The Galway Amityville

From: l. gallagher ()
Story type: Ghost
Location: Galway
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Tue Feb 20 2007

The Galway Amityville

We had been living in our home in Corrib Park, Galway for over 25 years and it had been a normal happy family home. In October 1997, when we brought our daughter Martha and her new baby Sarah Louise home from hospital, we expected a few sleepless nights. But, we weren’t prepared for the horrors that awaited us!

Sarah Louise had been home from the hospital for less than a week when we first started hearing footsteps upstairs. At first I put it down to one of the family doing it and not answering when I called, but when it continued every night at around 7pm, and we would all be watching T.V. we started to wonder. I didn’t believe in things like this as being supernatural and thought there must be a logical explanation.

Two weeks after the footsteps started, my son Michael, came rushing in looking very pale, “Dad you won’t believe what I’ve just seen! There was a little girl standing on the landing half way up the stairs.” After I calmed him down he continued, “she looked about 12 and she was wearing a straw hat.” We both went back out into the hall there was no sight of the girl. The baby’s feeding bottles started to disappear around the same time, every time Martha put one down in the bedroom and went to do something else, she would return to find them gone.

The first week of November, saw things really start to happen. We were all having dinner in the kitchen when we heard a lot of crashing and banging coming from the bathroom. When we eventually got the courage to investigate, Michael and myself went upstairs. I went in first and to my disbelief called Michael. “Look at this!” I cried, “All the shampoo bottle tops are gone!” “No they’re not Dad, they’re in the bath” Michael pointed to the middle of the bath and there was a perfect pyramid of all the missing bottle tops.

A couple of days later, Michael was in his room saying the Rosary, when he let out a piercing yell, “Dad help me!” I rushed upstairs and flinging open his bedroom door was faced with Michael cowering under his bed covers. “What happened son?” I asked. “Dad, This really bright light, like about five thousand candles, just appeared and started whizzing around the room really fast. It was coming closer to me so I hid.” It really put the wind up him and took him a long time to calm down. Things just got really bad after that. The light was a regular occurrence and could be seen all over the house. Crashes, bangs and the footsteps were getting more regular.

Our dog Bundy would bark at things and be very uneasy around Sarah Louise, and the child herself would often jump out of your arms and cry hysterically for no reason. We even took her to the doctors convinced that she had some kind of serious disease!

We started to know when things would happen, the place would get really cold and then some sort of activity would follow. We even had to leave the house at this point, as it was getting fairly frightening. One night we had left the house in a hurry and forgot to bring poor Bundy with us. She was out in the garden and the neighbours son’ offered to go and feed her. He got over the fence into the garden with the tin of food, it was just getting dark, and as he went towards the house to get Bundy’s bowl he saw a ball of light flying around the kitchen. He watched it for a few seconds before taking flight.

We were all starting to suffer from lack of sleep at this stage, and I had to give up my job as a bus driver because I was so exhausted all the time. My wife was just about holding things together and so was Michael. Martha was the only one who managed to stay calm, but that changed in the following January.

She was alone in the house, as we had gone out for the evening, when we returned, at around 11pm, we were met by a terrified Martha with Sarah Louise fully clothed in her pram. “ I’m not staying in this house anymore!” she sobbed. My wife Jackie took her into the sitting room and tried to coax an explanation from her, after a few minutes she told us what happened. “I had just laid Sarah Louise down in the cot and I went downstairs to get her a bottle. She started screaming like she was in pain. When I went back upstairs the screaming was really loud, and, when I tried to go into the room the door slammed shut on its own. I couldn’t get in. I tried pushing it, I even took a run at it but I couldn’t get it open, and she was still screaming! I ran next door and got Mike. He came back in with me and when he went upstairs it was really quiet, I was so scared, I thought something bad had happened to the baby. He called me up, the bedroom door was open, and she was in the cot fast asleep. He said the door opened first time without any problem. After he went I dressed her and put her in the pram in case anything else happened.” Jackie asked her what time this all happened, she told us around 8pm, just after we had left the house.

Needless to say we stopped sleeping in the house. Our wonderful neighbours put us up in their sitting room every night. All five of us would huddle together fully clothed, baby in her pram, just in case we had to make a run for it.

