• The Ghost of Barnalyra Wood

 

A ghost story that originates in County Mayo.

 

Most of the woods that once covered Barnalyra have mostly disappeared and those that are left are either stunted, twisted, or commercially useless. They stand there for the entire world looking like spectres guarding both the past and the locality of this lonely spot five miles outside Swinford in County Mayo. It seems the perfect setting for a ghost story and what follows is one such story, called simply,

The Ghost of Barnalyra Wood.

Over two hundred years ago a poor woodsman and his wife lived in the woods. Their cottage was located in a clearing on what was once the main road from Sligo to Galway. It was also the route used by the Bianconi mail coach and even though the cottage was small the couple kept a room spare to rent out to passing travellers as money was very hard to come by

The woodsman and his wife had a daughter she was an only child who grew up to be a truly beautiful girl who was the main attraction at every dance that was held at the local crossroads. The only problem was the woodsman and his wife had no money to put towards a dowry if the daughter met a suitable young man. Life was cruel.

This became an obsession for the girl’s parents as they were worried that she would end up marrying some poor shepherd and spend her life in poverty. One fine summer evening fortune seemed to smile upon them as there was a knock on the door of their little cottage.

It was a passing stranger who asked for a meal and if possible a bed for the night and he promised to pay well. He explained that he had been at sea for some years and having left his ship at Sligo he was on the way to pay a surprise visit to his parents in south Mayo. The woodsman and his wife gladly agreed to his request.  The sailor said that as he was feeling very tired and his feet were aching from his long walk he would like to be shown to his room. The couple pointed out the little room that they had for rent.

Sometime later the woodsman looked through a crack in the door and saw his visitor counting a pile of golden coins, he went into the kitchen and told his wife what he had seen. They decided that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for, This gold would provide the dowry for their daughter so she would be able to marry someone of substance and she would have a better life than they had been able to provide for her. They decided to send the daughter to stay overnight with her aunty who lived a mile away and when night fell they silently entered the room of the sailor and killed him as he slept.

They buried his body in the nearby wood and just to be sure that he would never be identified they chopped off his head and buried that in the nearby Curragh Bui Bog. However, within a few days stories began to circulate about a headless man seen on the road by Barnalyra wood after nightfall. At first only a few people claimed to have seen the headless ghost but over time more and more people admitted to having seen it. Even though the ghost was headless it was heard to scream and it became known as The Screamer.

As the story began to spread the drivers of the Bianconi coach began to stay clear of Barnalyra wood only travelling through it during daylight and never at night when darkness fell and the only other source of income open to the woodsman and his wife began to dry up. According to legend, the woodsman and his wife met untimely deaths. The woodsman was killed by a tree he was cutting down and his wife’s body was found in the stream that flows parallel with the road through the wood. It was about a year after her husband’s death, they say there was a flood and she must have fell into the stream that had become a raging river.

It is said that she told the terrible secret of the sailor’s murder to her daughter sometime before her watery death and that her daughter lost her mind with the guilt of it. She slowly pined away and died a short time after her mother. As for the sailor, well if you’re walking through Barnalyra wood and it starts to get dark, walk a little faster.