What happened
Springhill is a modest, whitewashed late-seventeenth-century house near Moneymore in County Londonderry, for almost three centuries the home of the Lenox-Conyngham family and owned by the National Trust since 1957. Its best-known resident is Olivia, second wife of George Lenox-Conyngham and daughter of William Irvine of Castle Irvine in County Fermanagh. George served in the Irish Volunteers; in 1816, feeling betrayed by Lord Castlereagh, he resigned his commission in disgrace and soon afterwards, weighed down by depression, took his own life in an upstairs room. According to family tradition Olivia, who failed to stop him, still returns to the spot: a tall female figure is said to appear on the stairs and landings, pause at the door of the old bedroom, as if still trying to prevent what happened there. The ghost was described by members of the family and by guests staying in the house. There is also talk of a secret door in the bedroom wall. Because the accounts were written down within the family itself, Springhill is sometimes called “the best-documented ghost in Ireland.”
Witnesses
Members of the Lenox-Conyngham family and their guests (accounts written down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries); National Trust guides and visitors.
Explanations and hypotheses
The genealogical facts – George’s marriage to Olivia Irvine, his resignation and his death in 1816 – are documented in the family papers held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The circumstances of George’s death and Olivia’s role, however, remain unclear: tradition speaks of suicide, and some writers have even speculated about murder, without evidence. The ghost accounts come mainly from the family circle and its guests – people who already knew the story. “The best-documented ghost in Ireland” is a phrase from popular literature, not a verdict of researchers.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
More: Wikipedia (en)