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A lady, who requests that her name be suppressed, relates a strange sight seen by her sister in Galway. The latter’s husband was stationed in that town about seventeen years ago. One afternoon he was out, and she was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room, when suddenly from behind a screen (where there was no door) came a little old woman, with a small shawl over her head and shoulders, such as the country women used to wear. She had a most diabolical expression on her face. She seized the lady by the hand, and said: “I will drag you down to Hell, where I am!” The lady sprang up in terror and shook her off, when the horrible creature again disappeared behind the screen. The house was an old one, and many stories were rife amongst the people about it, the one most to the point being that the apparition of an old woman, who was supposed to have poisoned someone, used to be seen therein. Needless to say, the lady in question never again sat by herself in the drawing-room.

Two stories are told about haunted houses at Drogheda, the one by A.G. Bradley in Notes on some Irish Superstitions (Drogheda, 1894), the other by F.G. Lee in Sights and Shadows (p. 42). As both appear to be placed at the same date, i.e. 1890, it is quite possible that they refer to one and the same haunting, and we have so treated them accordingly. The reader, if he wishes, can test the matter for himself.