Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any regular listeners of this show will have gathered that,
unexplained is rather fond of a good old haunted house story.
Such stories often have the magical ability to conjure a
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sense of unique and specific places, while at the same
time leave us feeling as though the hauntings are in
fact occurring wherever we happen to be, as if the
story itself were the portal through which distant, ghoulish specters
can seep into our lives. The story of the Cunian
Ghost House of Ireland is just one such tale, a
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strange and troubling thing, owing mostly to the fact that,
despite it often being regarded as one of the most
compelling supposed true life hauntings, there is so little on
record with which to support this claim. Much like the
apparent ghost or spirit at the heart of it, the
story is a slippery and a morpheous one, seemingly rooted
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in real, tangible things, but existing mostly as fable told
and retold over the years, passed from one generation to
the next, never quite keeping still, the facts, never quite
staying fixed. What we do know is the Murphy family,
the owners of the home at the time, and apparent
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focus of the phenomena were very much real, appearing in
a census recorded in nineteen eleven. The house too, very
much existed, and in fact still stands in the County
of fir Mana located today just to the north of
the border in northern Ireland. That we have anything of
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record about it at all is due largely to the
work of Sir Sean Leslie, a writer with many broad
and varied interests and avid chaser of supposed true life
ghost stories. Born John Randolph in eighteen eighty five, the
son of wealthy socialite Leone Jerome and aristocrat John Leslie,
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the second, Sean Leslie grew up within the palatial walls
of the family stately home, Castle Leslie, in County Monaghan,
just twenty miles to the east of Coonian. The castle
is said by many to itself be haunted, though it
isn't known whether Leslie, who changed his name to the
Irish Shan out of affection for his homeland, ever experienced
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this himself. Though Leslie credits his time at the English
boarding school Eton College with fostering his fascination in the
possibility of ghosts and the paranormal, it wasn't until his
time at Cambridge University that his passion for the ghost
story was truly cemented. There he was introduced to Provost
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Montague Roades James, otherwise known by his pen name m
R James, considered by many to be the finest purveyor
of ghost stories that ever lived. It is evident from
his own fictional writings that Leslie was greatly influenced by
the prolific Mr James. However, it was potentially real accounts
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of ghosts that Leslie was most interested in. Having spent
much of his life collecting and recording as many accounts
of true life hauntings he could find, Leslie would eventually
collate those he felt especially compelling in his nineteen fifty
six publication Sean Leslie's Ghost Book. It is there that
Leslie presents what he describes as the last word on
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the famous series of phenomena known as the Counian Ghost
from which much of the following story is taken. When
Leslie asked Mr James shortly before he died what he
really thought on the subject of ghosts, he is said
to have replied, depend upon it. Some of these things
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are so, but we do not know the rules. You're
listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard mc lean smith. The
small brick farmhouse stood silhouetted and still in the night,
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a black monolith under moonlight, perched up high on the hill.
To observe this quiet scene from a distance is to
participate in the grand illusion of permanence, or the world
seeming for a moment like a grand tableau fixed in time.
Should we gaze on this house a little while longer, however,
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it would not be long before our illusion was punctured
by the distant core of a disgruntled crow, or the
haunting screech of a fox in the undergrowth, or by
the movement of a thin mist steadily creeping toward it
from out of the valley below. In fact, should we
stare long enough, we would see that even the stars
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above that seem so fixed in the sky are in
a state of constant shift. Inside the house, a small
fire cracked and crackled in the hearth, as Bridget Murphy
and her oldest daughter Anne slept under the soft flickering
light of the flames. Next door in the bedroom to
their right, eighteen year old Mary, fourteen year old Bridget,
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nine year old Catherine, and the youngest, five year old Jane,
Anne slept soundly together in their bed, while twenty three
year old James had the fortune of a bed to
himself at the other end of the house. It had
been only a matter of months since eight had become
seven after Michael Murphy, the father and Bridget's husband, had
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been violently upended from his cart and fallen head first
on to a rock, killing him instantly. That night, with
the fire having all but gone out, Bridget awoke suddenly
in the dark, alerted to what sounded like something moving
about in the attic above. Although the room, which could
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only be accessed from a stone stairwell outside, was being
used as a makeshift barn, she knew only too well
that it was currently unoccupied. Hearing the sound again, with
Anne fast asleep beside her, Bridget made a quick check
of the bedrooms, but found all her children accounted for,
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having just returned to the central room. A tremendous thud
rang out from behind her, followed by the startled screams
of her four daughters as they bolted from their bed,
with James joining them moments later. Bridget urged him to
investigate upstairs, as the rest of the family huddled by
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the hearth, the sound of footsteps could be heard above.
