The Cookstown Ghost of Old Town Hill
Introduction
Cookstown is the fourth largest town in County Tyrone with a population of 12,546 (2021 census).
The town was founded in the early 1600s and named after Dr Alan Cooke – an English ecclesiastical lawyer who leased the townlands in the area from the Archbishop of Armagh.
A number of ghosts have been reported in this locality – often described as Northern Ireland’s most haunted town. This is the story of the Ghost of Old Town Hill which attracted huge public interest in November 1874.
County Tyrone & Cookstown
The Statistical Survey of County Tyrone 1802, by John McEvoy presents observations on County Tyrone at the start of the century. A few are highlighted below:
- Based on on findings in Doctor Beaufort’s Memoir, the number of houses is assumed to be in excess of 28,000. With an average of 6 occupants per house “the whole of the inhabitants may be set down at 172,224 – a great population indeed”.
- “It is rare to find more industrious people, than those of this county generally are”.
- “Danish forts and Druids’ altars are very numerous”
- “The extreme dearth of food, in part of the year 1799, and the whole of years 1800 and 1801, put a total stop to the distilling of spirits, an, in a great measure, to brewing”. It is noted that an improvement is anticipated with a number of new breweries planned.
- In much of the county, children spend the greater part of the year in herding cattle – “a wretched habit” resulting from the poor system of enclosing the fields.
- Cookstown is listed among the principal markets where oatmeal and potatoes are the chief articles of food.
- It is noted that Mr Stewart established a school in Cookstown some time before this survey
- Of 124 mills in Tyrone in 1800, Cookstown is noted to have “the best mill in the county for manufacturing oatmeal which, with very little expense, might answer for a flour mill“
- Limestone is in great abundance around Cookstown
A journalist travelling to Cookstown in 1874 to report on the ghost sums up the town succinctly:
With a strong preference to glean my “copy” from the genuine subject or source… I went to Cookstown… A very nice-looking town it is, even viewed through all the disadvantages of a mizzling November evening., with one wide main street and well-flagged footpaths.
Belfast Newsletter, 5th December 1874
The Allen Family
Mr Allen, a respected elderly man, owned a grocery store on Old Town Hill in Cookstown. Allen, “intelligent and candid in his walk of life, he has gained the the esteem of all who knew him” (Belfast Newsletter 16th November 1874).
His grocery shop was located in a small two-storey property with three windows to the rear and ‘ordinary shop and front windows‘ facing the street. The small yard to the rear of the property was enclosed within 10 foot walls with open fields beyond.
Mr Allen, his wife and three children (two grown up sons and a daughter) lived in the rooms above and to the rear of the grocery shop.
One grandson, aged 22, also lived on the premises and was said “to be a an apt student of the legerdemain“. (Legerdemain is the skilful use of one’s hands when performing conjuring tricks/ deception). This led many to suspect initially that he may have been culpable for the mysterious events that follow but investigation revealed that the occurrences continued unabated, even when he was away working on a farm.
Arrival of the Cookstown Ghost
In the summer of 1873 a number of unexplained occurrences commenced in Mr Allen’s grocery shop – suggestive of a malign influence. Initially considered as vandalism, the events soon escalated to a stage where they were considered difficult to explain, if not supernatural in nature.
Clothing
The initial manifestations of the disturbing behaviour was the destruction of clothing and bed linen. Mr Allen retiring from the shop to the living quarters would find remnants of clothing strewn about.
Coats, trousers, vests, blanket, shawls, similarly destroyed without a shadow of suspicion resting on any person.
Enniskillen Advertiser 26th November 1874
One time a new hat was cut around and found in the street “without the possibility of any person having done it“. On other occasions hats were seen to “fly” around the room.
Once, a coat and boots were locked overnight in a wardrobe to prevent damage. In the morning the coat and boots were retrieved and visibly undamaged. The owner put on one boot but on lifting the other found that that upper part of the boot had been cut away. His coat, left over the back of chair while handling the boots was now missing a sleeve.
The estimated value of the damaged clothing over the following 18 months was estimated to be in the region of £60.
Household clothing was not the only target for mysterious attacks…
Kitchen Mischief
Food bowls placed on the kitchen table were seen to suddenly spin erratically before falling to the floor. A crock of cream on the table span without being handled with the contents spilt over the table.
A filled milk churn, locked in the pantry with the keys in Mr Allen’s possession, was subsequently found to have been overturned, spilling the contents.
Potatoes, placed in a pot over the open kitchen fire to boil, were found in a mashed condition in the coals outside of the pot. Conscious of this event, more care was taken with a second batch of potatoes:
Eleven potatoes are counted into a pot, the lid tied down, and constantly watched; but, behold, when the contents are examined, a few minutes after, only six are to be found.
Enniskillen Advertiser 26th November 1874
Broken Windows
Events took a more serious turn when the windows to the front of the property were smashed – one pane at a time over a number of nights. The breakages were initially blamed on ‘miscreants‘ but subsequently…
“the premises were so closely watched that this idea was dismissed, and especially as the glass was frequently broken under the eyes of the watchers, when it would have been utterly impossible for the perpetrator to escape instant detection.
