Of the many tales and yarns I have been told of late, there are a couple, incredibly grizzly incidentally, that have stood out among the rest.  These specific tales stand on their own as they recount incidents, not the unusual activity of an inexplicable nature. So, the recounting of events with a historic background to the area, in this case Moora, I have to be somewhat tactful in my retelling as there maybe family member’s in the area that quite possibly not only recollect it, but may have made it a family secret or tragic mystery.  Adding to that, as I received this as an oral history which may have blurred in the passing of years, decades, and in this case, millennia, the story has quite possibly changed in the details.  Keeping that in mind, I will not divulge the names of those associated to the gruesome affair; the locality of the crime and ensuing issues remains approximately accurate.  Please keep in mind, that this is a story I have been told, not an event that I have researched.

 

It is prior to the Great War.

Sweat, heat, fire, muscle, and iron are the staple of every blacksmiths shed, shop, and forge the world over.  One of Moora’s own stands on the eastern side of Lenane St. It is a family affair, a couple of brothers now running it; of the two, one has recently been offended by a local identity.  He is less than happy.  

 

Dust, flies and heat cake her. Confusion in its infancy races toward breath stopping maturity in seconds. Realisation at the direness of her predicament, and her naivety that placed her here, the fact that he lured her here, is worth less than the dust on her dark bare feet.

 

Raped, beaten, eventually murdered; she is approximately 13 years old.  A recently erected Church stands within earshot and not more than 250 yards east north east of her; one day a school will rise from the dust to its west, directly across the road from it. 

 

Guilt riddled, remorse filled, fearing judgement of the law and the reciprocity of family, Mr. G, the blacksmith, admits the crime to his brother; a short time later taking his own life, and is found at the end of a rope.  Coincidentally, locals nicknamed Lenane St. ‘Slaughter Road’ soon after.

 

Time moves, years pass, and the blacksmith is a thing of  memory. The forge removed, the ground levelled, and houses replace its sheds and yards; a house built over the blacksmiths’ ages such that it replaced by another. It is here that we reach a place in time roughly a decade ago, Lenane St. long since having shed its gruesome unofficial title.

 

Those that dwell in the house on the site of the murder and suicide had been experiencing odd and uncomfortable sensations for quite a while. Places of cold occurring in different parts of the house; utensils and appliances are moved around, and lights are turned on or off by unseen hands. Worse, the behaviour of the occupants changes for no apparent reason, but it is always for the worst, and has been the norm as far as living memory tells.  A mothers child falls from grace, slipping into a lifestyle of drugs and crime.  Doctors are seen, judges fronted, yet nothing works in settling the teen.  Eventually, all avenues exhausted, it is the house and the negative energy within that falls under scrutiny’s eye. At her wits end, the mother makes a phone call, a priest is brought in and the house examined, leading him to perform various religious acts, rights and blessings. Yet, regardless of his ministrations, the house is on sold once more, new tenants are installed and the cycle repeats again, and again, and again. Violence, drugs, crime………….poverty.

 

Tragically the body of the girl has never been found, she whose ghost is oft seen, down on Slaughter Road.  

 

Click the picture as per routine, ‘Everything’s turning to white’, Paul Kelly, follows.

 

 

N.

 

 

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