Ballygally Castle Hotel: The knock at the door isn’t room service, and a last dash across northern Ireland to home

It’s been almost 25 years since I visited the haunted Ballygally Castle Hotel, in Ballygally, Northern Ireland. Often named when listing the most haunted sites in the north, and occasionally at the top of the list, I can vouch for that I think. I experienced the most reported aspect of the haunting, though it had an entirely earthly explanation. I left there thinking it was charming in a dreadful sort of way, but didn’t feel particularly haunted. Realization was to came later. For it’s still the only place I’ve been where the haunting played out through technology.

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The ghosts of northern Ireland prove elusive

I woke up not knowing where I was. That’s not completely unusual when I’m traveling, but the fact that I wasn’t hungover made it unique. 

It was a nondescript hotel room, curtains pulled closed. After the perfunctory pee, I wandered back into the room, pulled the curtains and there was the ocean. Also not a typical site from my bedroom windows. It came back to me. I was in Portrush, northern Ireland. I had been in the northwest the past couple weeks or so, over in Donegal. In Donegal, even the occasional hotels I stayed in felt more like bedrooms. So to wake up here was a shock. I could be in Memphis, Tennessee. There was a TV even. 

I remembered the walk from the car to the hotel the night before was tense, again similar to Memphis. After being in villages for half a month I got out of the car and kicked an empty bottle of ale in the midst of a puddle of vomit. The vomiteer sat in the stoop of a doorway, head down, dribbling from the lip. His accomplice was trying to encourage him to his feet, looking frantically about for cops, while trying to stay on his feet himself. 

What few people walked the streets seemed to have been drinking most of the night, and were now out looking for a fight. I just wanted the room. The breeze coming off the ocean was stiff. I couldn’t see it, nothing but darkness out there, but you could hear it, feel it and smell it. It felt ominous and foreboding.

The hotel had bars on the windows for late checkins. No doubt this was a happening place in the summer, but by late October things were dead. I don’t think I even went looking for dinner. 

The day before had started at Grianan of Aileach in Donegal, which overlooks Derry and the ocean. I even got a rainbow to brighten the day. 

The drive north was brilliant as well. After a while, the landscape rose up on my right, Binevenagh, which in Irish means “mountain of Fiobhne.”  It’s said that the Vikings turned and ran when the tried to bring their ships to shore here, mistaking the cliffs for a massive castle. Not really a mountain, instead it’s the cliff faces of the Antrim plateau, leading down to the ocean. Atop the cliffs is a modern statue, that of  Manannan Mac Lir, an Irish god of the sea, one of the Tuatha De Danann. 

Along the coast you find Mussenden Temple, which overlooks Downhill Strand. It dates back to 1785, and was originally a private library, based on the Temple of Vesta in the forum in Rome.  Frederick, 4th Earl of Bristol had it built in honor of his niece, who he seems to have been overly fond of. To the point of scandal. 

My timing seems to have been off that day, as I arrived after it was closed, so had to get my photo from the beach. Which also meant I didn’t get to look for the macabre element of the story. It is said that originally there was a pentacle on the floor of the building, and since its removal, a puddle of what appears to be blood forms on the floor, only to recede almost as quickly as it appears. 

Things didn’t go better at Dunluce Castle, the next morning. I was there well after opening time, but there was no opening that day. My ghost tour of Northern Ireland was sinking quickly. 

Perched on a rock 100 feet above the ocean, and separated from the coast by a 20 foot chasm, Dunluce Castle dates from 1200-1600 a.d., and was the site of battles and a wrecked ship from the Spanish Armada. According to legend, in 1639, during a wedding celebration, while a storm raged outside, part of the castle fell into the sea, taking several guests and the entire cooking staff, with the exception of one small boy who huddled in a corner and later escaped to safety. 

Despite all this, Dunluce Castle is probably best known, though not by name as the gatefold photo of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album.

