Alien Big Cat report from Co. Kildare, Ireland?

Big cat sighting near Naas!

I received this email Tuesday 17th of February. It's from Sórcha Bracken-Conway, with the subject ' Large cats in Kildare?' We're posting it on her approval, and in good faith. As she says '...feel free to add the mail I sent ya to your site, I'd be interested in finding out if anyone's had similiar experiences!'

The other day I was driving from Mullacash (outside of Naas, Co. Kildare) to Kilcullen with my boyfriend. It had just started to get properly dark as we left. About 5 or 6 mins up the road from his house we spotted something in the hedge up ahead of us. I slowed my car down quite a bit, it is a rural area and there's often some sort of wildlife about! We crept past it in silence until my boyfriend turned and said to me "What the hell was that? Did you see it? It looked like a panther!". The only way I can describe it is it was about 2.5 maybe 3 feet in height to the shoulder, well muscled, pitch black with green eyes and a long cats tail. Is there any other instances of things like this being seen in Kildare, or elsewhere for that matter? It was no dog, that's for sure & the boyfriends family breed domestic cats and he has assured me that whatever it was we saw was no normal moggie, feral or otherwise!

We got another email from Sórcha, on February 19th:

Right, lemme think about this... It was on or near Tuesday the 10th of this month, maybe a day or two later. I was just after picking my boyfriend up at his house so it would have been about 7:30, 8pm(ish).

Location is a little bit more complicated as I don't know the name of the road we were on at the time. Best way I can place it is as you're travelling from Naas to Kilcullen in Co. Kildare there's a turn off on your left that's marked as the Dunlavin/Brannockstown road. If you take this turn there is another left off it only a few feet up the road. The name of this road I don't know, we just call it "Smullen's road" after the family that live at the top of it! Anyway, it was a few hundred feet up that road that we saw the cat thing. We were travelling in the opposite direction to those I've given you, so the ditch in question would have been on our right, but would be on your left as you were travelling down ok?

There was a few really bad potholes (which have since been filled in) so we were going fairly slow when we passed it, that's how we got such a good look at it. As I said before, it was pure black, about 2 maybe 2 and a half feet to the shoulder and very muscular. It turned towards us as we passed and the headlights caught its eyes which glowed bright green. It's snout was fairly short and cat-like, it's ears were flattened against its head so we couldn't really make them out. The body of the cat was not something we looked at in detail, as it was the eyes that had caught our attention. From what I saw it was maybe 3 or so feet in length, with a very powerful yet compact build. It's tail was about the length of its body, maybe a little bit shorter and set low but curled slightly upwards at the end (same as house cats tend to do). It stared back at us while we were passing it then disappeared into the field there that leads up Mullacash Hill. There's really nothing else I can think of, far as I can recall it was a clear, dry night so whatever we saw was not a shadow seen through fog or heavy rain!

Oh yeah and my full name is Sórcha Bracken-Conway. Feel free to use this information in any way you like for your site. I'd love to know if anyone else has seen this, not just in my area but anywhere else!

More on big cats in Ireland »

Why don't any ABC witnessess ever jump out of their cars and tackle the rascals, that would give us all the proof we needed. Here in the US of A we wrangle critters like that when they wander to close to our giant house sized automobiles!

I was being driven back from A village called Fore in co westmeath a couple of years ago en route to Longford,we(me and the then girlfriend,who was driving)passed through Granard at about ten o'clock(it was late summer and dark at this stage).As we negotiated one of the smaller country roads,something ran from one side of the road to the other.A Rabbit,you say!A rabbit WE nearly said,but the thing appeared to be bipedal(two legs).It was about three feet high,appeared dark in colour and had blazing red or green eyes which were in the centre of the face and not on each side of the head.It moved very rapidly from left to right and dissapeared into a hedgerow,but not before it had a quick glance in our direction.Neither of us know what we saw,but it was not a dog,a cat,a rabbit or a deer.It left us both feeling VERY strange,eventhough we'd only glimpsed it for a fleeting moment.HAs anyone else shared a similar experience?

Actually saw something similiar again last night only up the road from the previous sighting!! Was driving home (again from the b/f's) & on the main Naas to Kilcullen road, just before the turns toward the dump, a large black shadow ran across the road. It disappeared into the hedgegrows on the right just as I went past it so all I got to see was it's arse & tail disappear. Was about the same size from the glimpse I saw, and the 2 spots are only about 5/6 mins walking distance from eachother.

I know this article is years old, but I wanna add a story I know- close friend of mine saw something that looked like a panther while she was driving at night to her home in Riverstick, a rural area in West Cork. It was a couple of years ago so I don't know any more details, but I consider her a reliable witness. She comes from a farming background, and she's a trained biologist now, so she's unlikely to mistake an ordinary cat or anything for something weird.

well i live a town short of naas and kilcullen in monasterevin and this is the first ive heard of any ''big cat'' in th co.kildare area...

i am actually from monasterevin area and living in london over 20 years now, my sister also from monasterevin is also living in london and is quiet ill, im am trying to find out if anyone knows the where of noreen o connell who lived just outside monasterevin and went to school there she had a sister called paula, i know she moved to england around 1990 and last i heard she had moved back to ireland and was ill herself. thankyou,,,,,,,,,,

omg Declan its been so long im fine now had a few scares but am ok tg living in australia what is wrong wiyh yvonne? please please contact me on my email love and kisses noreen

Hang on. How do I know you're the real Noreen?

well how did i know it was yvonne if im not you didnt mention her name. i went out with your cousin gerry

Hi guys just want to post up a story that hasn't been confimed yet. one evening in early 2009 my friend and another girl were walking through our estate after getting off the bus. They said up on the path there was a large black animal with green eyes sitting beside a tree. They thought it was a dog so they crossed the road but when the animal stood up it was about 3feet high and very well built with a really long slender tail and its eyes were a piercing green colour. They were so frightened and shocked they couldn't stop to get a proper look so at first I thought they were telling a joke. But a few days later I was talking to one of their brothers who said he had spotted a similar looking animal that evening in near enough the same spot... There's a field of cows nearby and I wonder if maybe the animal was a puma or some other wild cat attracted by the animals..? or if someone owns a wild cat maybe it got loose... i think people should pay more attention if so.. i live in the celbridge area..co. kildare

i live in newcastle co'dublin,two weeks ago i was walkin my dog at the back of the gondola pub.as i walked into the field i noticed what i thought was a jet black dog; i went to put my dog on its lead but my dog ran past me.she noticed it up ahead too.i watched the animal for a few seconds and grew courious as it looked more cat like than a dog.my dog sprinted towards it and i was shocked to see the way it ran.it was a powerful animal and ran exactley like a wild cat.

In response to the sightings of the wild puma which has been seen round ireland. In 2003 the USPCA announced a puma which was being kept by someone in the north had let it go. Since then it has been sighted everywhere from cork to kildare and is a genuine story. Careful camping!