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Trinity College Dublin is sacred ground for students and minds alike, says guest writer DAVID McHUGH
Ghost tour of Trinity College Dublin
As I walk around my home town, I am always struck by the number of statues that adorn here – some on plinths, a testament to the long history that this city of Dublin has, from Viking and Dane, Norman and Colonial; and of course native Irish.
With the modern LUAS tram, buses, trains and all other modes of transport, including self-hire bicycles, weaving through our city streets, it’s hard to think about ghosts; especially in unusually early sunny autumn weather, but still they are always there.
Ghosts know no time. They are residual, they are part of the place; of the stone, of the structure. This was on my mind as I walked past the statue of Edward Grattan and into the main entrance of Trinity College, Dublin.
I passed Spanish students wearing Slipknot T-shirts and nibbling McDonald’s, American visitors taking selfies, and a host of other visitors simply enjoying this beautiful city, oblivious to its creepy undertones. Follow me as we walk under an archway into a courtyard, discovering this supernatural underbelly in the middle of the city…
On our last trip we heard the stories behind Marsh’s library. Before his time at the Library and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Narcissus Marsh was the provost of Trinity College in the 1670s. While he haunts the library looking for a lost note between the pages of the books, he is also seen on the college campus, where he oversees his academic haven. He is not the first, nor the last phantom to wander the corridors of this fantastic building…
Edward Ford is perhaps the most famous of the alien residents of Trinity College, Dublin. Allow me to introduce him, because that once sunny weather reveals a chill in the courtyard.
Ford was a former student and eventual fellow of the university in the early 1700s. He lived in Trinity’s oldest building, the Sectionsand during his fellowship, Ford was infamous among students for being a “stubborn and ill-judged man” In other words, he was sticking his nose in a direction where it wasn’t wanted, and he was grumpy.
One night, that curious personality would turn Ford from a human into a ghost…
A particularly vocal group of students had previously been severely reprimanded by Ford for harassing a university doorman at the Front Gate and had now returned home from a night of partying. They passed House 25, Ford’s home, and decided to throw rocks at his window.
Needless to say, Ford took out his gun and shot at the students through his newly broken window; wake up in anger. The students fled unharmed, but decided to retaliate with their own firearms. It resulted in the shooting of Ford, who died two hours later from this drunken revenge. Rumor has it that his last words asked for the students’ forgiveness for their unthinkable actions: “I don’t know, but God forgive them, I do.”
This is not the end. I’ve talked to some former and current students about it, and it still gives them chills. Why?
It is believed that Ford’s ghost still haunts his old residence, and is said to wander the Rubrics dressed in wig, dress and knee-breeches.
Skeptics, believers and even an American tourist saw a figure walking through the rooms in broad daylight in what she believed was historical costume. It matched Ford’s description…
The day is still unusually warm; However, I can’t ignore a slight chill and cloud formation as I walk to the other gate. I had also heard about George Francis Fitzgerald, a physicist in the nineteenth century. This other phantom of TCD had me a little worried as I walked alone and thought about the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction, a theory about the relativity of space to speed.
He was a student of mathematical and experimental sciences at Trinity University and graduated at the top of his student class. He was subsequently hired as a lecturer at Trinity, and advocated an increase in practical teaching of experimental physics at the university, and was soon awarded a fellowship. Fitzgerald died in 1901 at the age of 41, which many believe was the result of overwork.
Can the paranormal influence the weather?
I notice a distinct chill and temperature change as I walk toward the Physics Laboratory, now known as the Fitzgerald Laboratory. A friend of mine, a man of science and facts, and a graduate of TCD, told me that students in this part of the university in the early 1970s always felt worried as if something or someone was watching them. Is it Fitzgerald who controls space and speed?
I decide to walk back towards The Campanile on Front Square. It is an iconic landmark of College. And while it’s not haunted (do I feel the chill disappearing?), it’s a location tied to an interesting superstition on this old haunted gray campus. Legend has it that if a student walks under the Campanile while the bell is ringing in the tower, he will fail all his exams.
The bell is known to ring at completely random intervals, meaning that any unlucky student who walks beneath the Campanile could be cursed at any time. But if the cursed student can touch the base of the statue of former Provost George Salmon before the bell stops ringing, the curse will be reversed and the student’s academic fate will remain in his own hands.
I walk back from the relatively quiet, but eerie Trinity; and under the arch in the sunlight. Memories flood my mind, thinking about how many people came in here, and more importantly; how many are left. Yes, the statues are still there. But as I approach the gate again, I wonder what’s lurking beneath?
Because legend has it that there is a network of underground tunnels beneath Trinity, which only a few exclusive tunnels have access to. These tunnels contain an underground route from the Lecky Library to the Berkeley Library. Other rumored tunnel routes passing through Trinity include a passage from the Provost’s House to St. Stephen’s Green, and from the Berkeley to the Book of Kells.
There are also rumors of a wine cellar under House 10 on Front Square that doubles as a tunnel to the nearby Royal College of Surgeons, a tunnel used to transport ammunition during the 1916 Rising.
These may be the tunnels that helped Dr. Samuel Crossey, campus medical professor, who became a body snatcher and murderer overnight. He can still be seen, a shadowy figure, creeping through the dark paths and corridors, with his surgeon’s bag in one hand and a suspicious gunny bag in the other…
Now the tunnels may be rumours, but as I smell the autumn air of Dublin, I watch the clouds pass and the sun shine on Grattan’s Parliament; now the Bank of Ireland. His statue stands stock still. I wonder what lurks beneath me or what other specters I’ll encounter as I travel through Dublin City?
Have you seen a ghost at Trinity College Dublin? Tell us in the comments below!
