The Smith’s Ghosts October 24, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This account from 1838 is interesting in combining obituary and folk story. We are in the deep, dark Irish west. Blacksmiths are always slightly tainted figures in traditional societies, muttering charms to the ferrous lumps on their forges.
On Friday, the 7th instant, the remains of Patrick Cormack, a blacksmith, were borne through Nenagh, from Bantess, to be consigned to ‘the narrow dwelling” in Kilmore church-yard. Some months ago Cormack resided in this town, and had a forge in Barrack-street, in which he did deal of business. One night, having sat up some time playing cards with his two assistants, he retired to bed, leaving them to continue their amusement. awaking some time in the night, he looked towards the fire-place, and seeing two men sitting near the fire, whom imagined to be his assistants, he exclaimed, ‘So ye are at it yet; I think it is time for ya to stop’ , words were scarcely out of his mouth, when one the forms slowly arose, and, betiding him a stony and staring look, it said, in a sepulchral tone of voice, ‘If you do not drop them too, you will rue it when it may too late.’ the shadowy form Cormack thought he recognised as the semblance of a cousin of his, named Jeremiah, who was murdered some years ago the neighbourhood of Borrisuleigh. The other form then arose from its sitting posture, and its proportions seemed so gigantic as to fill half the house. Cormack shivered at every limb, and could not take his eyes off them until they melted into thin air, first their legs became indistinct, then their bodies, then up to their necks, and at last their heads. Cormack arose the next morning an altered man—his disposition, which was complexionally gay, became saturnine and morose; even the flutter of a bird would startle him in a fearful manner. He walked about like a being who held companionship with the invisible his energies were cramped, and his spirits seemed awfully depressed by some supernatural agency.
Does the next sentence imply that Cormack was the murderer: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com I don’t think so but…
The unearthly visitant still frequented his hearthstone, and startling are the reports of the dialogues that are rumoured to have taken place between him and the shadow of murdered cousin in order to rid himself of his ghostly intruder, he broke up house and went to live at Bantess, near Cloughjordan. He opened a forge there, but the change of abode brought no change of feeling, for he still continued to the pining victim of the hauntings of the murdered dead. Human nature could not bear any longer its being contact with supernatural companionship, and on Wednesday poor Cormack breathed his last breath. We have seen him borne his long home; his funeral was numerously attended and his death sincerely lamented. (Originally in the Nenagh Guardian reported in The Pilot – Friday 14 September 1838, 3
In Britain in the 1830s stories like this would have been bandied around but only in Ireland would the press trouble to publish them: a magical country.