Enniskillen Advertiser 26th November 1874
Officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary placed men to watch the property but no perpetrator was found.
With the front windows shattered, the window smashing started at the rear of the property and continued until only the sashes remained. On occasions stones were found at the scene of the broken window, though the stones were found on the outside of the window with the broken glass on the inside. On other occasions the stones were on the inside with the broken glass on the outside. Window panes were sometimes shattered with no stones found at the scene.
All the glass at the back of the premises having been repeatedly broken, and every effort at protection failed, one of the windows was barricaded with a shutter to which was affixed a bell in such a position that if the shutter were moved, the bell must ring.
Men were also placed at each window with loaded guns so it was impossible for any individual to approach without being at once observed and in their power.
Notwithstanding this, the shutter was taken down, the bell simply noting the fact when it was accomplished and that in such a gentle, tinkling monotone as to be almost unheard
Belfast Newsletter 16th November 1874
The Rolling Stones
Events took an even stranger turn when sounds could be heard upstairs with all the occupants downstairs. Searches of the top floor rooms revealed no intruder. Things were to get worse…
Subsequently, individual stones started rolling gently down the stairs at different times of the day with no-one upstairs. These varied in size from small paving blocks to one weighing approximately 12 pounds.
An old lady from the town suggested that she had a plan to prevent these rolling stones. Her proposed solution was to simply throw one of the stones back up the stairs repeating a secret incantation to indicate that the stones were not welcome. Putting this plan into practice, the lady started her charm before reaching to pick up the latest stone. She screamed on finding the stone extremely hot – “not five minutes out of the pit“. This solution was abandoned.
Reaction to the Ghostly Activities
It is said a spirit charmer, when on the premises a few days ago, had an important part of his pants cut away and the back part of one of his boots lopped off in a twinkling
Enniskillen Advertiser 26th November 1874
Public reaction to the malignant actions of the Cookstown Ghost varied between fascination at the ongoing events and the deepest of sympathy for the highly respect grocer and his family in the face of these constant attacks.
Most agreed that the honesty of Mr Allen was impeachable and that every reasonable measure had been tried to identify a human perpetrator – a supernatural entity was the only solution.
Others condemned the growing belief in the ‘Cookstown Ghost’ as tantamount to falling back to the days of superstition of over 100 years ago. The events, they insisted, were the result of clever, merciless vandalism.
The Belfast Newsletter, 19th November 1874, reported an unusual explanation for the Cookstown Ghost:
Some think it is not a ghost at all but a conglomeration of atoms which became unmanageable in the hands of Dr Tyndall during some experiment in Belfast.
Belfast Newsletter, 19th November 1874
(John Tyndall was an Irish Physicist and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science).
The Enniskillen Advertiser offered a more imaginative solution on 26th November 1874, namely
Now that the matter is fairly made public, is it possible some person may be able to advise us how to exorcise the Cookstown Ghost as we are honestly tired of its pranks and would willingly make a present of it to Moneymore or any other neighbouring town which feels inclined for the attention of such a visitor.
Enniskillen Advertiser 26th November 1874
The Cookstown Ghost – Conclusion
Stories of the Cookstown Ghost reached a peak around November/ December 1874 with the details of the haunting shared nationally to an enthralled public. However the Belfast Newsletter proved prescient in reporting on some failings of a haunting that appeared to have potential to be “a fairly exciting Christmas Story“:
(The Christmas story) would abound with mystery and weirdness and incomprehensibleness. The story, however, would lack the orthodox moral; it would be wanting in an end; the inexplicable would remain unexplained, for the simple reason that at present it admits not of solution.
The stranger has not yet made himself visible to any eye but his presence is too obtrusively indicated by uncanny acts to be either unnoticed or uncared for… the absolute identity of the unseen is, therefore, a matter of grave conjecture, public opinion being strongly divided as to whether he is a ghost, a spirit or simply an atom of depraved humanity indulging in a fanciful and certainly much-to-be condemned form of amusement.
Belfast Newsletter 16th November 1874
The Newsletter bemoaned this story’s lack of the staple ingredients of traditional ghost stories. There may be unexplained inexplicable ‘hauntings but there are no signs of the expected spectral, faintly illuminated figure responsible for that haunting, no motive or reason for it and ultimately no moral to the story.
The papers verdict seem to be strangely prophetic. Ultimately the lack of a visible spirit responsible for the haunting, the lack of motive or ‘lessons learned’ may have been a factor in the disappearance of the ghost from our newspapers. The lack of new, different incidents seemed to reduce attention from the newspapers and the public – a story without motive, moral or conclusion that has been lost in time.
To our knowledge, the newspapers of the day never concluded the tale of Mr Allen and his ghost.
Maybe Old Town Hill still has its ghostly inhabitant.
Previous Ghost Stories
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