In September of 2005, I was lucky enough to take my dream trip to Ireland with my daughter, Brie. It was everything and more than I ever expected. Ireland is a magical place where medieval stone round towers dot pastures that are full of grazing sheep. Castle ruins are everywhere and carpets of purple heather make the hills resemble patchwork quilts. It isn’t hard to imagine leprechauns and fairies darting between standing stones or ghostly knights standing guard over ancient forts. If the breathtaking land itself wasn’t enough, the welcome of the Irish people was warm and genuine. Cead Mile Failte! (Gaelic for 'One Hundred Thousand Welcomes')                 

 Our accommodations included several locations that were reported to be haunted. The first was Cabra Castle. Cabra Castle dates back to 1760 and has a very rich and intriguing history. It sits on 88 acres and is located in County Cavan, north of Dublin. After hearing the many tales told of its resident ghosts, we were very anxious to experience them for ourselves!  We knew that one of the castle ghost stories centered on a young servant girl, Sarah, who supposedly became pregnant and lost her life and that of her baby near the stable buildings where she lived.  As luck would have it, our room was in the renovated stable and was named for her.  Each section of the building had four rooms – two up and two down.

Two women we met on our tour happened to be staying in the room across from ours on the second floor. We all went to dinner that night in the castle where we enjoyed an excellent meal.  On our way, we met Oscar – the resident Irish wolfhound who was a big as a pony but very sweet. After dinner, we were ready to call it a night. It had been a long busy day and the cold that I had picked up on the tour was much worse that night. We had hoped to stay awake and keep vigil but the long day took its toll and we both fell asleep. I did have my video camera set up so I was hoping to have caught something on tape.

The next morning we met for breakfast back at the castle. Our friends across the hall – admittedly skeptical on the whole ghost thing- apparently had a much more eventful night than we. Both were awakened during the night by the sound of horses below. One woman swears to this day that she heard a baby crying close by. She still refused to believe that the sounds were in any way paranormal and said “I bet the hotel has the sounds piped in to convince guests that the ghosts are real.” How ironic that we were looking for evidence of a ghostly presence and missed it all. 

The video had nothing unusual on it.  The only thing we can do is to go back some day and be a little more prepared to do some serious ghost hunting.  In spite of that, the castle and the surrounding countryside are idyllic and the experience alone of staying in the castle and enjoying the magic of Irish hospitality made it an incredible experience.