The first ghost story here involved a woman in white, looking out over the sea from the ruins, who disappears when you try to speak to her. Then there’s the ghost of the builder’s daughter, who was being forced to marry against her will. She affected an escape with her true love, meeting at the cave below the castle, only to be dashed against the rocks at the foot of the cliffs below when they tried to flee by boat in a storm. Maeve’s cries of anguish are said to be heard during stormy nights. Along with the screams of those working in the kitchen, who fell to their doom. It’s hard to identify specifics from a person’s scream.

As it was, it wasn’t a wasted visit. I had the place to myself at least, even if I could only look on it from the outside. It’s a small price to pay for solitude. 

From there it’s a short jump to Giant’s Causeway, a bizarre stone formation thrown up from the same volcano that gave birth to Binevenagh mountain. It’s a place steeped in folklore, as you’d expect. If you didn’t know the scientific explanation, the mind would have to come up with an explanation. It’s too bizarre not to. 

From there I cut across the northeastern part of the island, arriving in Carrickfergus Castle. Which also proved to be closed, this time for a wedding. 

In the late eighteenth century, a British soldier fell in love with a local girl. He didn’t know she was also making time with the brother of his commanding officer. When he found out, he dispatched his rival. Unfortunately, as the man lay dying he identified his killer, wrongly. The man he identified look like the guilty party, but was innocent. He was eventually hung, but not before vowing to haunt Carrickfergus for all time. Which he appears to have done. 

He’s not alone, as a young boy and a headless ghost also appear from time to time. I considered trying to sneak in as a wedding guest, but I typically look like hell when I’m traveling. Curiously enough, sometimes just standing around looking liking obviously American can gain you admittance. In Germany, back in the middle ages it seems, I was ushered into a wedding reception simply for the novelty of my nationality. I didn’t understand a word all night, but they did introduce me to Jagermeister, and I got to dance with the bride. 

So instead I made for the car and headed for Ballygally Castle Hotel. 

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The ghosts of the Ballygally Castle Hotel

It was Christmas a number of years back, and an elderly couple had booked a room at the Ballygally Castle Hotel, at the head of Ballygally Bay on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland, a short twenty miles north of Belfast. The hotel and castle sits nearly on the bay itself, and in winter the wind blows hard and cold. When they arrived at the hotel, they were surprised to see various members of the staff preparing for a fancy dress ball, and that night, there was a knock on the door. When the gentleman opened the door, he found standing there a member of the serving staff, with an invitation to the ball. Not having any other plans, they attended and had the most beautiful evening. The hotel staff and other guests were all decked out in period attire, and everyone kept their tongues pressed firmly in their cheek to make the evening as authentic as possible. There are medieval banquets after all, all over Ireland and England, but the couple agreed that this surely must have been one of the finest.

The next morning at breakfast they couldn’t help but thank the lady who was the manager for one of the nicest evenings that they could remember. Which surprised their host to no end, as the ball was not scheduled to take place for another two days.

Upon learning that, perhaps understandably, the couple checked out.

Ballygally Castle dates from 1625, and is built in the style of a French Chateau, with exceedingly high walls five foot thick, including loopholes for firing muskets at the advancing enemy. It’s high corner turrets, dormer windows and steep roof makes for a remarkable and memorable site on the windswept coast. With its back to the sea, it was imperative that it be build solidly, so that it could withstand sieges. In fact, there was once a stream which ran through the castle itself to provide fresh water in such an event.

It was built by a Scotsman by the name of James Shaw, who rented the land from the Earl of Antrim for 24 pounds a year. The Scots have had a long history with the north of Ireland, both as allies and in exchange of labor for seasonal work, and as the Scots coming over as settlers and conquerors at the bequest of the English.

The castle remained in the Shaw family till 1799, when William Shaw sold the estate to Cyril Lord, a carpet tycoon, who extended and renovated the structure, before it was again sold and eventually became a hotel. Today the castle anchors one wing of what is essentially a modern hotel, with banquet rooms, the renowned Garden Restaurant overlooking the castle grounds, a bar and 44 bedrooms.

There are four guest rooms in the castle section of the hotel proper, and those who stay there are thought to share the castle with its most famous resident, Lady Isobel Shaw. 

