Muff banshee

The Muff "Ghost".

It is nearly three weeks now since I first heard of Muff's midnight apparition. In fact, I was invited to go down and investigate it, but I was compelled to decline, because I'm not a psychist, and besides, I've enough to do with people and things in this world without interfering with the comings and goings of the inhabitants of the next. Since then, I heard a lot more about the mysterious visitant, but I refrained from mentioning the matter until now, lest it might interfere with the attendance at Mr. J. P. McIvor's dance in aid of the funds to help the Foyle fisherment to uphold their right to fish in their own territorial waters. One of my informants laughed at this, and remarked that it would take a queer ghost to frighten away the dancers of to-day. He even suggested that the prospect of a ghost hunt would provide an additional attraction. [...]

Back, however, to the visitant. She, or It, was exactly similar to the apparition Coolock in the County Dublin about Christmas time, save that in Muff she was heard, not seen. In Coolock some people saw her - a small, wizzened, old lady in the dress of generations ago, who drove residents almost crazy with the sad, weirdness, of her wail. In Muff there was only the wail, piercing, melancholy, eerie. It started at midnight at the Customs Post and proceeded slowly to the farther end of the village and back again, and all the time nothing was seen. The Civic Guards, as well as other inhabitants, were brought to the door of the barrack by its dreadful, hair-raising, appeal, but could find no one either to help or apprehend.

The cry passed up the centre of the street and down again, but nothing was visible. One gentleman, more daring than his fellows, actually followed it, but received no reward for his pains but its mournful, beseeching cadences. Some asserted it was the bean sidhe, but, as nobody died, that belief was soon discredited. For the past ten days it has ceased to be heard. What the people want to know is - was it the same ghost woman who visited Coolock, if so, why was she not visible in Muff, and why did she skip all the intervening country to renew her lonely wailing in this pretty Border village?

Another question is - where has she gone now? On the last occasion on which she was heard she did not retrace her steps. Did she proceed northwards through Inishowen, and if so, why has she been silent since, and in what place and under what form may she be expected to make her next appearance? I make no attempt to answer any of these questions that have been put to me, because, as I have said, I leave psychic matters to the psychists. I know some people in Muff who are very anxious to carry their investigation further, and would be grateful for information of the next locality in which the mysterious midnight wail is heard. I leave it at that.

Onlooker.

From the Derry Journal, 9th February 1931