Haunted places · Prisons, hospitals and asylums

Crumlin Road Gaol, the prison its ghosts never left

When: since 31 March 1996 date reconstructed from later accounts
Where: Crumlin Road Gaol, 53–55 Crumlin Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Verdict: Legend

Over 150 years, 17 men were hanged in the Belfast jail. Since it closed in 1996, staff and visitors have told of footsteps and shadows on the landings.

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54.61°, -5.94° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

The jail on the Crumlin Road was designed in 1841 by Charles Lanyon on the model of London’s Pentonville: four wings radiate from a central “circle,” from which a warder could see every landing. The first 106 prisoners were marched in chains from the old county jail at Carrickfergus in 1846. For a century and a half it held women and children, debtors and, during the Troubles, political prisoners from both sides of the conflict. Seventeen men were executed here, from Robert O’Neill in 1854 to Robert McGladdery in December 1961; most spent their last days in the condemned cell next to the room with the gallows. The jail closed on 31 March 1996 and, after years of restoration, reopened as a museum and conference centre. Since then staff and visitors have reported footsteps on empty landings, slamming doors, shadows moving in the cells and sudden cold beside the condemned cell. Former warders and prisoners insist strange things happened long before it closed. The museum runs night-time “Paranormal Tours,” and Tourism Ireland lists the jail among the most haunted places on the island.

Witnesses

Museum staff, former warders and prisoners, and visitors on night-time paranormal tours – accounts cited by Crumlin Road Gaol and Tourism Ireland.

Explanations and hypotheses

All the accounts date from the period when the building became a visitor attraction running night-time ghost tours, so visitors’ expectations here are unusually strong. The vast, empty wings with their iron landings carry sound remarkably well, and an old building creaks as temperatures change. The jail’s real history – executions, violence during the Northern Ireland conflict, escapes and bombings – is heavy enough to generate ghost stories in every generation. The museum presents it with respect for the victims and the prisoners.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

More: Wikipedia (en)