There are small placards throughout the castle which lead you to the Ghost Room, a top corner turret which overlooks the Irish Sea. It’s cramped, confined and contains only a few sticks of modest furniture – a metal cot-like bed, a cabinet with mirror, a table and a portrait of a rather grim faced woman. There is one window which is quite small, and another one supposes, might be large enough to have suited its macabre purpose one day long ago.

According to legend, James Shaw married the unfortunate Lay Isobel, who was unable to product a male heir, only a single daughter. In anger, Shaw had her imprisoned in the turret, where according to the story she went mad and leapt to her death. Another version tells of henchmen hired by the Scotsman who threw her down the steep stairs which lead to the room. Still another claims that Isobel was having an affair with a sailor, which was discovered by Shaw who in a fit of jealousy, had her imprisoned in the room, which he later tossed her out of. Via the window.

Since that time her spirit is said to haunt the tiny room, sometimes making itself known by the scent of vanilla, sometimes appearing to guests in the castle part of the hotel, looking desperately for her daughter. Guests have been awakened in the night to find her standing in the middle of their room, only to watch her fade away to nothingness.

According the book, The World’s Most Haunted Places, by Jeff Belanger, BBC reporter Kim Lenaghan was recording a piece on Ballygally Castle Hotel for a Halloween segment on the show, Good Morning Ulster. Lanaghan related to Belanger, that she sat with a medium in the Ghost Room. Lenaghan reported that the medium was not in a trance, but she was certainly very focused on what she was doing … The next thing that happened is it started to get a lot warmer. I mean significantly warmer, ”the temperature in the room must’ve gone up by 10 degrees. Then she started talking to someone, literally coinciding with the temperature going up, and a smell came. It didn’t waft in – I mean the smell came straight on almost instantly. It smelled like vanilla, but it wasn’t exactly vanilla. While it was a vanilla-like smell, it was an old, slightly musty smell. Musty vanilla – I know it sounds ridiculous. But that’s what it was.”

According Belanger’s book, “The medium would later explain that the spirit was that of a young woman who was scared and looking for her young daughter. The medium told Lenaghan that “they were keeping her there against her will, and she said there was an older woman who wouldn’t let her out of the room.” During the conversation, this woman continually ran to the window looking for a man named Robert who was out at sea. The spirit didn’t understand why Robert didn’t come back to get her.”

Lenaghan was planning on spending the night in the room, and the medium told her not to be afraid, as the spirit wasn’t angry or malicious, just afraid.

So was Kim.

But she appears to be the consummate reporter, and armed with a flask of coffee, brandy and a tape recorder, she ascended the stairs to the room, settled in and waited. According to Ms. Lenaghan, around 3 a.m. the room started to get warmer again. “I thought: It’s the coffee and the brandy. And then it got even warmer and I thought: No, this isn’t right. And the next thing, the smell came back instantly – that same smell. And it was even stronger than before. The smell was very intense toward my head. Yes, it was a smell, but the weirdest thing of all was it was a smell that almost covered you, like a sheet – it was all pervasive. It was almost like you could feel the smell on your clothes and in your hair and on the bed.”

Seconds later the reporter fled the room, and spent the rest of the night in a room as far from the turret as possible. The next morning the staff took her back to the room, where they reported that several guests had heard knocking during the night, one reported seeing a woman in their room who faded away to nothing, and then showed her, written in the dust of the mirror of the ghost room, the name Kim.

In addition to Lady Isobel, the castle part of the hotel is said to be haunted by the ghosts of one or more children. Guests have reported being woken up by small hands pushing and tugging at them in their sleep, only to wake up and find no one there, hearing only the sound of a laughing child. Most reports consist of knocking at the doors of their room in the night, followed by the laughing of children and the sound of small feet running away down the hall.

Yet another spirit is said to haunt the hotel, that of Madame Nixon, who lived there in the 18th century. After her death, she was reputed to wander the castle still, knocking on doors, and it’s often reported by guests that they hear the rustling of her silk dress passing them in the hallways, invisible and wafting the scent of her perfume.

