Speaker 1: You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network, the best
Speaker 1: in paranormal talk radio in the UK and around the world.
Speaker 1: Era is the Irish or Gaelic word for Ireland. So
Speaker 1: take it easy or as we say in Gaelic, lig
Speaker 1: the ski, and listen to all things concerning the paranormal
Speaker 1: in Ireland and indeed beyond. Welcome to Scary Era.
Speaker 2: All views are Mark Manning's own, but you can express
Speaker 2: them too if you want to be right about everything
Speaker 2: like he is.
Speaker 3: Mark Manning.
Speaker 1: Oh I tis me. Indeed, sit down there now and
Speaker 1: take the weight off your face and welcome to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six two K two six if I'm being cool
Speaker 1: and hanging out with the kids. So, I hope you've
Speaker 1: had a fantastic Christmas time and holiday time and you're
Speaker 1: looking forward to the new year. I suppose as I
Speaker 1: speak to you, the resolutions have already been broken, but
Speaker 1: I have good news for you.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about such things.
Speaker 1: Rather seek out progress in the new year, poko or poco,
Speaker 1: bit by bit. That's how you do it. You see,
Speaker 1: if you make these massive, big resolutions and they don't
Speaker 1: happen really quickly, when you just give up on them
Speaker 1: and you go, I don't really do resolutions anymore, en
Speaker 1: off lecturing. I've loads to tell you about. But first
Speaker 1: of all, let's get into it, right into the heart
Speaker 1: of the matter, the matter Hospital in Dublin, to be
Speaker 1: quite precise. Did you see what I did there? Right
Speaker 1: to the heart of the matter, or the matter of
Speaker 1: the heart, as told by the squire, a good friend
Speaker 1: of this show, David McGlynn, David mcglyn, David mcgen David McGlynn,
Speaker 1: David McGlenn. Oh, please yourselves, it was only a bit
Speaker 1: of fun, David. Would you ever be a good boy
Speaker 1: and shake your funky growth thing?
Speaker 4: Have you ever had your heart broken? Has your heart
Speaker 4: been in a broken state? My full valve prolapse is
Speaker 4: a condition where one of the valves in your heart
Speaker 4: doesn't open and shut the way it should. So I
Speaker 4: was diagnosed with this condition in two thousand and six
Speaker 4: and had open heart surgery to repair it. I was
Speaker 4: in England at the time, and the NHS sent me
Speaker 4: to a private hospital. Southampton Hospital was a very modern,
Speaker 4: state of the art facility with the best of everything.
Speaker 4: They had me opened, repaired and out of bed walking
Speaker 4: on the third day and sent home on day five.
Speaker 4: In twenty eleven, I was diagnosed with endocarditis, which only
Speaker 4: a few years beforehand was a death sentence. Endocarditis means
Speaker 4: basically that bacteria have colonized your heart and are stopping
Speaker 4: the same valve from working. My surgeon said that I
Speaker 4: probably had two days maximum if I had not gone
Speaker 4: to A and E. I was coughing with blood at
Speaker 4: the time. I was rushed to the Matter Hospital in
Speaker 4: Dublin that day immediate surgery. The Matter is a Victorian hospital,
Speaker 4: now much expanded and modernized. I had spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time there previously when I was being treated for cancer,
Speaker 4: but that's a story for another time. The old part
Speaker 4: of the hospital is still in use and very tired.
Speaker 4: You can easily imagine the scene as it might have
Speaker 4: been one hundred and more years ago, and the corridors
Speaker 4: held echoes. Nothing audible. But it's just not an easy feeling.
Speaker 4: It's as if others are looking at you and empathizing.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's the word I imagined, people slowly shaking their
Speaker 4: heads and feeling sorry for me. It's a sad place.
Speaker 4: If you've ever had general anesthetic, you'll know that once
Speaker 4: you've been stitched back together by the surgeon. You're wheeled
Speaker 4: out into a recovery room where you were monitored by
Speaker 4: a nurse. I awoke to find a nurse sat astride
Speaker 4: my torso applying pressure to a pad that was covering
Speaker 4: the wound site, which was still bleeding. She smiled and said,
Speaker 4: they are We're just hidying up. Don't worry about the blood.
Speaker 4: I woke again. I must have fallen back under the
Speaker 4: influence of the anesthetic, and I was in another different room.
Speaker 4: Mine was the only bed and the walls had shiny
Speaker 4: Victorian tiles up to chair rail height. That was what
Speaker 4: struck me, the tiles and the age of the room.
