An Evil Presence

I stand at the edge of the riverbank where the ground is just becoming damp. Across the Blackwater River are the ruins of an old castle or watchtower. Covered in greenery and crumbled down, they represent a past that I’ve yet to understand. The building was probably built by the English, and would represent I don’t know what to the Irish. I see the ruins the first week I’m in this part of Ireland. Of course, I want to visit them.

When I ask, I find out that the only bridge across the Blackwater is the main bridge into Youghal. To the castle and back again would be a 7+ mile trip. I put it on my To Do list and wait for a day when I have hours of free time and the right kind of weather.

That day comes.

I pack my camera, water, and snacks, put on a hi-vis vest, double knot my shoes, and head out.  

At the crossroads, a lady offers me a ride to the far side of the bridge. I take it. She’s saved me 1.25 miles of walking.

Exhilarated by that, I make my way down the narrow lane, overshadowed on either side by trees, listening for the sound of approaching cars. As I go, I walk on the side of the road that makes me most visible to both sides of traffic (which is more than you’d think for this road), weaving back and forth as the path curves. I cram myself against the hedges when a car passes by. There really isn’t all that much room. The river is off to my right.

I walk on and on.

Perhaps because I’d been reading some grim stories earlier in the day, perhaps because I’d read that this castle and its church have had reports of ghostly hauntings, perhaps for the shadows the overarching trees cast down on me, an uneasiness presses in on me, subtle and dark.

A car speeds by. It’s a silver, sleek, and rich looking car. The soft beat of some indistinct music reaches me like a light breeze.  

I wouldn’t take a ride in that car, I think. And then I wonder why. What is it that makes one car okay to get in, but not another? Well, it’s gone anyway. And I’m almost to my destination.

Heading toward the lane in, I pass the small, grassy carpark put in place by the owner of the church’s land so that visitors can access both it and Molana Abbey (which I didn’t know about until I read the sign at the parking lot).

There’s a car parked there. It looks like the one that had speed by me not so long ago and I’m suddenly plagued with suspicion. Is the driver waiting for me? Have I managed to come into being in the wrong place at the wrong time? The road behind me seems too quiet. This place seems too remote. I do not want to be murdered today. I’m just not in the mood.

For one moment, I think about walking on, but that’s silly. For here I am, I’ve arrived.

Even so, I glance over my shoulder a few times as I walk down the recently cut grass lane to the church. I am not being followed. Still. I’m wary. But I’m also not very pleased with my own distrust. It’s got to be a general grouchiness I’m feeling, probably due to staying up too late the night before, rather than some internal warning instinct. Here’s to hoping.

Stepping into the graveyard with the tilted headstones and worn off names, I make my way to the church. It’s not all that old, dating from the early 1800s. It was built on the site of another ruined church and fell out of use not too terribly long afterwards. The windows have been half bricked up and, at first, I think there is no way in. I go around the perimeter and take my pictures. Then I reach the far end and there is an open doorway. Inside, the walls are touched by ivy, the facades crumbled to reveal the brickwork beneath the plaster, the ground is overgrown with nettles, infantile trees, and shrubs with grand aspirations.    

Stepping over pieces of broken grey slate, I peer up into the bell tower. The wood has rotted and worn away. The upper interior sides of the tower are slimed with green. All that’s left of the bell is the metal wheel which was once used to turn and ring the bell by power of a pulled rope. I forget about the driver and the car. I mean, this is a bell tower. I have a thing for bells and bell towers. Still, there’s a lingering air that’s not quite peaceful. Is it the ghosts?

I’d done a little research before setting off on my adventure, stumbling upon a paranormal data base which reported activity around Templemichael Castle and Church as a Presence of the Haunting Manifestation Type. In the Additional Comments section it said that there are “several unconfirmed stories [that] speak of this location being haunted, but no one can say for sure by whom or what.”*

Well geez.

Other sites tell stories of horses balking at the entrance to the site, of a curse placed on the family who lived in the nearby estate for not helping a woman with her sick child during the Irish Famine—the members of that family are said to have died, one after the other, in mysterious circumstances and often on the 13^th of the month. Many of them are buried in this very graveyard. Another woman, it is reported, saw the figure of a monk and sensed in him an evil presence. Other reported sightings are of large black dogs and ropes that appeared across the road to the panic of drivers and cyclists only to disappear before being touched.

I don’t know that I believe in phantasmal, evil presences. In any event, I don’t see any monks. I don’t see any big, black dogs. I didn’t encounter a rope across the road. But as I walk through the graveyard, noting the cracked open lids of the above-ground coffins, I can’t help but think of vampires.

Facing the church, I sit on a closed tomb (saying politely that I don’t mean any disrespect as I do so) and eat an apple. It is daylight after all. Besides, it’s not the supernatural or paranormal that disquiet me. I don’t often feel unsafe. And it’s not fun when I do. I don’t like having to think of what I’d do if someone tried to attack me here. Would I be able to use my camera as a bludgeon? Would that knock an aggressor out or just enrage them? What kind of force does it take to knock a person out anyway? Would I be able to run with a dodgy knee? Would I have the skill to choke someone out (I did learn this in Judo) if they got hold of me, and then get away?

Maybe the evil presence is the dark side of humanity.

Fear is a strange thing. Disquiet a worrisome friend.

Nevertheless, the church is before me, the sun is warming my face, the ruined castle is at my back.

I turn and look over my shoulder. The castle; the thing I’d first seen from the other side of the river so long ago. Half-eaten apple in hand, I remember that I’d read that it was built by the Knights Templar (and presumably the previous church was as well). I have vague ideas that somehow the Knights are related to the Crusades and a quest for the Holy Grail, but that could be the fault of Hollywood. I’m sure it’s not a good idea to base my history off of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Anyway.

I find out, later (thanks, Al Gore, for the internet), that the Knights Templar were a militarized monastic order. They were apparently also quite good with money and loaned large sums to more than one royal personage. This, in fact, led to their downfall. For when the King of France called Philip the Fair (which I’m inclined to think references his skin tone and hair color rather than his sense of equity) realized he couldn’t pay back his debt he decided to eradicate the entire order.

 

Consequently, there followed tortures, false accusations, forced confessions, and executions.       

The Irish Knights Templar fared slightly better than their brethren in other countries for they were not tortured and executed with the same ferocity. This might have been only due to the fact that it was slightly harder to get to them. Anyway, hard to reach or not, the Irish Templars were imprisoned for a year in Dublin. And then the Templars as a whole met their Order’s end around 1312 or so.

I finish up my apple (pack out what you pack in especially on haunted grounds) and turn around to stare at the ivy-clad ruined tower. I don’t know if these Knights Templars lived here in peace and harmony, if there were battles and defensive measures, if there was bloodshed or brotherhood. I don’t know what might have happened here to have caused an evil-presenced monk to remain after death.

It’s the stuff of stories.

Putting the spirits behind me, I head down toward the river and sit awhile watching the birds and the quick flowing water. Just across from me is the bank where I had stood six weeks or so ago and had seen the ruins for the first time. It is peaceful here. Whatever haunts, does not come this far.

Eventually, I stand up, do a final exploration of the church, and then start my walk back home.

The further I get from the castle and church, the easier I feel. And though I wouldn’t mind a bit of a hitch to get me closer and faster to home (though still not from that silver car), I don’t get one. And that’s okay.

 

* https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/ireland/waterford.php