School: Tobar Pádraig (roll number 4764)
- Location:
- Patrickswell, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: Anraoi Ó Broin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0527, Page 228
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- XML School: Tobar Pádraig
- XML Page 228
- XML “A Ghost Story”
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- Thomas O'Shea lived in Cloghcloka. It was his custom to come to Patrickswell in the evening, and he would not return home until late at night. One night, as he was going home along the railway line, as was his custom, he was run over by a train and killed.
Some time after this, John Walsh, a neighbour and loon companion of the dead man, was returning home one night, when a man passed him by. A little further on, he met the same man again. He spoke to him, and the man asked John Walsh to come with him and call the parish priest, Father Brown, who at that time lived in the house now occupied by Mr. Fenton at Cloughkeating. John Walsh did so, and Father Brown and this other man had a long conversation. John Walsh and his companion then trend to where he had met this man first. The man then thanked John Walsh and said "I'm alright now, thank God." They then shook hands, and it was then that John Walsh realised that this was was a ghost. John Walsh fell three times before he reached home. Shortly afterwards, he left for Canada, and it is said that he did so on the advice of the parish priest, was he could get no rest if he remained at home.
The ghost was the ghost of Thomas O'Shea, and he returned so that he could right a wrong that had been done by him in the forging of a marriage certificate.
- Informant
- John Fanning
- Gender
- Male