Speaker 4: It was pristine, but it was dated, not quite what
Speaker 4: I would have expected. A nurse entered the room from
Speaker 4: a door beside the foot of my bed and asked
Speaker 4: if I needed anything, and I said I was fine. Thanks.
Speaker 4: She left, and I heard another door open from my
Speaker 4: right hand side and behind me. A man entered and
Speaker 4: walked down the side of the room. He picked up
Speaker 4: my chart and sat in a chair beside the bed.
Speaker 4: He was facing the end of the bed. He said nothing.
Speaker 4: His clothes seemed to me to be very old, fashioned
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties in style. He wore a Gabardine type coat
Speaker 4: and pinstriped suit with immaculately polished brogue shoes. His glasses
Speaker 4: were those circular ones that we called young lenon glasses.
Speaker 4: He took a clipboard from his briefcase. Who carries leather
Speaker 4: satchel type briefcases any more? I asked him who he was,
Speaker 4: and he simply said, I'm a dentist. I'm here to
Speaker 4: check that your teeth at olk okay, because it could
Speaker 4: be a real problem if something was to go round
Speaker 4: during hard surgery. I said, it's a bit late for that,
Speaker 4: now they've done it. He glanced sideways and said, well,
Speaker 4: it's a good thing. Le Chet took his glasses off,
Speaker 4: folded them, placed him in the case, put the case
Speaker 4: in his satchel, and walked out through the same door
Speaker 4: that he had entered. I woke again later and there
Speaker 4: was a nurse sitting at the foot of my bed.
Speaker 4: She said that she was there to monitor me. I
Speaker 4: asked if she'd been there all the time, and she
Speaker 4: said that she had gone to the toilet once, but
Speaker 4: otherwise she hadn't left since I'd arrived from theater. I
Speaker 4: told her what had happened, and she pointed out that
Speaker 4: there was only one door in the room, the one
Speaker 4: at the foot of my bed. It is normal practice
Speaker 4: to check patients for dentures and loose teeth, but that
Speaker 4: isn't done by a dentist.
Speaker 1: How strange, oh lucky man. Indeed, not only from the
Speaker 1: health end of things, but imagine waking up and finding
Speaker 1: a nurse and I quote astride my Torso that certainly
Speaker 1: hasn't happened to me in a long time, probably since
Speaker 1: my twenties. You have the story for you, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of para normal, I suppose. And well it's an
Speaker 1: alien story. You see, back in the late eighties early nineties,
Speaker 1: when I was footloose and fancy free, myself and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine we saw this notice and it was
Speaker 1: for the nurses up in Saint Vincent's Hospital, which is
Speaker 1: only up the road for me now, and they were
Speaker 1: having a dance. So myself and this guy, Diggy was
Speaker 1: his name, I remember, so we went because we wanted
Speaker 1: a cup off with a nurse essentially, and we didn't
Speaker 1: realize it was a fancy dress night. So all these
Speaker 1: beautiful newbile nurses turned up in period costumes and you know,
Speaker 1: Dracula outfits. But I ended up with the alien and
Speaker 1: she had all this kind of black makeup all over
Speaker 1: her face, with these little stars and stuff. And now
Speaker 1: we didn't do anything nasty like a you know, the
Speaker 1: horizontal mambo or anything like that. I was far too callow,
Speaker 1: but we had we had a snog, you know, a kiss.
Speaker 1: And I distinctly recall waking up the next morning in
Speaker 1: my little grief hole of a flat and I looked
Speaker 1: in the mirror and I got an awful fright because
Speaker 1: it was because Myra was all black with little bits
Speaker 1: of glitter all over it. Anyway, yes, ah, yes, dams
Speaker 1: A did times. So anyway, a dentist happened, as you
Speaker 1: heard in the Squire's story there. What was all that
Speaker 1: about a time slip? I suppose what else is coming
Speaker 1: up on today's podcast? Well, before I say anything else,
Speaker 1: I'd like to say hello to the folks dan in
Speaker 1: Pooka Vogue Paranormal Investigators in Killarney County, Kerry, for they
Speaker 1: have their own podcast now called Let's Talk Paranormal, available
Speaker 1: on Spotify and other platforms. Good luck to PJ and
Speaker 1: the Team Good. You might remember last time around I
Speaker 1: spoke about Margaret mcgrogan, who's an academic in one of
Speaker 1: the universities here and she's putting together a survey on
Speaker 1: all things strange and unusual. Did speak to her since
Speaker 1: the new year, her and her family were still recovering
Speaker 1: from an awful bout of flu, so I didn't push
Speaker 1: her on it. But if you check out last month's podcast,
Speaker 1: all the details are there, Mark Manning. Later on we'll
Speaker 1: be listening to a new EVP from Jenny from Emerald
Speaker 1: Dial Paranormal. She was kind enough to share one that
Speaker 1: she recently recorded in cumber House in County Derry and
Speaker 1: angry Birds. What's that got to do with Ireland? Well,
Speaker 1: hang around and you'll find out. And always listen to
Speaker 1: your Irish Mammy. I'd be talking about that as well.
