Fwd: Blather on the Ghost Bus
maia
Fanciful reading, with lots of links...enjoy!
maia
> ______________________________________________________
> B L A T H E R
>
> p a r a n o r m a l p r o v o c a t e u r i s m
>
> By Dave (daev) Walsh da...@blather.net
> Web: http://www.blather.net
> _______________________________________________________
> June 18th 01999, Dublin, Ireland Vol 3. No. 2
> _______________________________________________________
>
> Lily O'Briens is a manufacturer of premium handmade chocolates located
> in the heart of County Kildare in the Emerald Green Island of Ireland.
> Surf along to their website and feast your eyes - and order via our
> secure server!
> http://www.lilyobriens.ie/
> ______________________________________________________
>
> Contents This Issue:
>
> On the Ghost Bus: Blather takes a Bus to Hell
>
> Owlman Plea: Jon Downes seeks a philanthropist
>
> Bleedin' Errata!: Careless, us?
>
> Magonia: Latest new from the Magonia website
>
> Octocon X: The Tenth National Irish Science Fiction Convention,
> featuring Blather's daev.
> _____________________________________________________
>
> ON THE GHOST BUS
> At 19:30 hours on the 25th of May, this Blatherskite ended a headlong
> bicycle sprint across Dublin's humid inner city, arriving at O'Connell
> St. with barely enough time to leap aboard the Dublin Ghost Bus and
> wave his credentials, before the spectral vehicle lurched away into
> the evening.
>
> Operated by Dublin Bus, the city's public transport company, the
> double-decker Ghost Bus cuts a curious jib as it trundles about the
> backstreets in its livery of blues, purples and black, with darkened
> or curtained windows.
>
> Inside the bus, the driver and assistant are dressed in normal Dublin
> Bus uniforms, but the decor is dark and decorated with prints of the
> Irish Hell-Fire Club and Bram Stoker. Upstairs - where the punters sit
> - is adorned with red velvet curtains and paintwork that seems to
> unconsciously suggest that 'Molly' - as the bus is known - is more
> flesh and blood that we would expect.
>
> As we edge slowly through the evening traffic towards the River
> Liffey, we are joined by James, our guide for the evening, dressed in
> an immaculate high-collared white shirt, cravat and waistcoat. James
> introduces the rest of the crew: the driver, 'Francis
> "Blood-on-the-tyres" Schumacher', 'Blind Igor, the Phibsboro
> Psychopath', and of course, Molly herself.
>
> As we cross O'Connell Bridge, we pull back the curtains - it seems far
> too bright and sunny to be on a ghost tour - to learn about the
> strange apparition that appeared by a floating restaurant - the MV
> Aran, which used to be moored by the Customs House back in the
> 1980s.
>
> [Live view of O'Connell Bridge:
> http://www.ireland.com/dublin/liveview/index.htm]
>
> [See also:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/bridges/oconnell.html]
>
> As we wheel up D'Olier St., passed the offices of the Irish Times,
> James reels off a list of famous writers who had studied in the
> approaching Trinity College - including, of course, Bram Stoker,
> author *Dracula*. We learn of the year of Stoker's birth - 1847, or
> 'Black 47' - the worst year of the Irish Famine, his sickly childhood
> and Ballybock Cemetery, his habitual play place.
>
> [Trinity College Dublin:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/trinity/trinmain.htm]
>
> By now we're were on Nassau St. and turning up Kildare St., having
> patrolled a good half of Trinity's perimeter, and stopping off at the
> College of Physicians. Here we glimpse the beginning of a major topic
> of tonight's proceedings: Body Snatching. It was at this College that
> a Dr. Samuel Clossey operated his school of anatomy, apparently
> between 1786 and 1803. A 'tall, mean, overbearing' individual, he
> seems to have eschewed the frivolities of religion and emotion, to
> (paradoxically) revel in the delights of shocking his students -
> slicing up bodies to show that we are little more than meat. Clossey
> himself met a rather unsavoury end, thanks to his miserliness and
> bloodthirstiness. We won't give away the story here...
>
> [Oddly, my copy of Dr. John Fleetwood's *The Irish Body Snatchers
>
> (1988) makes no mention of Dr. Clossey...]
>
> Up Kildare St. a little further, and we pass by Leinster House - where
> the Dáil (Irish Parliament) can be found, and the National Museum. On
> the other side of the street from these public buildings is a row of
> fairly ordinary looking Georgian houses - one of which was the
> residence of Bram Stoker. Next we pass the Shelbourne Hotel, where, in
> 1910, in room 256, 'psychic' Sybil Leek allegedly contacted the ghost
> of one 'Mary Masters' in August 1965. Mary claimed to have popped her
> cogs in 1791 due to cholera. Apparently Leek's mother's maiden name
> was also Masters, and a row of Georgian houses was demolished to build
> the hotel, back in 1824.
>
> Hans Holzer, in his book *The Lively Ghosts of Ireland* mentions this
> case - Sybil Leek was a friend of his. We're sure James said the room
> was 256, however Holzer says 526, and well, as he was *there* at the
> time, it's hard to argue with that.
>
> [Leinster House:
>
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/18thc/leinster.htm]
>
> [Shelbourne Hotel:
>
> http://www.shelbourne.ie/]
>
> Then it's down Merrion Row, swinging a right onto Ely Place, where
> many of Dublin's rich lived - Oliver St. John Gogarty, Bram Stoker's
> brother Thornley, George Moore and John 'Black Jack' Fitzgibbon, the
> Earl of Clare (1746-1802), who lived in No. 6. He is infamously
> reported to have hung 13 people in one day (for the sheer hell of it),
> stating that he would make the Irish as 'tame as castrated cats'.
