ghosts true encounters with the world beyond

“You can still see what appears to be bloodstains on the wooden floor,” Padraig told me. Joseph, the Patron Saint of Peaceful Death, occupies the altar. It is a predominantly empty room with a small altar covering the only window. The Ghost Room, officially designated Room 2, is located on the same floor as the history professors’ offices.

Today, the university and the seminary share a campus, but when Rhetoric House was built in 1834, it served as a residence for priests in training. The History Department, where Padraig spent a considerable amount of time, is headquartered in a building known as Rhetoric House. During his time there, he gleaned the ghastly details of the legend from his professors, as well as in the environment where the story really came to life-in the pubs, where it was retold by locals “who had a few too many pints of Guinness.”

The story of the Ghost Room was related to me by Padraig Lawlor, a scholar of theology and Irish history who studied at Maynooth University. The Ghost Room from the Jedition of the Irish Independent Patrick’s College, Ireland’s national seminary in Maynooth where priests have been trained for over 200 years, a malicious spirit seems to have taken up residence. It is a culture where folklore from the country’s ancient pagan roots is interwoven with centuries of Roman Catholic superstition to create a unique culture in which fairies may swap your wife or child for a changeling-an evil look-alike-and it is common knowledge that the devil lurks in Loftus Hall.Įven within the hallowed walls of St. In Ireland, imposing castle walls and ivy-covered manors loom like gray ghosts in the warm glow of the modern world. “Almost every Irish person has been told some form of ghost story from their granny or grandad,” the Irish Mirror wrote in a recent roundup of the most haunted places in Ireland, “or even witnessed one themselves.” What compels young priests in training to commit suicide in this room of Ireland’s national seminary?

Ghosts true encounters with the world beyond