while longer, however,
Speaker 1: it would not be long before our illusion was punctured
Speaker 1: by the distant core of a disgruntled crow, or the
Speaker 1: haunting screech of a fox in the undergrowth, or by
Speaker 1: the movement of a thin mist steadily creeping toward it
Speaker 1: from out of the valley below. In fact, should we
Speaker 1: stare long enough, we would see that even the stars
Speaker 1: above that seemed so fixed in the sky in a
Speaker 1: state of constant shift. Inside the house, a small fire
Speaker 1: cracked and crackled in the hearth. As Bridget Murphy and
Speaker 1: her oldest daughter Anne slept under the soft flickering light
Speaker 1: of the flames. Next door, in the bedroom to their right,
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Mary, fourteen year old Bridget, nine year
Speaker 1: old Catherine, and the youngest, five year old Jane Anne
Speaker 1: slept soundly together in their bed, while twenty three year
Speaker 1: old James had the fortune of a bed to himself
Speaker 1: at the other end of the house. It had been
Speaker 1: only a matter of months since eight had become seven,
Speaker 1: after Michael Murphy, the father and Bridget's husband, had been
Speaker 1: violently upended from his cart and fallen head first onto
Speaker 1: a rock, killing him instantly. That night, with the fire
Speaker 1: having all but gone out, Bridget awoke suddenly in the dark,
Speaker 1: alerted to what sound like something moving about in the
Speaker 1: attic above. Although the room, which could only be accessed
Speaker 1: from a stone stairwell outside, was being used as a
Speaker 1: makeshift barn, she knew only too well that it was
Speaker 1: currently unoccupied. Hearing the sound again, with Anne fast asleep
Speaker 1: beside her, Bridget made a quick check of the bedrooms,
Speaker 1: but found all her children accounted for, having just returned
Speaker 1: to the central room. A tremendous thud rang out from
Speaker 1: behind her, followed by the startled screams of her four
Speaker 1: daughters as they bolted from their bed, with James joining
Speaker 1: them moments later, Bridget urged him to investigate upstairs, as
Speaker 1: the rest of the family huddled by the hearth. The
Speaker 1: sound of footsteps could be heard above. As James inspected
Speaker 1: the attic, finding nothing inside but bales of straw. No
Speaker 1: sooner had he returned downstairs, a violent bang echoed through
Speaker 1: the house, Then another and another, each one louder than
Speaker 1: the next. Make it stop, cried Catherine, as Bridget gathered
Speaker 1: her in her arms, and they all looked anxiously toward
Speaker 1: each other. When finally the banging stopped. It would be
Speaker 1: a few nights later, when young Jane Anne woke up screaming,
Speaker 1: having felt the bed move across the room, and that
Speaker 1: something had been pressing down on her from above. Over
Speaker 1: the next few weeks, the terrifying sounds continued, always beginning
Speaker 1: late at night in the children's bedroom or from the
Speaker 1: makeshift barn above, but not once did they see any
Speaker 1: sign of a culprit. Confused and scared, Bridget sought the
Speaker 1: counsel of her friends and neighbours, inviting them round to
Speaker 1: hear it for themselves. Together, they sat huddled in the
Speaker 1: center room as the colossal bangs echoed through the walls
Speaker 1: and rattled the windows, or that strange foot dragging sound
Speaker 1: lurched from one side of the ceiling to the other,
Speaker 1: And soon the rumours began to circulate. One neighbour had
Speaker 1: heard that the Sherry family, the previous owners of the house,
Speaker 1: had only stayed one night before hurriedly leaving for reasons unknown.
Speaker 1: The property had remained unoccupied for six months before it
Speaker 1: was sold. Others told of a man that had hung
Speaker 1: himself in one of the bedrooms many years before. By
Speaker 1: now convinced that something outther worldly was taking place, Bridget
Speaker 1: turned to their local priest, Father Smith, for help. Smith
Speaker 1: arrived at the house late one night, keen to make
Speaker 1: an assessment for himself before deciding what could be done.
Speaker 1: To find the family in a state of deep distress.