James inspected the attic, finding nothing inside but bales of straw.
No sooner had he returned downstairs, a violent bang echoed
through the house, than another and another, each one louder
than the next. Make it stop, cried Catherine, as Bridget
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gathered her in her arms, and they all looked anxiously
toward each other when finally the banging stopped. It would
be a few nights later when young Jane Anne woke
up screaming, having felt the bed move across the room,
and that something had been pressing down on her from above.
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Over the next few weeks, the terrifying sounds continued, always
beginning late at night in the children's bedroom or from
the makeshift barn above, but not once did they see
any sign of a culprit. Confused and scared, Bridget sought
the counsel of her friends and neighbors, inviting them round
to hear it for themselves. Together, they sat huddled in
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the center room as the colossal bangs echoed through the
walls and rattled the windows, or that strange foot dragging
sound lurched from one side of the ceiling to the other,
and soon the rumors began to circulate. One neighbor had
heard that the Sherry family, the previous owners of the house,
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had only stayed one night before hurriedly leaving for reasons unknown.
The property had remained unoccupied for six months before it
was sold. Others told of a man that had hung
himself in one of the bedrooms many years before. By
now convinced that something other worldly was taking place, Bridget
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turned to their local priest, father Smith for help. Smith
arrived at the house late one night, keen to make
an assessment for himself before deciding what could be done
to find the family in a state of deep distress.
Asking for them all to gather in the central room,
Smith solemnly made his way around the house before being
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led upstairs by James to inspect the barn. Returning back down,
Smith requested permission to stay the night. As the family slept,
He took a seat by the fire and waited. And
then it came. It was like the sound of straw
being rustled from the room above, followed by a tremendous thud.
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As the others ran screaming from their beds. The sound
only intensified until it was as if a horse was
kicking at the walls. Without thinking, Smith gathered them together
and hastily recited Mass. As the family held hands and
clutched each other tightly, Smith's forthright voice rose over their
(10:05):
quiet whimperings, and slowly the sickening noise began to dissipate
until it stopped altogether. Are you always taking care of
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Smith relate his findings back to the church, a different
set of rumors were beginning to circulate in the nearby towns.
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When the girls attended their crochet lessons, others in the
class would move away from them, pointing and whispering from
a distance that the family had the black Art and
had used it deliberately to invite a demon into their home.
Others rejected the nonsense entirely, believing instead that the family
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were just making the whole thing up. Having spoken to
Father Smith, the regional bishop instructed local reverend Eugene Coin
from nearby McGuire's Bridge to get a second opinion. Since
Smith's visit, the disturbances had steadily intensified and were already
in full swing. When Coin arrived late one autumn night,
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with an anxious Bridget hurriedly showing him into the children's bedroom.