Speaker 1: But now an Irish woman living in England for many years,
Speaker 1: and the tale of a time she spent in London
Speaker 1: concerning the Vanishing Lady author Tara Moore.
Speaker 2: The next one I want to tell you about is
Speaker 2: more interesting, I think than scary, and it was something
Speaker 2: that happened several years ago. I was sitting in rush
Speaker 2: hour traffic going nowhere fast outside Tooting beckstation. It was winter,
Speaker 2: and I remember it was quite rainy. You could see
Speaker 2: the reflections of the street lights and shop lights on
Speaker 2: the pavement, and I was sort of sitting there idly,
Speaker 2: and don like me, seemed to have not too much
Speaker 2: on my mind, which is when I tend to be
Speaker 2: more receptive to any supernatural type experience. Anyway, I was
Speaker 2: watching people coming out of Tooting back tube station and
Speaker 2: thronging the pavement. There were so many, and suddenly I
Speaker 2: just saw a young woman and my eyes were drawn
Speaker 2: to her for no apparent reason, because there really wasn't
Speaker 2: anything that would have singled her out. I never saw
Speaker 2: her face. I just assumed she was young from the
Speaker 2: clothes she was wearing, and I can see those perfectly
Speaker 2: even now.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She had a trench coat on, jeans and boots. Her
Speaker 2: back was to me, and her hair was long and
Speaker 2: smooth and dark, and for some reason I just couldn't
Speaker 2: take my eyes off her. And suddenly I realized that
Speaker 2: I couldn't see her feet anymore, and she was disappearing
Speaker 2: from the feet up into the ether. As I said,
Speaker 2: it wasn't remotely scary. I remember thinking, oh, I've just
Speaker 2: seen a ghost. But it made me think about something
Speaker 2: a shaman once told me, and he said, in every
Speaker 2: crowd of people, you see amongst those people, although you
Speaker 2: don't realize it, are ghosts, and that, of course ghosts
Speaker 2: are not always a misty ethereal apparition type things, but
Speaker 2: that many of them are look certainly as solid as
Speaker 2: you or I. Anyway, I just thought that was quite
Speaker 2: an interesting experience.
Speaker 3: Not paranormal. Mark Manning is real. Now that's a scary sort.
Speaker 5: Bertie Brazen here recently did the Scary Era.
Speaker 1: Podcast with Mark and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 5: Hopefully you can listen to that podcast as well. But
Speaker 5: I'm a filmmaker, author and video producer. For anyone that
Speaker 5: doesn't know me, you can get all my information all
Speaker 5: my links at ww dot bertiebrasinfilms dot com, including my
Speaker 5: recent book The Forgotten Prince and novella detailing Brian Bru
Speaker 5: the Battle of Clontarff, his son Donaga and Broader of Man,
Speaker 5: the villain of the piece. This is a part of
Speaker 5: a trilogy and I'm writing the sequel.
Speaker 2: At the moment.
Speaker 5: You can get it via my shot about ww do
Speaker 5: bertiebrasiinfilms dot Com, or just go on to Amazon and
Speaker 5: type in the Forgotten Prince Bertie Brosnan and it.
Speaker 1: Should come up.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, Take care and enjoy the.
Speaker 3: Rest of the show.
Speaker 1: Of course, those of you who know all about the
Speaker 1: paranormal know about evp's electronic voice phenomena. Now, these are
Speaker 1: the kind of auditory artifacts that are picked up on
Speaker 1: microphones during investigations by paranormal investigators around various historic places
Speaker 1: or areas of note, Jenny Sullivan, who we've had on
Speaker 1: the show before, was good enough to sh one from
Speaker 1: cumber House in County Derry. Jenny has headed up Emerald
Speaker 1: Isle Paranormal Investigator since twenty sixteen and it's still going strong.