Speaker 1: Asking for them all to gather in the central room,
Speaker 1: Smith solemnly made his way around the house before being
Speaker 1: led upstairs by James to inspect the barn. Returning back down,
Speaker 1: Smith requested permission to stay the night. As the family slept,
Speaker 1: He took a seat by the fire and waited. And
Speaker 1: then it came. It was like the sound of straw
Speaker 1: being rustled from the room above, followed by a tremendous thud.
Speaker 1: As the others ran screaming from their beds. The sound
Speaker 1: only intensified until it was as if a horse was
Speaker 1: kicking at the walls. Without thinking, Smith gathered them together
Speaker 1: and hastily recited Mass. As the family held hands and
Speaker 1: clutched each other tightly. Smith's forthright voice rose over their
Speaker 1: quiet whimperings, and slowly the sickening noise began to dissipate
Speaker 1: until it stopped altogether. As Smith related his findings back
Speaker 1: to the church, a different set of rumors were beginning
Speaker 1: to circulate in the nearby towns. When the girls attended
Speaker 1: their crochet lessons, others in the class would move away
Speaker 1: from them, pointing and whispering from a distance that the
Speaker 1: family had the black Art and had used it deliberately
Speaker 1: to invite a demon into their home. Others rejected the
Speaker 1: nonsense entirely, believing instead that the family were just making
Speaker 1: the whole thing up. Having spoken to Father Smith, the
Speaker 1: regional bishop instructed local reverend Eugene Coyne from nearby McGuire's
Speaker 1: Bridge to get a second opinion. Since Smith's visit, the
Speaker 1: disturbances had steadily intensified and were already in full swing
Speaker 1: when Coin arrived late one autumn night, with an anxious
Speaker 1: Bridget hurriedly showing him into the children's bedroom. Coin looked
Speaker 1: on aghast at the terror on the faces of the
Speaker 1: girls lying down on their bed as a series of
Speaker 1: bangs rattled out around them. Turning to two men in
Speaker 1: the room who had also come to help, Coin told
Speaker 1: them to take hold of the children's arms and legs
Speaker 1: to make sure they weren't the source of the disturbances
Speaker 1: at the next break in the bangs, while being careful
Speaker 1: not to hurt the children. The men did as they
Speaker 1: were told and held them down. Satisfied they were sufficiently restrained,
Speaker 1: Coin took a seat at the end of the bed,
Speaker 1: but almost as soon as he'd sat down, the thumping
Speaker 1: started again, continuing for ten minutes until the other two
Speaker 1: men leapt suddenly from the bed, crying out in horror.
Speaker 1: Something had pushed them off, they cried. Having felt nothing himself,
Speaker 1: Coin resisted the urge to move, but just moments later,
Speaker 1: with his eyes firmly on the children, there came the
Speaker 1: most peculiar sensation at his back, as if something else
Speaker 1: in the room had drawn right up to him, And
Speaker 1: then the bangs started again. Just then a Collie, the
Speaker 1: family farm dog, wandered into the room, giving Coin an idea.
Speaker 1: Picking the dog up, he placed it under the bed.
Speaker 1: Whatever is there, he said, I ask you, if you
Speaker 1: have the power to do it, push the dog back out.
Speaker 1: A deafening cacophony of bangs engulfed the room like nothing
Speaker 1: they'd heard before, sending the dog leaping and yapping from
Speaker 1: out of the bed in a fit of terror, before
Speaker 1: scurrying out of the room altogether. As Father Coyne later
Speaker 1: explained to Bridget, Though he regretted to be the bearer
Speaker 1: of such disturbing news. There was no doubt in his
Speaker 1: mind that they were sharing their home with something malicious
Speaker 1: and most likely diabolical. In the following days, fathers Coin
Speaker 1: and Smith continued to visit the house, often together, as
Speaker 1: they attempted to bring comfort to the family, but also
Speaker 1: with talk of performing a possible exorcism, it was vital
Speaker 1: for them to get a better understanding of what they
Speaker 1: were dealing with. On each occasion, after the children had
Speaker 1: been put to bed, the knocking would start up, sometimes instantly,
Speaker 1: but other times a good hour later. One night, with
Speaker 1: the children fast asleep and the house completely silent save
Speaker 1: for the sound at the fire in the heart, Coin
Speaker 1: requested to hear more about the strange noises that seemed
Speaker 1: to emanate from the attic room. As father Smith stayed
Speaker 1: with bridget by the fire, James lit a candle and
Speaker 1: led Coin into the second bedroom, the gentle light of
Speaker 1: the candle pushing the shadows away as they went. The
Speaker 1: room was sizeable, with blinds pulled down over both its windows,
Speaker 1: and in the corner a bed covered with a white quilt. Together,
Speaker 1: they stood for a moment and listened, their faces bathed
Speaker 1: in the orange light of the candle as the rest
Speaker 1: of the room was shrouded in darkness. There, said James, suddenly,
Speaker 1: pointing to the ceiling. Do you hear it? Coin strained
Speaker 1: to listen. It was barely perceptible at first, as if
Speaker 1: a small animal were burrowing into straw, yet it was
Speaker 1: clearly moving from one side of the room to the other.
