Ballinacarriga background
Ballinacarriga Castle has always been a special place for me. I remember visiting here many years ago with my family and of course, it was where Echo Ghosthunters brought me for my first ghost hunt in 2012.
It's a place that never disappoints me. It is high on a hill and quite breathtaking as you approach it, as it towers over the landscape.
It is a Hurley Castle having been built by Randall Og Hurley in the late 1500s. There is some doubt about the actual date as some history books mention the 1590s but a carved date on a window ledge states 1585. I believe the Castle was built from the mid 1500s onwards as it must surely have taken a fair few years to build.
Along with the date carving there are several other carvings or perhaps based reliefs of note around the building.
On the ground floor again on a window surround, there are five roses and an angel. These are believed to have been ordered to be placed there by Randall Og and are said to represent his wife Catherine and five of their children.
I think they had eight children but only five survived and perhaps this is why only five roses were added.
On the window surround on the top floor, the old Chapel, there is a scene of the crucifixion. It has been said that one of the three faces depicted here is Catherine's face.
There are numerous other decorative carvings or bas reliefs around the windows and must have been a beautiful sight many years ago.
There is also a Sile na gig high up on the right side of the building above the main door. These fertility symbols often appear on castles of this period.
The investigation
We had invited a paranormal group from the US to accompany us on our investigation. We have worked with this group before so it was nice to meet some old friends.
As it was still light when we arrived, we spent an hour or so talking and checking out the castle and surrounds.
There are the ruins of an old watchtower just beside the castle and there used to be a mill close by as well.
We began our investigation on the top floor.
It started to rain a little while we were up there and as this part is open to the elements we had to make sure our equipment was protected.
We did some calling out and some live evps to see if we could communicate with any spirits.
I stood with my back to the doorway and at times I could hear and sense movement behind me and in the little chamber just outside the main room.
I also noticed some orange sprinkles of light near one of the ladies a few times.
We did not catch anything of note so decided to move downstairs.
As there were eight of us in total we decided to do one more group investigation in the large room on the ground floor before splitting into two groups to investigate the smaller rooms.
We began a calling out session and did a few live evps but again, we did not catch anything. This is the room where an amazing evp wad caught by the team a few years back.
In that evp a woman seems to be asking where her child is. She sounds distraught and it is quite upsetting to hear.
We set up a laser array before calling out but the many bats in the building caused some minor distortions so we can discount any movements noticed at the time.
We then did a spirit box session but although we did have some responses, they were too vague to be noteworthy.
We split up. I took our visitors to investigate the rooms upstairs while the rest of the team went out to check out the ruins of the watchtower.
One of my group wanted to do a lone vigil in the garderobe. We left him in there with another lad just outside the room on the stairs.
The remaining two of us went back to the old Chapel at the top of the building.
We both had felt the presence of some energy while we were up there earlier and we wanted to check it out.
We did some calling out but nothing was happening.
The lad who had been on the stairs came up to join us. He told us that he had been having some strange religious thoughts since he had been up here at the beginning.
I asked him to explain and he said he felt like he was having some kind of struggle over his religious beliefs. He explained that he himself was not particularly religious but these thought were randomly filling his mind.
As he spoke one of the K11s nearest to him started to spike.
We began to ask religious questions. Are you a priest and are you struggling with your faith etc. The K11 continued to spike seemingly in response to our questions.
Eventually, the activity stopped and the atmosphere seemed considerably clearer or lighter - it's hard to explain, it just felt different
The group member who had being doing the lone vigil had joined us during the activity.
As we were all discussing this, I and the guy who had joined us, clearly heard someone coming up the stairs beside us.
I said that it was the other group but no one entered the room.The guy beside me went to the top of the stairs and called down to the others but got no response.
We could hear them the mumble of talking somewhere at a distance but on repeatedly asking if they were on the stairs near us, we got no reply. When we went down the stairs we found some of them in the garderobe - two flights below - but they insisted that none of them had come near the last staircase.
One of their team had made a joke about the puka in the garderobe - known locally as the puka's hole - and had immediately felt he was going to vomit so had left the building to get some air.
This had happened to me several times previously in this area so I was delighted (?!) that someone else has experienced this.
I stayed in the garderobe for a few minutes with the other team but as I have been suffering a strong reaction to some medication lately, I did not relish the idea of risking feeling nauseous or being sick, so I left them there and went back to join my group.
For the last session, we decided to move to the room below the top floor.
I had experienced a lot of energy in there at different times.
Before I followed the others, I decided to brave the garderobe on my own. I switched off my torch and stood in total darkness. My heart was thumping really loud and I was struggling to breathe. I only lasted about five minutes before deciding to join the others.
When I joined them I found some of the other group in there too, doing a ovulus session, (where words supposedly from spirit are typed on the screen and also spoken by the software).
One of the responses was 'you are so annoying which made us all laugh.
I asked if Randall Og was with us earlier and the response was 'always' and then, not long after, 'come here'.
I asked where but got no response.
I felt the lad standing behind me, tap me on my back to get my attention but when I turned around he was not close enough to touch me.
I asked if he had tapped my back thinking I might not have heard him step back afterwards but he said he had not touched me and his uncle who had been standing beside him the whole time said he definitely did not move.
He reached out towards me and showed me that he could not have touched me from where he was standing.
I had thought he was standing much closer to me the whole time I was in there. In fact, I thought he was standing less than a foot away from me.
Apart from some personal experiences, we did not get anything of note.
We will have to wait for the equipment review to be sure, but to all appearances, we had a fairly quiet but fun evening together.
