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This article was contributed
by Johanna K of Lisburn, County Amtrim.
Gillhall situated outside the village
of Dromore in Co Down is the setting of a tale that features
a ghostly return from beyond the grave.
The heroine of our story is Nicola Sophia Hamilton, who married
Sir Tristram Beresford of Coleraine, in February1688; together
they had a son and a daughter. After only thirteen years of
marriage Lady Beresford was widowed in 1701, and subsequently
wed in April 1704, Lieut. - Colonel, afterwards Lieut.-General
Gorges of Kilbrew. Her sister Arabella Hamilton married John
Johnston who took the name of Magill, becoming Sir John Magill
of the nomadic, holidays in ireland, irish holidays, the location
of our supernatural story.
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As a c hild Lady Beresford
was brought up and educated with her cousin John Le Peor, second Earl
of Tyrone. Their tutor was a Deist, whose belief in a natural religion
based on human reason rather than revelation, made a very strong impression
on his two young pupils. With this in mind they made a pack with each
other , that whoever should die first, should return from beyond the grave
and enlighten the other, confirming or denying ‘the revealed truth’
behind the religion of the day.
In October of 1683, Sir Tristram and Lady Beresford
paid an autumnal visit to her sister who lived at Gillhall Co Down. One
night, she awoke to see her cousin John, Lord Tyrone, standing by her
bed. He told of his death, and that his visit confirmed an afterlife.
Lady Beresford, who thought she was dreaming, asked for a token, when
he caught her by her wrist, and his ice cold fingers burnt her skin with
a preternatural fire, marking her from beyond the grave, he also placed
his hands upon a cabinet and left his ghostly prints which would be visible
in the morning. He also foretold of her death on her 47th birthday.
The next morning when Lady Beresford awoke and
remembered the dream that featured her cousin John she was horrified to
see upon her wrist, a blemish as if it had been burned, although she felt
no pain, the skin all the way round had a puckered withered appearance.
When dressing she was appalled to find ghostly prints scorched in the
wood of the chest. Much distraught she hid the blemished wrist under a
length of black ribbon and hurried down to breakfast. Sir Tristram could
see the agitation of Lady Nicola, and asked what had so disturbed her
state of mind, whereupon she told him of the nocturnal visit of Lord Tyrone.
Much to the distress of Lady Beresford, the next day a letter was delivered
that told of the death of Lord Tyrone on the !4 October.
As the years passed, it must have been with great
trepidation that Lady Beresford greeted her 47th year in 1712 and when
it passed with out hazard, with great relief she threw a birthday party
for all her family and friends at her Dublin house in 1713 to celebrate
her escape from Lord Tyrone’s deathly prophesy.
At the height of the festivities she
was warmly greeted by a clergy man who congratulated her on her 47th birthday.
When she protested that it was her 48th birthday that she celebrated,
he excitedly told her he recently had reason to examine the parish registers
and had found that she had been born in 1666 and not 1667 as they had
all supposed. He had had noted it because of his invitation to her party,
he was greatly surprised to see the lady lose all of her colour, saying’
You have signed my death warrant’ she called for her children and
left the room. Then she told her children of Lord Tyrone apparition and
his prophesy of her death, foretold all those years before, she revealed
her withered wrist. Shortly after relating her strange tale, she said
her goodbye children and desired to be alone, when not long after her
maid on heard her cry rushed into the room to find her dead.
There is a portrait in Howth Castle,
Co. Dublin, of Lady Beresford, it which she is said to have had a black
ribbon on her wrist, which at a later period was painted over. Although
Gillhall was last occupied during WWII by the R.A.F,and stood gaunt and
empty, until it was destroyed by fire in June 1969, its ghostly reputation
lives on in the rural countryside that surrounds it in soft rolling hills
of Co Down, as this local newspaper report of the fire affirms.
GILLHALL DESTROYED BY FIRE HAS THE GHOST BEEN LAID?
(Taken from a report in The Dromore Leader, June 6, 1969).
Since the early hours
of last Sunday morning only the shell remains of the centuries old Gillhall
mansion on the outskirts of Dromore, which owes its chief claim to fame
to the fact that it is alleged to have been inhabited by a ghost. During
the night it was gutted by a fire which was still smouldering many hours
later.On Monday the wreckage was searched by forensic science experts.
Read about The
Gillhall Estate.
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