John Morris recalls a chilling encounter

 

It all came about like this. Four of us, all good friends, met after work for a pint in a Dublin southside bar. As we talked, John R said he knew someone who had spent a night in Wicklow Gaol, and said that he had thoroughly enjoyed his amazing experience.
Immediately, the seed was planted for us all, and we wanted to spend the night there too. ‘Do we believe in ghosts?’ Dick D asked, smirking. ‘Of course not.’

We laughed at the very suggestion, but we all wanted to give it a go.
Chud B said he knew a medium, someone who might be roped in for the price of a pie and a pint, and that was how, Neil T, joined our brave little band.
And now, here we all were, gathered together, with night falling in the courtyard of Wicklow Gaol, but all of us a little uneasy too.

We checked our torches; they were working; once locked inside, they would be our only light. Not only is Wicklow Gaol now an interactive museum, a window to the past, but it is has the reputation of being one of the most haunted places in Ireland!

We stood there for a moment, taking in the high stone walls, the great front door, and the heavily barred windows.
My eyes wandered up to where, just above a high doorway under the eaves, a stout length of wood, a gibbet, protruded a distance of about three feet. It was from this doorway, where a condemned man with a noose about his neck, would take his last, terrifying step to the hereafter, though, we were told, he sometimes had to be pushed.

Opened in 1702, we learned, Wicklow Gaol was built on the site of a much older gaol which was in poor condition, and so insecure that prisoners frequently escaped. Initially, Catholics were imprisoned here under the repressive Penal Laws, and before prison reform in 1763, adults and children were also imprisoned here, some as young as eight years old.
Wicklow Gaol is said to be haunted by the many tortured souls who had suffered and died here, and it was the ghosts of these unfortunate souls whom we half-wondered we might encounter.

Once the heavy front door closed behind us, and we walked into the great hall, it became eerily quiet, unnervingly dark, and the walls seemed to close in around us. We stood and listened… but there was nothing to be seen or heard. We relaxed a little, then jumped as a door creaked unexpectedly open.

A staff member popped his head around the door telling us he was about to lock up for the night.
Then it became really quiet; no one spoke, no one moved and, I’m fairly sure, no one dared to breathe. We wandered about the ground floor for a while, peering into the small cold cells, testing the heavy manacles and the iron chains, and sniffing the air trying to work out what was the awful smell, and where it was coming from.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own