Halloween can trace its history to Ireland – the tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. | By Sean Moriarty Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31 – a Bank Holiday Monday in 2022. If you happen to be visiting Killarney at this time – or indeed anytime – these are the must-visit (or maybe best avoided!) haunted sites in the area.
MUCKROSS ABBEY
In the Refectory of Muckross Abbey, where the Monks dined and where visitors were shown hospitality, there was a big fireplace from which welcoming heat radiated. When the Abbey was unoccupied during the mid-18th century, the recess of this great fireCheck your rear view mirrors when you drive past Derrycunnihy Church.
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I KILLARNEY Magazine
2022
Spooky Tales from Killarney place became the bed of a man known as John Drake who, from around 1750, lived amid the ruins. He was said to be under 40 years of age, refined in nature and 'scholarly' in appearance. He never discussed his past, his plans or his reasons for adopting this unusual abode. He built himself a bed made from pieces of old coffin boards and placed some straw on them as a sort of mattress. He windproofed the nearby window with earth and rubbish. This was his
chosen residence for at least 11 years. He never asked for alms and was never known to eat in any dwelling other than his own. He had enough money to buy some food and indeed was known to give a halfpenny and his prayers to any person who seemed more destitute than himself. The kindly Muckross people treated him with great respect and never invaded his privacy. It was assumed that John would live out his life in the Abbey and that his mortal remains would be
interred in the adjoining graveyard. But these expectations did not come to pass. One day in late Springtime's, John was nowhere to be seen. Just as suddenly as he had arrived to the Abbey he had now disappeared. His 'bed' lay unruffled but nothing else remained. John had gone quietly into the dark night and was never again seen in Muckross or heard of elsewhere. The mystery of the unusual life of John Drake in Muckross remains just that – a mystery of a quiet and gentle man who ar-
