Phantom footsteps in Ireland

ALAN MURDIE enjoys spooky stories of fairy-haunted Ireland from two very different sources

At first blush Professor Ronald Hutton and long-gone ghost hunter Elliott O’Donnell (1873-1965) who died 60 years ago this April would appear to have little in common. One is a distinguished living historian renowned for his scholarly volumes on ancient and modern paganism, while the other is a long deceased and largely forgotten ghost chaser, notorious as a peddler of incredible spooky yarns churned out in popular books from the Edwardian era to the 1950s. Yet they do share one thing: both report as young men undergoing unnerving personal experiences of hearing mysterious footsteps on isolated Irish roads reputedly haunted by fairies. Let’s begin with O’Donnell’s encounter. This occurred around 1892, as regaled in his book Twenty Years’ Experience as a Ghost Hunter (1917). After a series of failed starts…

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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 456

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