Speaker 1: I just want to give a background to cumber House
Speaker 1: first of all, before we listen to aforementioned EVP. This
Speaker 1: is a little piece from a site called Spirited Isle
Speaker 1: dot i E, which I highly recommend for all things
Speaker 1: Irish and haunting. Let's talk about cumber House, its distinguished
Speaker 1: Georgian era estate with a deeply layered past. Constructed around
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty, it was the ancestral seat of the Brown
Speaker 1: Lecky family, an influential land owning lineage in Ulster. The
Speaker 1: house showcases the refined elegance of late eighteenth century architecture,
Speaker 1: marked by symmetrical proportions, large sash windows, and sweeping grounds
Speaker 1: typical of estates belonging to the landed gentry of the time.
Speaker 1: The Brown Leckey family held considerable social and political sway
Speaker 1: in the region. As major lando owners, they managed extensive
Speaker 1: agricultural lands and contributed significantly to the local rural economy.
Speaker 1: Historical records suggest that the estate included farmland, forests, and
Speaker 1: numerous outbuildings, supporting a small community of workers, tenants, and
Speaker 1: domestic staff. Cumber House's historical footprint widened in the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: particularly during World War II, when it was requisitioned to
Speaker 1: house Allied troops. This wartime chapter left an enduring impression
Speaker 1: physically on the estate and culturally through stories of interactions
Speaker 1: between local residents and soldiers that have been passed down
Speaker 1: through generations. Though the house experienced periods of decline in
Speaker 1: later years, it remained a landmark of local heritage and
Speaker 1: a focal point of ghostly legend. One of the most
Speaker 1: chilling legends tied to cumber house centers on the patriarch
Speaker 1: of the Brown family. After his death, a local priest
Speaker 1: reportedly declared that the elder Brown was burning in the
Speaker 1: fires of hell. Outraged by the claim, Brown's son confronted
Speaker 1: the priest and demanded proof. Pressured by the confrontation, the
Speaker 1: priest knelt, drew a circle on the floor and began
Speaker 1: to pray. To the shock of onlookers, the elder Brown
Speaker 1: is said to have appeared within the circle, engulfed in
Speaker 1: flames shhh. Overcome with fear, the priest fled the estate
Speaker 1: and never returned. In the aftermath, another clergyman was summoned
Speaker 1: to perform an exorcism. According to legend, he successfully confined
Speaker 1: the restless spirit to a tree on the property. Even now,
Speaker 1: strange phenomena such as scratching sounds and low moans are
Speaker 1: said to echo from the area around the tree. Further
Speaker 1: references to paranormal activity at the property have included sightings
Speaker 1: of dark figures and shadowy apparitions, disembodied footsteps, and moaning sounds.
Speaker 1: Hang on, oh sorry, just had to do that. Don't
Speaker 1: know why. Objects moving of their own accord. A vacuum
Speaker 1: cleaner switching itself on and musical instruments being played by
Speaker 1: unseen forces. Now, then, dear listener, what you're about to
Speaker 1: hear is an EVP from cumber House. It was recorded
Speaker 1: on a recent investigation and the setup was essentially two
Speaker 1: or three investigators on the property. Now, one of these
Speaker 1: investigators starts to sing an old Irish song called Grace.
Speaker 1: It's all about an Irish patriot from the nineteen sixteen
Speaker 1: Rising called Joseph Mary Plunkett, and just before he was
Speaker 1: executed by the British in Kilmainham jail, he was married
Speaker 1: to a lady called Grace, and hence the song. It
Speaker 1: was a song made famous by the late Irish singer
Speaker 1: Jim McCann and later on Old Tight Trousers himself Rod
Speaker 1: Stewart butchered it. So let's listen to the song. And
Speaker 1: just at the very end of it, a male voice
Speaker 1: comes in and says goodbye. Now make of it what
Speaker 1: you will, but I do know Jenny Sullivan from Emerald
Speaker 1: Dial Paranormal and the most honorable and honest lady she is.
Speaker 1: You'll hear it, And then I play the EVP twice
Speaker 1: more so you can listen to it forensically. Here we go.
Speaker 5: On the old fingers thereon.
Speaker 2: To share.
Speaker 4: Lucy bye bye bye. Yeah, yeah, A couple of things
Speaker 4: over the years. But I've learned, well I don't. I
Speaker 4: suppose it's not learned. I've just become accustomed to it.