Speaker 1: Asking James to stay put, Coyn took another candle and
Speaker 1: slowly made his way out of the house and up
Speaker 1: the stone steps to the attic door. Pushing it open,
Speaker 1: Coyn peered into the darkness, lit his candle and stepped inside.
Speaker 1: As he stood in the silent room, pushing the shadows
Speaker 1: back with the candlelight, he saw nothing but bundles of straw.
Speaker 1: Moments later, Coyn returned to the bedroom, where once again
Speaker 1: he could hear that peculiar sound coming from the room above.
Speaker 1: Having asked James to repeat the test, this time, Coyn
Speaker 1: stood below as James went upstairs to investigate, with the
Speaker 1: priest carefully listening out. Despite clearly hearing James enter the room,
Speaker 1: not once did the other noise desist. As soon as
Speaker 1: James joined Coyn back downstairs, something even more peculiar occurred,
Speaker 1: as both men would later go on to a test.
Speaker 1: It felt as if something had rushed down from above,
Speaker 1: shooting past them like a gust of wind, straight down
Speaker 1: into the floor. Unnerved, Coyn ordered James to lift up
Speaker 1: the blinds, and in an instant the room was bathed
Speaker 1: in the hazy light of dawn. Then, turning to look
Speaker 1: back into the room, James gasped in horror, Pointing a
Speaker 1: finger toward the bed. Coyne slowly turned around. The quilt
Speaker 1: was moving softly, billowing about as if being blown by
Speaker 1: the wind. Coyn stepped forward and brushed his hand over it,
Speaker 1: and felt for a moment as if a barrel of
Speaker 1: eels were squirming about underneath it. Stepping back, he watched
Speaker 1: with alarm as the amorphous sheet seemed gradually to fix
Speaker 1: into shape, outlining what appeared to be some kind of
Speaker 1: figure lying underneath at the point where a chest might be.
Speaker 1: Coin watched with amusement as the quilt began to rise
Speaker 1: and fall, as if that chest were heaving up and down,
Speaker 1: struggling to breathe, And then suddenly the entire quilt began
Speaker 1: undulating violently, as if whatever was under it were in
Speaker 1: the final throes of death. Wasting no more time, Father
Speaker 1: Coin broke immediately into mass, directing it toward that shape,
Speaker 1: as a steady din of what sounded like a hideous
Speaker 1: gurgling flooded the room, as if something were dying right
Speaker 1: in front of them. All the while he kept on
Speaker 1: spitting out the words with ever increasing intensity, as the
Speaker 1: bed began to rock back and forth, lifting the legs
Speaker 1: inches from the ground. And then, as quick as it
Speaker 1: had begun, the quilt dropped down and the mayhem ceased.
Speaker 1: As were traveled far and wide at the apparent hauntings
Speaker 1: in the Murphy's home, more and more people requested to
Speaker 1: come and observe it for themselves. One evening, a well
Speaker 1: known horse dealer arrived at the house to see what
Speaker 1: all the fuss was about. Sitting next to his driver
Speaker 1: as they approached on his pony and trap, there was
Speaker 1: no doubt some apprehension as they caught sight of that
Speaker 1: small stone house perched high up on the hill before them,
Speaker 1: its windows like eyes flickering ominously with the candlelight from within.
