This week’s Blather is going to be a mish mash of Irish topics which have been meandering about in my head, waiting patiently to be spooned out to the masses.
Spaceman Pass By The Hills Above Glencar
On Thursday 22nd of May, The extremely Rev. Joe McNally of Fortean Times alerted me (via the Forteana mailing list) of an apparent UFO sighting in Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland. The report appeared on various Usenet groups.
It was titled ‘Huge UFO Over Ireland’ and was posted by one ‘Hans Rosenthal’, and told of his mother phoning him from Sligo to tell him about ‘triangle shaped craft of huge size flying over the northwest coast of Ireland’.
The craft were seen by climbers on Ben Bulben, frightened livestock, and passed directly over Drumcliff Graveyard, burial place of the poet W.B. Yeats. There were numerous witnesses, and although the news never made it to the national media, the local papers reported it. A large military presence was noticed in the area within an hour.
No, Ireland isn’t being beset by extra-terrestrials, at least not that I’m aware. It turned out that Mr. ‘Rosenthal’s’ email address, rosen@areatech.org, was fake, and he hasn’t posted anything since, even though he promised to. Joe Harte, a member of the Forteana mailing list, *lives* by Sligo Bay, and has neither witnessed or heard of anything at all relating to these UFO’s.
There was no media coverage at all. Why did Mr. ‘Rosenthal’ even bother? Inspired by William Butler Yeat’s Poem *The Stolen Child* perhaps? I’ve put the Usenet posts on the Blather site for perusal
In Wexford, my deer
In Another slightly more ‘real’ Irish Fortean event was the recent African antelope discovered in Wexford, and mentioned in various publications, including the ‘Wexford People’ and Fortean Times (FT99:16). Pat Kehoe, a farmer in Lacken, found what seemed to be a deer on 13 January.
Pat and a friend had tracked it for two months, and they found it holed up in old ruins in a wooded area, with some free roaming horses. It turned out to be a Nyala Antelope . . . and it’s unknown as of yet, just how it got there. No records of importation can be located . . .
Kerry SHC
The Irish Times of Monday, April 7th, 1997 via ‘Kerry’s Eye’, reported an apparent case of spontaneous human combustion (SHC). Your intrepid Blatherer informed the Forteana mailing list, Joe McNally from Fortean Times followed it up further, and it was reported in FT99:09.
On 24th March, a community nurse called to the home of 76 year old John O’Connor, and found him dead in his living room. The Gardaí arrived to find Mr. O’Connor’s charred remains some distance from the fireplace.
“It was as if somebody had poured petrol into Jackie’s lap,” said local parish priest Father Patrick McCarthy. “From the knees down the bones were intact. The upper part, the chest and the head were very badly scorched through and through. The chair was burned, there was about five inches of two of the legs left there.”
A telephone and community alert device were within reach, but unused, suggesting the fire took hold quite rapidly, or that Mr. O’Connor died before the fire started.
The Gardaí are keeping an open mind on the matter, and have stated that Mr O’Connor was known to have been a heavy smoker, had suffered from blackouts, and as a result had burned himself quite badly in the past. I haven’t heard tell of any inquest details yet, but stay tuned.
Galway Poltergeists
This blatherskite finally gets around to talking about the recent upheavals in a family home in Galway city. It’s been very trying to get some coherent information together on this matter, due to the rather whacky nature of the various newspaper reports. Apparently the Fahy household was overrun by a mad spook who turned everything upside down. An ‘Evening Herald’ journalist wrote that she fled the house in terror.
The ‘Sunday Tribune’ (May 11th) and ‘The Mirror’ (May 12th), also gave coverage of the goings-on. The Fahy family claimed to have been plagued with exploding ornaments, doors closing in people’s faces and a stink of urine.
Temperatures drop unexpectedly, bottletops from toiletry bottles have been stacked like children’s building blocks. Clothes have been strewn about the rooms, religious pictures upturned, the sound of a child other than Sarah Louise, the household’s 8 month old baby.
The Fahy family (Jackie and Esther, their son Michael, daughter Martha and her baby Sarah Louise) have been affected by the ‘poltergeist’ since Sarah Louise was born. They had the house blessed and mass said, but to no avail. At one point, they all moved out, leaving Michael and a friend there.
‘The Mirror’ reported that Sandra Ramdhanie a ‘renowned psychic’ spent two hours in the house, burning incense and whitesage, and ‘sealing off’ the house using salt and herbs. She was of the opinion that the ‘ghost’ was that of a baby, upset by the arrival of Sarah Louise. She asked the inhabitants. to ‘visualise the ghost baby being filled with “golden sunlight” and moving peacefully out of the house.’
‘I tried to make it an uncomfortable place for ghosts’, said Sandra.
*Cringe*
Mind you, I’ve heard nothing about any disturbances since.
Dave (daev) Walsh
4 June 1997
