My grandfather and some others were card-playing in a house somewhere in the Hills near Lacy’s Forge. It was very late at night and all was very quiet. The card playing had been in progress for some hours.
Suddenly the card players heard the noise of horses cantering along the road outside. The card-playing ceased. The players left the table and peered out – it was a beautiful moonlight night – and there to their utter surprise and astonishment they saw a goodly troop of mounted soldiers converging on Kit Lacy’s forge. The scene lasted for some time and then the horses and horsemen disappeared. The scene was supposed to portray some historic incident of the past where Irish soldiers going to some battle had their horses shod at Lacy’s forge.
One more ghost story: One night my father and Val Casey, coachman to Geo. Woods, were keeping an eye on a cow that was expected to calve that night. Some time very late in the night they distinctly heard the sound of mowing as if being done on an adjacent meadow. My father arranged that Val Casey should go around to the opposite side of the meadow, so as to capture whoever were mowing at that late hour.
It was arranged that when Val Casey reached his destination, he should whistle and then my father and he should close in on the mowers from opposite sides of the field. The noise of the mowing, which was both clear and loud and in addition very energetic, continued meanwhile. Eventually Val Casey whistled having reached his position. The two men now began to close in on the mowers from opposite sides of the field.
From the moment they began moving in, the mowing ceased and nowhere was there any cut grass – not even a thrauneen. They examined the field next day and there was no sign of any interference with the meadow whatever – so much for ghost stories.
R. S. Duff [SHS 195]
