An urgent request, as found on a messageboard in Trinity College Dublin by Blather’s intrepid ‘Agent F’.
All (sic):
I Wish to no if there is any Paranormal activity in Trinity College,??? Yeah, just like Ghost Busters, floating coffee cups moving on there own accord something along those lines. Alien sightings, visions, space time continuum broken. Also is there any scientists working on X men drugs, I’m free for to discuss these areas like area 51, in the mornings and evening.
From Derek
Telephone 087- and Email address (withheld out of decency, but will divulge on polite request.)
Jumping Jesus on a pogo-stick. Don’t they teach our students grammar any more?
Seriously though, I’m not aware of any paranormal goings-on in Trinity College Dublin. The closest I’ve had to an out-of-body experience in the place involved pissing against a tree in front square after a night on the ceramic tiles of the Buttery. I was never a student there, so I could hardly be kicked out of the place. Even after an Italian Job/Thomas Crown Affair style ‘liberation’ of booze from an apparently locked room during a student sit-in. They’re still after me for that one.
However, there is a Fortean Society in Trinity, may be worth checking out »
And how about the organisation founded by Timoth FX Finnegan of Trinity College, the Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal? »
Then there was the discovery of a camel skeleton in the grounds a couple of years ago…
The Irish Times
Friday, April 2, 1999
18th century children’s and
camel bones found at TCD
By Frank Kilfeather
Human bones believed to date back to the late 18th or early 19th century have been found in the grounds of Trinity College Dublin, on the site of the extension of the Berkeley Library.
The bones are believed to be the remains of bodies hastily and carelessly buried after medical students carried out anatomical work on them. The archaeologists on the site have been surprised and puzzled by the number of bones of children found so far.
The discovery of the first bones was made last Monday, but every day since, more are being dug up. It is not known how many bodies have been found so far, but it could be about 20. The director of the dig is Ms Helen Kehoe. Ms Linzi Simpson, an archaeologist working on the site, said: “The bodies were buried in shallow trenches, about a metre deep.”
She said this was very shallow for burial purposes, which was unusual. The whole process would have been illegal, but in those days “people turned a blind eye to it”.
It was difficult to know the number of bodies found so far because many were dismembered, with maybe heads gone or limbs sawn off. They knew it must have been done by medical students because of the way they were dismembered.
The bones are to receive further detailed examination and they are expected to give much medical information about the time. “There is a great interest in them: it is a very interesting find,” said Ms Simpson.
What has really astounded the archaeologists and the medical people is that in the middle of all the remains were two massive camel bones. What were camels doing in Dublin at the end of the 18th century?
That is a real poser for the experts. Maybe they were a form of public transport? It was probably a faster and more efficient form than the present gridlock the capital is experiencing.
Ms Simpson said the excavations would last for as long as it took. In this case, unlike some other digs, the JCBs “are not looking over our shoulders”. When the bodies have all been examined they will probably be reburied in a graveyard where the college has a plot.
The excavation of the big development sites in the old city is proving to be very productive.
Ms Simpson was director of the excavation at Copper Alley in Temple Bar which found evidence indicating that Anglo-Saxons occupied Dublin before the Vikings arrived in 841.
That dig took place between 1996-1998.
The Irish Times »