Speaker 1: All was quiet as the driver brought them to a
Speaker 1: stop outside. James, who'd been expecting them, greeted the horse
Speaker 1: dealer before showing him inside, while the i was instructed
Speaker 1: to wait alone under the moonlight. It was some time later,
Speaker 1: as the driver blew into his hands to keep them warm,
Speaker 1: that he noticed the silhouette of a figure walking toward
Speaker 1: him from out of the distant dark. The driver watched
Speaker 1: it as it drew closer and closer, until eventually it
Speaker 1: passed him by and disappeared into the night. It was strange,
Speaker 1: he thought, since there were some distance from the nearest
Speaker 1: neighbor or village for that matter. Thinking nothing more of it,
Speaker 1: the driver had just turned his attention back to keeping
Speaker 1: warm when he caught sight of another figure approaching from
Speaker 1: out of the same direction as the one before, only
Speaker 1: for them to again pass straight by without a word
Speaker 1: and then vanish. Grabbing a torchlight, the driver held it
Speaker 1: out behind him and squinted into the dark, but saw nothing.
Speaker 1: Turning back, he jumped at the sight of yet another
Speaker 1: figure emerging from out of the distance, again from the
Speaker 1: same place as the other two. Calling out, the driver
Speaker 1: demanded to know their business, but got nothing in response,
Speaker 1: as all the while the figure drew nearer and nearer
Speaker 1: walked past the cart and vanished back into the night.
Speaker 1: Just then, a heavy gust of wind swept across the hill,
Speaker 1: blowing out the driver's light and throwing the pony into
Speaker 1: a frenzy neighing and stamping and raising up on two
Speaker 1: feet before the driver could bring it under control. It
Speaker 1: was with some relief when his employer emerged moments later
Speaker 1: from out of the house and demanded to be taken
Speaker 1: back home, though both Father Smith and Coyne urged the
Speaker 1: church to grant permission to conduct an exorcism in the air,
Speaker 1: and it was decided not to take such drastic measures.
Speaker 1: Perhaps one of the most unusual incidences occurred shortly before
Speaker 1: Father Coin was due to transfer to another parish. On
Speaker 1: one afternoon, while out visiting a sick neighbour of the Murphy's,
Speaker 1: Coin was passing the Murphy household when he decided to
Speaker 1: check in on the family. Little had changed since he
Speaker 1: last saw them, but on this occasion he had a
Speaker 1: holy pix with him containing the consecrated host wafers of bread,
Speaker 1: which are considered in Catholicism to be the body of
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. As more of an experiment than anything else,
Speaker 1: Coin entered the children's bedroom, and, holding the pix aloft,
Speaker 1: made the sign of the Cross with it. This moment
Speaker 1: was followed immediately with such loud bangs everyone else present
Speaker 1: through themselves to the ground in fear of what might
Speaker 1: happen next. Panicking, Coin was then said to have placed
Speaker 1: the picks on the floor, at which point the sound
Speaker 1: seemed to travel through the wall down toward the small
Speaker 1: holy container, before dropping under the floor below it, moving
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into the ground until it could no
Speaker 1: longer be heard. In the end. Unable to escape the
Speaker 1: strange phenomena, Bridget Murphy eventually decided to pack up and
Speaker 1: move the family to America. Though it isn't known what
Speaker 1: happened to them after their arrival in America, or if
Speaker 1: they continued to be plagued by similar hauntings. Some have
Speaker 1: reported that passengers traveling on the same boat as them
Speaker 1: heard peculiar noises coming from the family's cabin late at night.
Speaker 1: As for the clergyman that had spent so much time
Speaker 1: with the family, as Shawn Leslie noted, their involvement apparently
Speaker 1: was said to have led to two of them suffering
Speaker 1: spinal meningitis and facial paralysis, respectively, while a third suffered
Speaker 1: a complete nervous breakdown. Unexplained is an AV Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McLain smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard mcclinsmith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never
Speaker 1: before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
Speaker 1: your own you'd like to share. You can find out
Speaker 1: more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online
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