Speaker 4: And I think it's kind of it's it's maybe it's
Speaker 4: another sense or something. But often when you go into places,
Speaker 4: you will get a feeling for the place, and you'll
Speaker 4: get a feeling of whether or not it's comfortable. And
Speaker 4: whatever cause is that. Who knows what causes that. But
Speaker 4: we have an intuition. We have an inbuilt intuition. I
Speaker 4: can't describe what it is or where it comes from,
Speaker 4: or the physics of it or the chemistry of it,
Speaker 4: but it's there. And anybody will will tell you to
Speaker 4: stick with your intuition. If you think something doesn't feel right,
Speaker 4: then don't hang around.
Speaker 3: Superb advice from regular contributor to Scary Era, David McGlynn
Speaker 3: aka the Squire, and don't hang around either. If you've
Speaker 3: got an Irish paranormal tale to tell, simply email Paranormal
Speaker 3: Ireland at Proton Male dot com and it'll be read
Speaker 3: out for you before you get to tell it on air. Yourself.
Speaker 3: That's Paranormal Ireland at proton male dot com, Mark Manning.
Speaker 1: Oh, and I would just echo, you know, get in
Speaker 1: touch with us by email because that way I can
Speaker 1: gauge basically our listenership, which I'm told by the good
Speaker 1: people at Paranormal Radio UK is pretty good. We are
Speaker 1: the second most we aim to please the second most
Speaker 1: downloaded podcast on the platform, so that's what I was
Speaker 1: told recently. So that's good news. But you can boss
Speaker 1: that for me by contacting me if you do listen
Speaker 1: to this show, you know, reach out get me at
Speaker 1: the email address which is Paranormal Ireland at ProtonMail dot com.
Speaker 1: Will you do that for me? Surprise me and I'll
Speaker 1: make sure that we give you a nod next time
Speaker 1: we're on. So yeah, sometimes stuff just comes into your mind.
Speaker 1: And in my case, I vaguely remember a documentary I
Speaker 1: heard on radio back sometime in either the late seventies
Speaker 1: or early eighties. It stuck in my mind because it
Speaker 1: concerned an unusual natural event in Ireland and this was,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, a battle of the birds. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: angry birds were talking about an actual battle took place
Speaker 1: and blood and feathers were spilled. So I did a
Speaker 1: little bit of research and I discovered just over ten
Speaker 1: years ago there was an article in the Irish Independent,
Speaker 1: a newspaper of note here, and it concerns exactly what
Speaker 1: I've been talking about. So basically the breed of bird
Speaker 1: was a starling's I believe. Here we go. The starling
Speaker 1: phenomenon was remarkable. Two great Mermatians, there's a word to
Speaker 1: conjure with of the birds separately gathered over cork for
Speaker 1: several days, sending small emissary regroups back and forth until negotiations,
Speaker 1: having obviously broken down, all held broke loose over the
Speaker 1: lee on October twelfth, sixteen twenty one. It was a
Speaker 1: gruesome affair that trembling fear and terror brought to all
Speaker 1: who saw the battle fault with loud and chattering cries,
Speaker 1: each company gainst the other flies with bloody beaks, remorseless
Speaker 1: still their feathered foes to maim or kill. Where whilst
Speaker 1: this battle did remain, their bodies fell like drops of rain.
Speaker 1: Now I know. The renowned diarist Samuel Peeps documented all this,
Speaker 1: as well as a richer Channey, who produced another diary
Speaker 1: of events seven months later, on May thirty first sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty two followed what was described as the lamentable burning
Speaker 1: of Cork with fire from heaven, and the citizens overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with woe, for no one knew where to run or go.
Speaker 1: The starling battle was seen as a portent, one pamphleteer
Speaker 1: writing reprovingly cork was first warned and then destroyed for
Speaker 1: her sins. Scientific sources point out that animal and bird
Speaker 1: fights usually occur over territory, food, shelter, and mates. Introspective aggression,
Speaker 1: in which animals or birds attack members of their own species,
Speaker 1: is widespread across the animal kingdom, from ragworms, salmon and
Speaker 1: lobsters to songbirds, rats and chimps. There's an amusing story
Speaker 1: of one chimpanzee famous through the work of behavioral scientists
Speaker 1: the late Jane Goodall, that intimidated rivals by banging two
Speaker 1: oil cans together. Starling numbers have fallen considerably in recent years,
Speaker 1: but annual mermatians, especially over the Midlands, are welcomed by
Speaker 1: the public with a mixture of awe and admiration for
Speaker 1: their peace for aerial wafting, as if to the strains
Speaker 1: of a celestial waltz being played only for them as
Speaker 1: perhaps it may well be.