I went to the local council to see if they would re-house us. When they heard the story they just laughed and thought we were mad, and besides there was a five yr waiting list.

Finally, we decided to ask our local priest for help. His first reaction was not too helpful. ”Take the Dirty books out of the house “ he said “and it will stop.” Michael was with me and he had to restrain me from doing something I would regret. Eventually the Priest agreed to perform a mass in the house. Between the 5th and 26th of February we had six priests in all come to the house every day to perform a blessing.

Instead of helping it just made things worse. The noises and lights got stronger and more frequent. Then a couple of things started happening in the baby’s bedroom. One evening I heard the music box playing in Sarah Louise’ room, “Did any of you just wind that music box?” I shouted to no one in particular. “No” came the reply from everyone. “Are you sure, because it’s still playing up there,” I shouted back. Getting up, I went out to listen for anyone upstairs playing a prank. I met Michael, and we both ventured up the stairs. He went ahead, going into the baby’s room first “Oh Jesus!” he exclaimed and then pointed to the ground beside the bed. All the baby’s toys had been placed in a ring on the floor. “It looks like a tea party” I said to him and then called the other members of the family to take a look. “Okay, who did it?” I asked, they had all been downstairs like myself. Over the next few weeks these same things happened and became a lot more frequent.

So distressed at this point, I feared for my family and decided to contact the local radio station to see if there was anyone who could help us. I was interviewed on the 10th of March and things just went crazy. Papers, T.V. and radio stations from all over the world wanted to interview us. People would come from all over to see the house. It was after being on the news that we were contacted by a Medium, who had seen us on the news. She said she could cleanse the house and rid us of the spirit. You can’t imagine the relief when she arrived on the 23rd of May.

The minute she came in she asked us to leave her alone to get a feel for the energy in the house. She was drawn to the sitting room and told us that she had seen a vision of a young nun giving birth to a baby. There were two men present, she sensed that one was the girls’ father and the other a man of the church dressed in red flowing robes. When the child was born, the girls’ father took it from her and smothered it. He then dug a grave in the earth floor and buried it. The other man then handed him some coins and left.

She thought that the spirit was that of the child and it had become jealous of Sarah Louise. She said that she could help the spirit child to leave earth and go to the spirit realm by performing a cleansing ceremony, but Sarah Louise should not be present in the house.

I volunteered to take Sarah Louise out and as soon as we left the house she started to cry inconsolably. The cleansing took place in Martha’s bedroom with all the other family members present.

Jackie takes up the story; The Medium took us all to Martha’s room and got Michael and myself to join hands with her. She seated Martha in the middle of the circle on a chair. She asked for us to be surrounded by the white light of protection and then began. She told us to concentrate as she attempted to contact the Spirit of the dead baby. We all felt a little uneasy at this point, but she assured us everything would be OK.

After she managed to communicate with the baby she asked Martha to imagine she was cradling the Spirit baby in her arms. As she continued we all experienced visions of the spirit baby rising up in the air and then disappearing. The atmosphere in the room had been quite heavy and oppressive, this changed as soon as the baby disappeared. The Medium then left the room and placed crystals in different places all over the house. She burnt incense and scattered a mixture of salt and herbs at the four corners of the house. She didn’t promise that we would have no more trouble with the spirit but did feel that the house was clear.

John continues; Sarah Louise kept crying until we returned to the house a couple of hours later. The Medium told me that this was because the Spirit baby had been her playmate and she knew he would be gone soon.

Thankfully the cleansing seemed to work and things have stopped. We still get the odd crash or bang but that’s about it.

Sarah Louise, now 10, still remembers “the man in the light bulb” that used to take her toys, even though this all happened from she was a week to eight months old. We often tease her and ask “Did the man have wings like an Angel?” Her reply is “Grandad, don’t be stupid he was in a light bulb that floated around”

After the cleansing took place, people would come to us, to see if we could help them with their “haunted homes”, so I decided to learn how to cleanse houses myself. I do it on a regular basis for people and have no fear of entering their homes, but I’m still a little scared of being alone in my own house.
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PS This has been made into a documentary on Discovery channel and will be aired later this year (2007).