The Maynooth Ghost Room
Ghost/Paranormal
Sunday 19th, September 2021
In Maynooth, Co. Kildare lies the ruins of Fitzgerald Castle close to St. Patrick's College which at one time was the largest seminary in the world. Out in front of the college was a green are that was home to happy and soon sadder times, this area of green was used as a marketplace as well as a site for gallows, over the time of use of the gallows it's said that up to at least 60 people were hung on this site.
There have been reports of ghostly apparitions in the area where the gallows once stood but even with these ghostly sightings there is one other place at St. Patrick's the has been reported to have even stronger ghostly interactions, these occurrences would take place in the 'Ghost Room' in the college itself.
The 'Ghost Room' as it is known can be seen bricked up if you stand between the swimming pool and the power house and then look south towards Rhetoric House. In this room it is reported tha a student from county Limerick committed suicide in 1841. Nineteen years later on the 20th April 1860 another student committed suicide in a similar fashon from this room.
In 1860 on the 23rd of October the president of the college at the time, Doctor Charles Russell, authorised the conversion of room number 2 on the top corridor of Rhetoric House into an oratory of Saint Joseph. The window was blocked up and the wall to the corridor was removed, this left a space that was used for a statue of Saint Joseph.
The vice president of St. Patrick's College, Doctor Daniel McCarthy attended to the young student for three days after the attempted suicide in the infirmary until the paitent passed away. Dr. McCarthy recorded in his journal that the young man admitted being in a deep state of depression leading up to the attempt, the cause of death was ruled as "died of his own hand, being of unsound mind at the time".
A time after these incidents took place another president, Doctor Tomás Ó Fiaich, of St.Patricks looked into the 'Ghost Room'. He found that there were three suicides all with a similar pattern of events.
The bedroom on one side of the oratory was converted into a chapel of meditation in 1977 but the bedrooms on the other side of the oratory remained, From 1978 students stayed in the bedrooms next to the oratory and no odd experiences have since been reported by the occupants of these bedrooms.
** Some details have intentionally been left out of this article.
There have been reports of ghostly apparitions in the area where the gallows once stood but even with these ghostly sightings there is one other place at St. Patrick's the has been reported to have even stronger ghostly interactions, these occurrences would take place in the 'Ghost Room' in the college itself.
The 'Ghost Room' as it is known can be seen bricked up if you stand between the swimming pool and the power house and then look south towards Rhetoric House. In this room it is reported tha a student from county Limerick committed suicide in 1841. Nineteen years later on the 20th April 1860 another student committed suicide in a similar fashon from this room.
In 1860 on the 23rd of October the president of the college at the time, Doctor Charles Russell, authorised the conversion of room number 2 on the top corridor of Rhetoric House into an oratory of Saint Joseph. The window was blocked up and the wall to the corridor was removed, this left a space that was used for a statue of Saint Joseph.
The vice president of St. Patrick's College, Doctor Daniel McCarthy attended to the young student for three days after the attempted suicide in the infirmary until the paitent passed away. Dr. McCarthy recorded in his journal that the young man admitted being in a deep state of depression leading up to the attempt, the cause of death was ruled as "died of his own hand, being of unsound mind at the time".
A time after these incidents took place another president, Doctor Tomás Ó Fiaich, of St.Patricks looked into the 'Ghost Room'. He found that there were three suicides all with a similar pattern of events.
The bedroom on one side of the oratory was converted into a chapel of meditation in 1977 but the bedrooms on the other side of the oratory remained, From 1978 students stayed in the bedrooms next to the oratory and no odd experiences have since been reported by the occupants of these bedrooms.
** Some details have intentionally been left out of this article.