Speaker 6: Hello Scary Era listeners. My name is Anthony Kerrigan and
Speaker 6: I'm a member of a paranormal psychical research team called Ghosttereer.
Speaker 6: You can catch up on where we have been also
Speaker 6: see what we've got up in the future by logging
Speaker 6: into our website ww dot ghostereo dot net. You can
Speaker 6: also watch shows of the Ghosteroid Channel, where we interview
Speaker 6: numerous people in the field of the paranormal and FOURTEENA.
Speaker 6: You can also check us on our social media pages
Speaker 6: on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube by just typing in Ghostterer
Speaker 6: or Ghostereer Paranormal. You can also watch our new show
Speaker 6: Phantasm Collective on channels such as Prime UK and also
Speaker 6: Paraflex and other streaming services to be announced.
Speaker 3: I just got to deal with this ghost now, who.
Speaker 6: Get out to talk?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: Yes, Anthony Old paranormal pants himself. I call him that
Speaker 1: because he wears these amazing kind of spangled trousers that
Speaker 1: would do the edge out of you two proud, and
Speaker 1: then his fingers are like Elvis. They glisten with things
Speaker 1: like sovereigns and jewelry and skulls and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And he's absolutely brilliant and a total mine
Speaker 1: of information when it comes to the paranormal, So do
Speaker 1: check out ghost Era. Earlier, I was saying to always
Speaker 1: listen to your Irish mammy, mammy being a word for
Speaker 1: mother or mum, as you might say in the States.
Speaker 1: And my mother grew up in a place called the
Speaker 1: Courra in County Kildare. It's very flat, green and it's
Speaker 1: famous for its Cora Racecourse. So I have a history
Speaker 1: going back there because her sister, my Auntie, was secretary
Speaker 1: of the Cora race Course way way back. AnyWho, my
Speaker 1: mother used to regale me with these stories when I
Speaker 1: was a kid about what she'd get up to. I
Speaker 1: might have mentioned this one before, but it's relevant today
Speaker 1: because of a little bit more research. So she told
Speaker 1: me that her and her friends used to go to
Speaker 1: an old English estate in the region of Killaire and
Speaker 1: she she used to say it was blackherds or blackherds.
Speaker 1: I used to pick it up like blackherds. And she
Speaker 1: would intrigue me with these stories about they'd mosey on up,
Speaker 1: they'd hide behind a hedge and they'd look in and
Speaker 1: there was either a lady or one of the daughters.
Speaker 1: Now it's not peeping tom stuff. But they'd be looking
Speaker 1: in or a maid perhaps, and they'd see this lady
Speaker 1: and she'd sit down at the dresser, you know, the
Speaker 1: old with the mirror on top of it, and she'd
Speaker 1: be doing her hair in the mirror, and she wouldn't
Speaker 1: actually lift the comb or hairbrush. She would simply gesture
Speaker 1: and they would leve atta into her hands, and correspondingly
Speaker 1: she would comb herself a nice mullet or hairdoo, burnetor whatever.
Speaker 1: So it was almost like there was witchcraft or something involved.
Speaker 1: But I, as a younger man then I would research
Speaker 1: on the internet black cards, black cards, black and I
Speaker 1: could not find anything. So I began to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that was just in my head, all those things
Speaker 1: she told me in the early nineteen seventies, It was
Speaker 1: in my head. Blackers Blacker anyway, stand back in amazement
Speaker 1: because the residence she was likely referring to was called
Speaker 1: Castle Martin. I think it's in the area of Straffen
Speaker 1: in County Kildare. And guess what, folks, there was a
Speaker 1: major blacker in the area, probably in Castle Martin House,
Speaker 1: and he had a military service with the third Battalion
Speaker 1: Royal Dublin Fusiliers in brackets killed their militia. Major Blacker,
Speaker 1: the second in command of the third Battalion Dublin Fusiliers,
Speaker 1: has left the service, and in him the battalion has
Speaker 1: lost a very good officer and one who has had
Speaker 1: a long connection with the battalion, for he was appointed
Speaker 1: lieutenant in the Kildare Militia October eighteen seventy four and
Speaker 1: has held his present rank since August eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: It is expected that Captain Greeson, the senior company commander
Speaker 1: of the battalion, will be promoted to the rank of
Speaker 1: major in the battalion, he joined it as second lieutenant
Speaker 1: in August eighteen seventy eight and was promoted to the
Speaker 1: rank of captain in eighteen eighty five. Now it does
Speaker 1: go on death of Major Blacker nays Thursday night, and