Coin looked on aghast at the terror on the faces
of the girls lying down on their bed as a
series of bangs rattled out around them. Turning to two
men in the room who had also come to help,
Coin told them to take hold of the children's arms
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and legs to make sure they weren't the source of
the disturbances. At the next break in the bangs, While
being careful not to hurt the children, the men did
as they were told and held them down. Satisfied they
were sufficiently restrained, Coin took a seat at the end
of the bed, but almost as soon as he'd sat down,
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the thumping started again, continuing for ten minutes until the
other two men leapt suddenly from the bed, crying out
in horror. Something had pushed them off, they cried. Having
felt nothing himself, Coin resisted the urge to move, but
just moments later, with his eyes firmly on the children,
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became the most peculiar sensation at his back, as if
something else in the room had drawn right up to him,
and then the bangs started again. Just then, a Collie,
the family farm dog, wandered into the room, giving Coin
an idea. Picking the dog up, he placed it under
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the bed. Whatever is there, he said, I ask you,
if you have the power to do it, pushed the
dog back out. A deafening cacophony of engulfed the room
like nothing they'd heard before, sending the dog leaping and
yapping from out of the bed in a fit of terror,
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before scurrying out of the room altogether. As Father Coyn
later explained to Bridget, though he regretted to be the
bearer of such disturbing news, there was no doubt in
his mind that they were sharing their home with something
malicious and most likely diabolical. In the following days, Father's
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Coin and Smith continued to visit the house, often together,
as they attempted to bring comfort to the family, but
also with talk of performing a possible exorcism, it was
vital for them to get a better understanding of what
they were dealing with. On each occasion, after the children
had been put to bed, the knocking would start up,
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sometimes instantly, but other times a good hour later. One night,
with the children fast asleep and the house completely silent
save for the sound of the fire in the hearth,
Coin requested to hear more about the strange noises that
seemed to emanate from the attic room. As father Smith
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stayed with Bridget by the fire. James lit a candle
and led Coin into the second bedroom, the gentle light
of the candle pushing the shadows away as they went.
The room was sizeable, with blinds pulled down over both
its windows, and in the corner a bed covered with
a white quilt. Together, they stood for a moment and listened,
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their faces bathed in the orange light of the candle
as the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness. There,
said Jane, suddenly, pointing to the ceiling. Do you hear it?
Coin strained to listen. It was barely perceptible at first,
as if a small animal were burrowing into straw, Yet
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it was clearly moving from one side of the room
to the other. Asking James to stay put, Coin took
another candle and slowly made his way out of the
house and up the stone steps to the attic door.
Pushing it open. Coin peered into the darkness, lit his candle,
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and stepped inside. As he stood in the silent room,
pushing the shadows back with the candle light, he saw
nothing but bundles of straw. Moments later, Coin returned to
the bedroom, where once again he could hear that peculiar
sound coming from the room above, having asked James to
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repeat the test. This time, Coin stood below as James
went upstairs to investigate, with the priest carefully listening out.
Despite clearly hearing James enter the room, not once did
the other noise desist. As soon as James joined Coin
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back downstairs, something even more peculiar occurred. As both men
would later go on to a test, It felt as
if something had rushed down from above, shooting past them
like a gust of wind, straight down into the floor. Unnerved,
Coin ordered James to lift up the blinds, and in
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an instant the room was bathed in the hazy light
of dawn. Then, turning to look back into the room,
James gasped in horror, Pointing a finger toward the bed,
Coin slowly turned around. The quilt was moving softly, billowing
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about as if being blown by the wind. Coin stepped
forward and brushed his hand over it, and felt, for
a moment as if a barrel of eels were squirming
about underneath it. Stepping back, he watched with alarm as
the amorphous sheet seemed gradually to fix into shape, outlining
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what appeared to be some kind of figure lying underneath.