Ballygally’s ghosts play merry hell with my camera and there is a nocturnal knock at the door

It was a cold and bleak by the time I pulled into the Ballygally Castle Hotel. It was well beyond the tourist season, and I more or less had the place to myself. I took a cold, wet and windy walk along the beach, and the sense I had of the place was one of desolation. Perhaps in the summer months children laugh and play, the sun warms the skin and life and energy abounds. Alone and chilled to the bone however, with only a skeleton crew manning the hotel, it could easily work as a set for a gothic horror film.

I returned to the hotel and visited the ghost room. In truth, it is close in there, and one can only imagine the claustrophobia of being imprisoned in such a tiny space. Even the staircase leading to the room is narrow and confining, obviously meant for people shorter in stature than myself. My room was at the foot of this staircase, at my request. Of course I had asked to book the ghost room itself, which isn’t available. But I suppose should one wish to spend the night in the room, there doesn’t appear to be anyone stopping you from mounting the stairs at night and holding your own vigil.

Which following dinner that evening in the Garden Restaurant, I decided to do. There was only one other couple in the dining room that night, and you could hardly escape the feeling and the memory of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, with its own ghostly children and sense of ghastly isolation. So following dinner I adjourned to the room, and fortified with Guinness and perhaps a dram or two of Irish whiskey, I grabbed my video camera and started towards the staircase which leads to the Ghost Room of Ballygally Castle. 

I switched on the video recorder, put it on night vision and started up the stairs. My disappointment must have shown in my face as the camera beeped at the top of the stairs and I looked down to see the dead battery icon light up, and the camera switch off. I went in anyway, and at night, in near total darkness, the room is indeed creepy. I didn’t have any real interest at that point in sitting there in the dark, so after a few tense moments I went back down the stairs.

Back in the room I went to plug in the camera, and noticed that it fired right up, still on battery power. So once again I started up the stairs, and once again, at the top of the stairs, the camera switched off.

I got the hint, and went back to the room and turned in for the night.

I was soon asleep, and sleeping the sleep of the dead when I awoke to the sound of tapping. It appeared to be coming from my left, the direction of the door. The tapping soon grew louder into a knock, and finally to a banging. The banging started coming closer, passing over me and to the other side of the bed, and then following a moment of unbearable silence, the furnace kicked on. 

As they say, old houses have their own noises. And perhaps the mysterious knocking people hear in the night is nothing but a cantankerous furnace, rather than a restless spirit.

But the next morning, as I prepared to drive toward Belfast and the plane home, I decided to watch the video of the stairs from he night before. The camera was working once more, on battery power alone as I had forgot to plug it in back in the room. 

Sometimes hauntings manifest themselves as an apparition, sometimes as a knock at the door, sometimes as ghostly voices and the laughter of children. All I witnessed was a suspiciously malfunctioning video camera and a noisy furnace, but in the end, that made the night well spent.

Editor’s Note: The bad luck that plagued me the last day continued all the way up to departure. I dropped the backpack off at security and was waiting on the other side when the sirens went off. The next thing I know they’re clearing the terminal as heavily armed soldiers came towards me, accompanied by an official looking person. I’m escorted to the bag check and shown an Xray of my bag. There appears to be three sticks of dynamite, taped together with wires coming out of them. INobody has been close to my bag, I hadn’t left it unaccompanied. I’m not as far as I know a terrorist though sure, I have Republican sympathies though not yet a Republican wife. That came later. 

They’re pushing for answers because in seconds my bag’s going to be taken outside and detonated. One of the security guys, staring along with the rest of us at the image asks, “would you have batteries in your bag?” Ding! I did have C cell batteries, roughly the diameter of dynamite, taped end to end, three up, to save space. They were held together by the camera cables. 

The last looks I received from the Belfast security team seemed to suggest I not return any time soon. I haven’t. 

EPILOGUE: A few years back I received a message from the site, very polite and nice one from a lady who had found it via the Ballygally article. I responded in kind, and without thinking, as I hit send said out loud, to myself, “I’m going to marry her someday.” Which later I did, and makes this the most rewarding article I’ve ever written.