Speaker 1: this says. Major Blacker died this evening at five fifteen
Speaker 1: at Lady Carton's residence, Westtown, Straffen, where he had lain
Speaker 1: since the opening meet of the Kildare Hounds. On Tuesday, fortnight,
Speaker 1: when it will be remembered, his horse fell back on
Speaker 1: him in a farmyard and broke his pelvis up to
Speaker 1: midday yesterday Wednesday. His progress gave the utmost satisfaction in
Speaker 1: his medical attendant, doctor O'Donnell Brown. But then a change
Speaker 1: came and Sir Thomas Miles and Surgeon Lane Joint were
Speaker 1: summoned from Dublin. But the patient never rallied and passed
Speaker 1: away as stated. That's an excerpt from the Freeman's Journal, Friday,
Speaker 1: November twenty second, nineteen oh seven. So perseverance, that's what
Speaker 1: it's all about. I discovered, yes, there was a link
Speaker 1: there major Blacker or IP, and I know there's a
Speaker 1: Castle Martin House connected there somewhere. I think he lived there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm going to change tacked now slightly. I would like
Speaker 1: you to listen to what I consider to be a
Speaker 1: remarkable audio recording. Is it related to Ireland, No, but
Speaker 1: it is very much related to the old English families
Speaker 1: that you've heard about just there. As an audio person,
Speaker 1: I come across all kinds of bits of audio and
Speaker 1: once stuck in my mind around two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: and I discovered it in my archives only recently, and
Speaker 1: it concerns the memories of an elderly lady. Now she
Speaker 1: is recorded, i'd say sometime in the nineteen seventies or
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. She has long passed. I'd imagine. All I
Speaker 1: know is her name was Olga, and she seems to
Speaker 1: be very opper, a crassed old school Heiti Titi cucumber sandwiches.
Speaker 1: And she is recalling her childhood in the British raj
Speaker 1: in India, where they had servants galore and were treated
Speaker 1: like lords. But essentially it all seemed to work. She
Speaker 1: begins her recollections talking about a panther's footprints in the garden. Now,
Speaker 1: what I think is remarkable about this is if you
Speaker 1: listen to it, Yeah, there's an interview going on, but
Speaker 1: it's not a really official one. It's almost like somebody
Speaker 1: as an afterthought just switched on a cassette recorder to
Speaker 1: listen to the ramblings of this elegant lady. And you'll
Speaker 1: hear that. It's not a professional interviewer. If anything, he's
Speaker 1: very lax. He's oh yeah, really, uh is that right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: He doesn't push her for information. Rather it flows and
Speaker 1: she imparts it as I said, most eloquently. So it's
Speaker 1: two people having a conversation. We're listening in and it's
Speaker 1: almost like they are oblivious to the recording process. So
Speaker 1: that's what I love about it. It's almost atmospheric, it's historical,
Speaker 1: and we really are just eavesdropping on two people. Olga
Speaker 1: was obviously a remarkable lady in a remarkable time. Now,
Speaker 1: if you bear with it, it's a minute or two
Speaker 1: long thereabouts. I'm going to let the recording play on
Speaker 1: a tiny bit because you'll actually hear her just shuffling about.
Speaker 1: It's very sweet and magical. Listen up, particularly to the
Speaker 1: first few words.
Speaker 7: Do you ever sort of have a recurrence of things
Speaker 7: that happened years and years and years ago, incidents the
Speaker 7: currents or memories memories? Yeah, yeah, I have one vivid
Speaker 7: memory of the panther's footmarks in the garden Phanta. Yes,
Speaker 7: she had some dogs and they show a little way
Speaker 7: beyond ours, and there's always a panther there. What's a
Speaker 7: show a little forest? Yes, a Showow is a horst
Speaker 7: and the stupid things come to one's mind again. I
Speaker 7: suddenly saw somebody connecting some drinking water. We had a spring.
Speaker 7: We had to go down the road to it, and
Speaker 7: he came out of came out of the mountain. And
Speaker 7: you always get the drinking water from there, and of
Speaker 7: course I was always brought up to be very careful
Speaker 7: of water because we had to have a man was
Speaker 7: hired for the entire day to carry water up a
Speaker 7: quarter of a mile up a hill a couple of
Speaker 7: buckets up to my mother's house. We didn't have any
Speaker 7: polar plugs or anything like that in the ship. This
Speaker 7: man was hired and the whole day he spent going
Speaker 7: up and down the quarter of a mile with a
Speaker 7: couple of kerosene tins on the end of the mm hmmm,
Speaker 7: I mean trips the day did he do?
