Collectanea. 345
but imputed to the perturbed spirits of those who had perished miserably in the dungeons. ^^ At Clare Castle, there used to be seen a ghost, said to be the wife of the first Colonel George Stamer of Carnelly (1680), who held the place under Lord Clare. Legend said that her infant had sprung from her arms through an open window into the river Fergus beneath. The mother went mad and died, and her ghost could be seen vainly searching for her lost child along the bank.^^ Bq^ jn the records her place is occupied by a business-like lady who brought much land and money to her husband, survived him, and died, (evidently in full possession of her senses to the last), at a ripe old age with her children around her. At Carrigaholt Castle, on the Shannon, the ghosts of Lord Clare and his " yellow dragoons " could, I was told in 1875, be seen at military exercises in the castle field.'^ This seems now to be forgotten. Fortanne, or Rosslara Castle, near TuUa, and the old roadway south from it, were reputed to be " airy " (eery) ; the haunting beings whispered, laughed, and rustled in the hedges, and "things flew out." (I have often been there in the dusk, and, as in most lonely lanes on a hill- slope facing "the wild west wind," found the noises very weird and curious).
While, as we know, the country in darkness abounds with uncanny sounds, this is still more the case with old mansions. Such houses, with disused chimney flues and attics, ill-fitting casements, ivy and snails to tap on the windows, owls to flap and moan overhead, rats, shaking doors, and warped stairs to imitate footsteps, only need a legend and a few nervous inmates to become treasure-houses of ghost-lore.
One house on the verge of the Atlantic was haunted by a " breathing ghost," and had also a footstep passing with a faintly- clanking chain up and down a lobby. Our servant, after a couple of weeks in 1887, heard the first, and we heard the footsteps
"Alluded to by Crofton Croker in " Florry Cantillon's Funeral," op. cii.. Part II. (1828), p. 23. I heard it locally in 1892.
12 So Mrs. Stamer in 1881.
^^ Their ghostly appearances riding through Moyarta, and their plunging into the Shannon, are alluded to in 1816. Cf. Mason, Parochial Survey, vol. ii., p. 430.
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