At the point where a chest might be. Coin watched
with amusement as the quilt began to rise and fall,
as if that chest were heaving up and down, struggling
to breathe. And then suddenly the entire quilt began undulating violently,
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as if whatever was under it were in the final
throes of death. Wasting no more time, Father Coin broke
immediately into mass, directing it toward that shape, as a
steady din of what sounded like a hideous gurgling flooded
the room, as if something were dying right in front
of them. All the while he kept on spitting out
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the words with ever increasing intensity, as the bed began
to rock back and forth, lifting the legs inches from
the ground, And then, as quick as it had begun,
the quilt dropped down and the mayhem ceased. As were
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traveled far and wide at the apparent hauntings in the
Murphy's home, more and more people requested to come and
observe it for themselves. One evening, a well known horse
dealer arrived at the house to see what all the
fuss was about. Sitting next to his driver as they
approached on his pony and trap, there was no doubt
some apprehension as they caught sight of that small stone
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house perched high up on the hill before them, its
windows like eyes flickering ominously with the candle light from within.
All was quiet as the driver brought them to a
stop outside. James, who had been expecting them, greeted the
horse dealer before showing him inside, while the driver was
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instructed to wait alone under the moonlight. It was some
time later, as the driver blew into his hands to
keep them warm, that he noticed the silhouette of a
figure walking toward him from out of the distant dark.
The driver watched it as it drew closer and closer,
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until eventually it passed him by and disappeared into the night.
It was strange, he thought, since there was some distance
from the nearest neighbor, or village for that matter. Thinking
nothing more of it, the driver had just turned his
attention back to keeping warm when he caught sight of
another figure approaching from out of the same direction as
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the one before, only for them to again pass straight
by without a word and then vanish. Grabbing a torch light,
the driver held it out behind him and squinted into
the dark, but saw nothing. Turning back, he jumped at
the sight of yet another figure emerging from out of
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the distance, again from the same place as the other two.
Calling out, the driver demanded to know their business, but
got nothing in response, as all the while the figure
drew nearer and nearer, walked past the cart and vanished
back into the night. Just then, a heavy gust of
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wind swept across the hill, blowing out the driver's light
and throwing the pony into a frenzy, neighing and stamping
and raising up on two feet before the driver could
bring it under control. It was with some relief when
his employer emerged moments later from out of the house
and demanded to be taken back home. Though both father
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Smith and Coine urged the church to grant permission to
conduct an exorcism, in the end it was decided not
to take such drastic measures. Perhaps one of the most
unusual incidences occurred shortly before Father Coyne was due to
transfer to another parish. On one afternoon, while out visiting
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a sick neighbor of the Murphys, Coin was passing the
Murphy household when he decided to check in on the family.
Little had changed since he last saw them, but on
this occasion he had a holy pix with him, containing
the consecrated host wafers of bread, which are considered in
Catholicism to be the body of Jesus Christ. As more
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of an experiment than anything else, Coine entered the children's bedroom, and,
holding the pics aloft, made the Sign of the Cross
with it. This moment was followed immediately with such loud
bangs every one else present through themselves to the ground
in fear of what might happen next. Panicking Coin was
then said to have placed the picks on the floor,
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at which point the sound seemed to travel through the
wall down toward the small holy container, before dropping under
the floor below it, moving deeper and deeper into the
ground until it could no longer be heard. In the end,
Unable to escape the strange phenomena, Bridget Murphy eventually decided
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to pack up and move the family to America. Though
it isn't known what happened to them after their arrival
in America, or if they continued to be plagued by
similar hauntings, some have reported that passengers traveling on the
same boat as them heard peculiar noises coming from the
family's cabin late at night. As for the clergyman that
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had spent so much time with the family, as Shawn
Leslie noted, their involvement apparently was said to have led
to two of them suffering spinal meningitis and facial paralysis, respectively,
while a third suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Unexplained. The
(24:15):
book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before
been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones,
among other bookstores. All elements have Unexplained, including the show's music,
are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel
(24:38):
free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Forward slash Unexplained Podcast. Now It's time to take care
(25:07):
of yourself. To make time for you. Teledoc gives you
access to a licensed therapist to help you get back
to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by
phone or video any time between seven am to nine
pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is
available through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or
(25:30):
visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to
get started. That's t e la DC dot com Slash
Unexplained Podcast