Speaker 4: Oh? I can't tell you.
Speaker 7: Because it was quite steep. And he was known as
Speaker 7: the waterman. And he used to have to come at
Speaker 7: five o'clock in the morning to heat the balls because
Speaker 7: they all had morning balls. Whatever the weather and what
Speaker 7: cold or hot or wet or dry, the man had
Speaker 7: to be there. The baths had to be ready b
Speaker 7: up o'clock. Heated three stones and kerosene two.
Speaker 2: Balls.
Speaker 4: Balls by who.
Speaker 7: Family, my mother, my father. I had to show my
Speaker 7: mother's bath. She had first bath by way into the
Speaker 7: slick stark water. H huh, tin tubs, yeah, and no sanitation.
Speaker 7: We had thunder boxes in the garden. Mm hmm. And
Speaker 7: the person who came twice a day to deal with.
Speaker 2: The leemetery.
Speaker 7: Frankly and sanitary really is a mention of fact. You've
Speaker 7: got a thunder box in the museum exactly like we had,
Speaker 7: and all the bathwater was connected to water the garden.
Speaker 7: What was your father really kind of retired really all the.
Speaker 2: Time that you knew?
Speaker 7: He retired when I was quite young, because he was
Speaker 7: twenty years old. Were older than my mother, she was
Speaker 7: his second wife. Yes, but he was in the army
Speaker 7: when when you were born. Yes, so was he away?
Speaker 7: Well no, we were order secunderabad uh huh. And then
Speaker 7: he retired and then he went up to the hills.
Speaker 7: If they have a vague recollection of a place called
Speaker 7: your Court, which was a very horrible hill station. They
Speaker 7: tried to settle there and they didn't like it, just
Speaker 7: full of Anglo Indians and nothing else, And so they
Speaker 7: eventually went to the new Preas. And I remember playing
Speaker 7: on the hilltop where they built some Luke's church and
Speaker 7: there were no street lights in Koto Kay had a
Speaker 7: torch and I remember seeing the panther's eyes on the bank.
Speaker 7: It used to squat there waiting in case the dogs
Speaker 7: came out.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 7: The dogs always had to be taken out on a
Speaker 7: lead after dark. I always remember seeing a panther come
Speaker 7: out on the rock. I had some friends who lived
Speaker 7: about two three miles out and I used to go
Speaker 7: after to lunch and go and visit them. And they
Speaker 7: had this house and there was a rock and four
Speaker 7: the top. This panther. He was always to come out
Speaker 7: off the rock and just sport itself like a cat,
Speaker 7: rolling over and licking itself. And I always remember that
Speaker 7: is to go and watch it or with a number
Speaker 7: of miles I walked in those days, and I mean
Speaker 7: it was perfectly safe. I was able to go out
Speaker 7: by myself. The Indians wouldn't dare to do anything. In fact,
Speaker 7: they sort of would duped you. And I remember when
Speaker 7: my father was alive. You always used to go out
Speaker 7: with a gun in the evening, and I sometimes I
Speaker 7: went with him. It went out with the jungles. We
Speaker 7: sat behind the go of bush and waited for the
Speaker 7: game to come out. Dear used to come out and graze,
Speaker 7: and you were used to take a gun with him,
Speaker 7: but he never shot me. You used to watch a
Speaker 7: few while painting things.
Speaker 5: What's it to you?
Speaker 7: What did you die of your father? Was a small
Speaker 7: age or a heart attack? Something I think? Um hmmm
Speaker 7: mm hmmm mm hmm. Eighty eighty three, eighty three, eighty
Speaker 7: three gracious, maybe it was traditionally young h really gracious.
Speaker 7: Was it was he overlord or did he go quite quickly?
Speaker 7: I think it was for about a week or something
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 2: Mhm h yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What a wonderfully sweet, elderly classic British lady of her times.
Speaker 1: Rest in peace, Alga. I hope you are with your
Speaker 1: dear papa now enjoying all the good Lord has to
Speaker 1: give you. That's it on Scary Era for myself. Mark
Speaker 1: Manningtz goodbye. Do get in touch, of course Paranormal Ireland
Speaker 1: at ProtonMail dot com. I'd like to thank all our
Speaker 1: contributors to the show. You are the guys that make
Speaker 1: it happen right here. Take care because I care.