If you have never been to the west coast of Ireland you may not be able to appreciate the glorious green of the perfect pastures.
From the verdant verges to the gently rolling undulations of the hills, the country looks like it was blanketed in the colour that gives the republic its name, the Emerald Isle. Around the place, there are the dry-stone walls. Those feats of amazing engineering, rocks of tremendous size piled high one upon another in such a skilful pattern that they stay upright, a boulder barrier between fields.
Nowadays, black top tarmac roads Criss cross the lovely landscape, a joy to drive on, twisting and turning with chicanes galore, no Roman road, just a route to market through the properties. With all this going for the country you would think real estate values would equal The Hamptons or Hampshire. Not a bit of it.
Every silver lining has a cloud and Ireland’s gloomy, grey skies put off many settlers.
Then, there’s the rain, the rain, the rain; you need an awful lot of water to get green as vivid as the colour of the landscape and does it pour; it pours, drumming on the roof; sluicing along the gutters; it pours, gurgling down the drainpipe. You don’t visit Ireland for the weather.
Of course, there is also the matter of the boring houses, built to an architectural plan provided by the government, there are bland bungalows lining beautiful boreens, huddling together to make hamlets and villages as well as sticking out like an eyesore in a secluded spot.
Thirdly, you have to consider the roads, deadly to so many teenagers taking bends too fast when they borrow the parent’s Mercedes, or they drive their old banger too fast, cornering like a race driver.
So those three things keep people away and of course being an agrarian economy, if you cannot work on the farm what work is there for you to do?
There are no factories for making cars, washing machines and other consumer goods. The sawmills and the linen mills are very long and closed together. With the roofs sprouting all manner of foliage, their walls green with mildew as damp seeps up the fabric. Opportunities lie in the successful cities. Ghost Story
So, what does Ireland have in spades? Its history and its beauty. Is it enough, though in a country bled of its population, by subsequent emigration to busier places? They say that Ireland is a great place to visit.
The education system is very good. Still, to live there it takes a certain fortitude and a love of water.
Rainwater running down your neck, soaking your cuffs and leaking into your boots. Our story is not about the place, as such, but a building within that setting.
We are talking about cutesy cottages and fine rambling mansions like the Guinness’s old place, Ashford Castle. Even so. these are few and far between. Our story takes place on the west coast of Ireland. Others, rot as the ground around them claims the brick back to its birthplace, deep within the clay soil. Ghost Story
Maybe you didn’t know, but five hundred glebes had been built in Ireland between 1800 and 1820.
Between 1800 and 1820, fifty-acre, protestant parsonages, were established to help convert Catholics to the Protestant Faith, the Church of Ireland.
All of the buildings were two storey buildings. With a perfect symmetry, which could be split in half like an orange, leaving six identical segments on each side.
Our story concerns one such glebe. The only glebe with a ghost. A ghost that lives in the room on the half landing, a mirror image of the room on the other side but through generations its presence has made itself known. If you feel that ghosts do not exist, read on. If you have ever suffered some of the exceptional experiences that fill my story, you, now, know that you are not alone.Ghost Story
Ghosts exists.
They are not just in your head.
Written by Michael Fitzalan
