A visit to the Asylum

This abandoned asylum has a long and terrifying history. I recently visited the oldest part of this massive complex, built in the early 1800s. The building is in very bad condition and slowly falling into decay, rotting from the inside out.

There is little left to attest to its horrible history but tales abound and the eeriness of the place adds to the awful atmosphere.

The whole complex is connected by tunnels and it is considered to be the longest building in Ireland.

Some of the procedures carried out here included lobotomies and a circulating chair - designed to rotate up to sixty times a minute to ensure the docility of the patient.

It was said that screams could be heard from the asylum at all hours of the day and night.

The Investigation

We made our way to the top floor and set up the equipment. We decided to split up so myself and another investigator made our way to the floor below.

We both felt the presence of energy here. There were shadows moving just outside in the corridor but despite our best efforts, we were unable to document any evidence.

We were in a small room and I noted that the atmosphere was quite heavy. I noticed that the shadows by the door were growing lighter and darker. The other investigator mentioned the same thing to me.

During our calling-out session, the shadows moved closer to the door but seemed to be hovering just outside.

We attempted a live evp (electronic voice phenomenon) session to see if we could make contact with anyone but this did not produce any results.

We agreed that the energy felt low to the ground and was possibly that of a female child. I also felt that there was an older man with her.

At one point I asked the little girl to go and scare the other investigators on the upper floor.

When we all met to change floors, the other investigators said that they had picked up a child's voice, possibly a girl, through their spirit box.

We also noted a strange light anomaly above our heads. A light seemed to move in a strange sweeping movement and we were unable to account for it. The light zig-zagged back and forth and then disappeared.

When I went to the top floor the atmosphere changed again and I felt absolutely nothing here.

We saved the ground floor for last. As we stood around, setting up gear and getting ready, I felt very uneasy. I took a few pictures and caught a few orbs but assume that they were insects or dust stirred up by ourselves as we moved around the building.

I moved closer to the other team members and fought a feeling of panic. I have no idea why I was so spooked but I really did not feel comfortable there.

On listening back to the audio recordings from this floor, I found that I picked up a couple of voices but I will double check with the rest of the team to rule them out. From listening to the recording, I am almost certain that we are all accounted for but ...

Unexplained symptoms

Earlier that evening, while I was on the top floor I also felt a sudden intense pain in the right side of my head and thought I was going to faint. It passed quickly and I thought nothing of it at the time. Later that night, in bed, I suddenly got an attack of possibly, tinnitus pulsatile. I had a loud drumming in my right ear like an extremely fast heartbeat - I checked my pulse to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack. The sound was unbearable and in desperation I googled it. The advice was to cup the offending ear to help reduce the airflow and stop the eardrum vibrating (or something). I did this and it worked but I had to fall asleep holding my ear.

For the next few days, my ear was fine. Putting it down to some unidentified stress or illness, I forgot about it.

Until I began listening to the audio from the Asylum.

My earphones are broken and only the left one was working so I listened with only one ear bud in (the left one). I was almost finished the review when my right ear began to drum really fast again. The noise was unbearable and made me feel sick. The only way I could stop it was to hold my hand over my ear for about twenty minutes.

My rational brain is telling me that it is just a coincidence but it will be a while before I try to listen to the end of the recording!

Have you downloaded Irish Paranormal Haunts Vol 2 yet?

Muckross Abbey Investigation, Killarney

I was very excited when I got the call to go and investigate this beautiful abbey. Now in ruins, the abbey is still well worth a visit - it's free and if you love buildings with a lot of history, then this is the place for you.

Muckross Abbey

Before we entered the abbey, we paid a visit to a little known graveyard on a hill overlooking the abbey and its grounds. The ruined Killegy chapel is a mortuary chapel and stands in the midst of crumbling crypts and modern graves. Even though it was daylight, the eeriness of this pretty site soon became apparent.

Herbert Memorial Cross

The graveyard is dominated by the Herbert Memorial Cross dedicated to a former owner of Muckross House. The last private owner of Muckross House, Arthur Rose Vincent, gave the property to the state to become Ireland's first National Park. He was buried here and various tales are whispered about his burial. Some say he was buried sitting upright on a chair waiting for judgement day. Other stories suggest that he was buried standing up so that he could look out over his former house and grounds, but my favourite story is the one I heard from some fellow paranormal investigators. It is said that he was buried upside down!

Rabbits have been hard at work burrowing all over the graveyard and some of the crypts have broken open revealing their long-dead occupants.

       Mortuary Chapel

Muckross Abbey

At last it was time to enter the abbey. We walked eagerly down the long driveway carrying our gear. The abbey came into view and we knew that we had a big investigation on our hands. The building is impressive both in its size and architecture - but that was not what we had come for!

                                                                                                                                                                                        

We walked all over the building deciding where we would focus our efforts. As darkness fell, we split into two groups. The three of us in my group started our investigation in the area pictured to the left.

We did not observe anything of note in this area. As with all investigations, we recorded a lot of data and that will have to be reviewed before we can sum up the whole night.

We moved into the courtyard area and chose the first of the two dark rooms accessible from here. Although the roof in this area was intact, the upper floors have long since disappeared. We were on the ground floor of what had apparently been the sleeping area.

During the investigation in this area I felt a presence in the room. Something hit my leg but as there were bats flying around, we assumed that this was all it was. The sensor light near the doorway came on a couple of times but as we had not asked for it to happen we could not rule out that it was simply a bat that had triggered it.

While I was out in the courtyard area (pictured above), I got some unexplained K11 hits. I continued to get them in the same area for a few minutes with the K11 going all the way up to red (maximum).

We moved into the dining area but apart from the sensor light coming on again, we didn't have anything of particular note here.

We went back to the sleeping area and tried the spirit box. We got a clear 'Hello' and some other possible mutterings but we could not decipher these and felt we could probably rule them out.

While we were on the ground floor, the other group had been investigating the upper floors. When we radioed them, they said they had just started to get some K11 hits so we made our way up to join them. Unfortunately, the K11 hits seemed to be random so we were not able to document anything of an intelligent nature.


As it was getting late, we decided to call it a night - most of us didn't get home until 4 a.m. - so reluctantly, we packed up our gear.




Despite the relative quietness of the night, I would welcome the chance to carry out another investigation of this beautiful site as I feel that there is a lot more going on there than we have as yet discovered.

If, after going through all the recordings from the night, anything of interest is captured, I will update you with the latest news.