Belfast Ghost Guide
What you are about to read in the following pages is a collection of ghost stories from all over the city of Belfast. There is no doubt that there are going to be many readers who will completely dismiss them as nonsense, but this is not a reflection on this publication but instead is part of the long standing debate on ghosts in general.
I for one remain ‘sitting on the fence’ because I have never seen a ghost so I do not know if they exist but then again I have never seen the wind yet I know that it is there. Ghost stories are fascinating and whenever the tales are about our own city then we cannot fail to take notice. Most of these stories are from the Victorian era when such tales were rife. At the beginning of each story in this publication a map has been printed to show where the story is based. These maps are from the time when the story was first told and these alone give a spectacular insight on how the city of Belfast once looked. Needless to say all the maps have changed dramatically but most of the street names remain the same.
Over the past seven years the Glenravel Local History Project have collected hundreds of ghost stories from all over Belfast. What we do when we get a story is check it out and by this we certainly don’t mean staying all night in a completely dodgy house. As the following pages will show most ghost stories are based on a tragedy so we would check historical records to see if such a tragedy occurred. If it did not then the story is false and can be completely dismissed. For those which are not based on a tragic event we would generally check to see if the individuals and places concerned existed. The following events really did occur and the people connected with them did exist. The only section which we can not confirm is the sightings – no one can!