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20th September 2023
05:23pm BST
14. Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin
The history of Glasnevin Cemetery is as spooky as you can get, back in the 19th century watchers had to be stationed in the towers of the cemetery to watch for bodysnatchers who would transfer the bodies to medical students for medical examinations. The ghost of a Newfoundland dog is also said to frequent the grave of it's former owner John McNeill Boyd and the area around St Patrick's Catedral. The story goes that when Boyd drowned the dog refused to leave his master's grave and slowly starved to death.
13. Jones's Road
Drumcondra
There have been several sightings of the ghost of a headless Frederick Edward Jones 'Buck Jones' riding on the back of a white horse on Jones's Road near Croke Park. The former Dublin theatre manager died in a debtor's prison.
12. Marshalsea Barracks
The Liberties
The Four Courts Marshalsea was a debtor's prison in Dublin, Ireland until 1874, which allowed debtors and their families to take refuge from their creditors. Pat Doyle attempted to escape from the place but fell from a roof and died, his ghost could be seen balancing on a wall several years after his death. The building was knocked down in the 1970s.
11. Croppie’s Acre
Royal Hospital Kilmainham
This mass grave was the final resting place of hundreds of rebels executed after the 1798 rebellion and generations of Dublin paupers. Incredibly the site was used as a football pitch in the 20th century.
10. Hendrick Street
Smithfield
This street is known as Dublin’s most haunted street, especially the sites where numbers 7 and 8 used to stand. Though the houses were demolished in the 1960s, the site is believed to be home to no fewer than 6 ghosts.
7. The Portobello Bar
33 Richmond Street
If you stumble out of this pub in the nighttime, don't always believe that your eyes are playing tricks on you. Apparently, the area near the pub is haunted by the ghost of a vengeful lockkeeper. In the mid-nineteenth century, it is said that the lockkeeper was a bit too fond of the drink and sunk the vessel at the lock he managed. Some maintain that the guilt overcame him and he committed suicide others maintain that he died in mysterious circumstances. Some attribute the ghost to some deaths that have occurred in the area over the last few years, claiming that they have become disoriented by a bright light emanating from the canal waters.
6. Malahide Castle
A pretty sight during the day but an extremely haunting place at night, ghosts are as integral a part of the place as the parkland estate and the walled garden. One of the most haunted castles in Ireland, the spot is home to no less than five ghosts in residents. Listen carefully and you'll be able to hear the cry of the Talbot family whose souls cannot leave the castle. The family was in control of the castle for almost 800 years until 1649 when Oliver Cromwell granted the property to one of his loyalists, Miles Corbett. In 1660 Corbett was deposed and later hanged, drawn, and quartered at Malahide for his atrocities during Cromwell’s reign, his ghost is said to still haunt Malahide Castle today. We urge that you take a picture here on Halloween and see if you can see any ghosts that are shorter in stature called Puck photobombing. The jester and watchman apparently fell in love with the castle inhabitant Lady Elenora Fitzgerald. Different versions of how Puck died swirl around, one maintains that when the lady rejected him he allegedly hung himself the other is that he was mysteriously stabbed (while wearing his jester suit, complete with cap and bells) just outside the castle walls.
5. The Gravediggers
1 Prospect Square, Glasnevin
This pub, right next to Glasnevin Cemetery, is a spooky spot for a pint. The resident ghost is regularly spotted at the bar dressed in old-fashioned tweeds until he disappears without a trace. As for the cemetery itself, its history is gruesome. The watchtower was built here so that guards could look out for grave snatchers who regularly dug up freshly buried bodies and sold them for medical use.
4. Saint Michan's Church
Church St, Arran Quay
The basement of this 1000-year-old church has to be one of the spookiest places you are likely to find in Dublin, so spooky it inspired a little of Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the cold, dark vault are several caskets that contain the mummified remains of four people, The Thief (complete with missing hands and feet), The Crusader (a tall man who is believed to have participated in the 1204 Sack of Constantinople) The Nun and The Unknown alongside the bodies of republicans John and Henry Sheares.
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