The Ghost Coach Legends of Sligo
A Well Known Folk Story from all Over the County
"The Glamour of the Garavogue
... The lonely road in Finisklin
Bounded by blackberry bush and whin,
Where the ghostly horseman rides
At the changing of the Christmas tides,
And midnight hours break the silence thin.
Sligo Champion, Saturday, January 2, 1926.
... In Bunninadden there was an aristocratic ghost who drove in a black coach with two headless horses.
... If you open your door when the coach went by, you would end up marked or blinded. The lucky ones would carry gold upon their person as it would send the dullahan away, back to the depths of darkness from which it came."
By W. A. Millen
"...was succeeded by a heavy creaking sound as if some large wagon, amidst which the loud trump of horses footsteps might be distinguished, accompanied with a strong wind. -
This strange noise proceeded round and round the house two or three times, then went down the lane which led to the road, and was heard no more....
Sligo Champion, December 26, 1914
... 'A dreadful night this, Moya' said Jack.
'Yes,' said she: 'that is the dead coach; I often heard it before, and have oftentimes seen it'.
'Seen it you say?' said Harry, 'pray describe it.'
'Why' replied the old crone, 'it's like any other coach, but twice as big and hung over with black cloth and black coffin on top of it, and drawn by headless black horses. "
Sligo Champion, 28 September 1839
"Such a coach, not very long ago, went through Sligo in the grey of the morning (the spirit hour). A seaman saw it, with many shudderings. In some villages its rumblings is heard many times in the year".
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Vol. IX, pg. 80
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS HERE > > >
I was lying dazed flat on my back in a busy intersection a long time once guessing I had been hit from behind by a car. I didn't know. One moment I was on my walk to the store and the next laying here like this. Two guys finally lifted me on a crash cart and slid me into the back of an ambulance still unable to move or speak. For some odd reason all I could grasp at that moment was that the white ceiling I was staring up at was the last thing many eyes just like mine had seen. I quickly squeezed my eyes closed and kept them closed until the Emergency Room crew was teasing me about not wearing underwear. Then I felt safe again. The whole episode sort of reminded me of how when I was little and heard a ghost in my room the tighter I could close my eyes the less chance there was of it grabbing me. It always worked.