> Oddly, he himself was castrated in later years during an altercation
> in a Turkish brothel. He survived this setback, and died, much later
> on. Apparently multitudes of commoners carrying sacks joined his
> funeral cortege - curious, for such an unpopular man. At his graveside
> the contents of the sacks were thrown onto his coffin - dozens of dead
> cats, in varying stages of decay.
>
> The bus turns back onto Stephen's Green, heading up the Monk's walk,
> while James starts ramming a hatpin through a doll wearing a letter
> 'F', while Francis, the driver, starts screaming below. The
> 'passengers' are also given a go - some are more 'passionate' about
> stabbing than others, it seems. This leads into stories of how a
> Blacksmith's 1798 curse lead to the death of the 7ft (2.13m) tall
> Lieutenant Hempenstall, a.k.a. 'The Walking Gallows', who could hang a
> man with his silk cravat. According to Peter Somerville-Large's *Irish
> Eccentrics*, some wit dedicated two lines of verse to the Lieutenant's
> demise:
>
> 'Here lies the bones of Hempenstall,
> Judge, jury, gallows, rope and all.'
>
> Before we know it, we're out of the bus and creeping down Long Lane,
> with James in his overcoat and trilby, carrying a bag of tools and
> swinging an umbrella. Into St. Kevin's Park with us, formerly St.
> Kevin's *Cemetery*... where members of the Thomas Moore family, the
> poet, are buried. To the rather startled bemusement of some of our
> number, our guide demonstrates - using tools and gestures - the
> practice of body-snatching - whether it was of full bodies for sale to
> the medical community or merely the removal of teeth and hair from the
> corpses of cholera victims. We were shown how the corpse would be
> impaled under the chin and pulled from the grave, and a box of human
> teeth was passed around, to the consternation of several people...
>
> St. Kevin's seems alive with stories - George 'Crazy Crow' Hendrick,
> an 18th century day-time 'porter of musical instruments' and
> night-time 'sack-em-up', practiced his snatching skills at St.
> Kevin's, some of which allegedly led to the entrapment of some of his
> colleagues in a mausoleum. Dr. Fleetwood book *The Irish Body
> Snatchers*, however, tells us that Hendrick only became a musical
> instrument porter in 1832, when the passing of the Anatomy Act killed
> the body snatching business.
>
> The ivy-laded church ruins, in the centre of the park, apparently
> house the ghost of Bishop Dermot O'Hurley, executed in Penal Times.
> High season for bishopric apparitions is said to be 'late July'.
> Arthur Wellesley, better know as the Duke of Wellington, was baptised
>
> in the tiny church.
>
> We pile back onto the bus, and head over to St. Patrick's Cathedral,
> while James manages to horrify some passengers with readings from
> Jonathan Swift's (author of *Gulliver's Travels*, and Dean of St.
> Patrick's in the 18th century) infamous political satire *A Modest
> Proposal - For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From
> Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them
> Beneficial to The Public*. Swift himself is buried beneath the floor
> of the medieval building, and although our guide doesn't mention it,
> the Dean is said to appear in various locations around Ireland to this
> day...
>
> [A Modest Proposal
> http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html]
>
> We hook into New St., where we notice that the adjacent
> school was established in 1432. So far, the stories have seemed well
> researched, and acknowledgement has been made of those which are more
> apocryphal. However, the most dubious tale yet is of an almost
> premature burial *inside* St. Patrick's featuring a lady who
> apparently suffered a cataleptic fit.
> She was revived when one of the funeral attendants attempted to divest
> her of her wedding ring - and her finger with it. She is said to have
> run home from the church, wondering what she was doing there, bleeding
> from her wound, and subsequently lived for 32 years. Unfortunately,
> this seems to be one of those archetypal tales which insists on
> showing up again and again. The first time this writer heard of it was
> about 15 years ago in Wexford, this time it referred to the apparent
> demise of the matriarch of a local estate, and her resurrection at the
> hands of a terrified grave robber.
>
> [St. Patrick's:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/17thc/stpats.htm]
>
> Next to St. Patrick's is Marshe's Library, assembled by Bishop
> Narcissus Marshe in the 17th century. The tour doesn't enter here, but
> if we may digress, this place is always worth a visit, as they have
> regular topical exhibitions of selected works - a couple of years ago
> they had a showing of publications relating to 'mythical' animals -
> but when these books were published, such creatures were though to be
> real. They also have a first edition of *Gulliver's Travels*...
>
> The Bishop's ghost is said to haunt the library, eternally searching
> for the note left for him, hidden inside a book by his niece, who he
> had reared from childhood. She eloped with a seaman, and left Marshe
> heartbroken...
>
> [Marshes's Library:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/18thc/marsh.htm]
>
> The bus heads up Patrick's St., under the arch at Christchurch
> cathedral, and pulling in at the top of Winetavern St. to hear tales
> of 'Hell', the jungle of sin which stretched along the side of the
> hill from Christchurch to St. Audeons. Apparently there exists an 18th
> century newspaper notice, advertising:
>
> 'To Rent: Rooms in Hell. Lawyers Preferred'.
>
> [Christchurch Cathedral:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/17thc/christch.htm]
>
> On the southern end of Hell, over on Fishamble St., a new pub called
> *Darky Kelly's* can be seen. Kelly was an 18th century *madame* who
> kept a house known as 'The Maiden Tower' in the building in which the
> pub now resides. It was said to be 'notably labyrinthine' by officers
> of the law who once raided the place, probably because they spent so
> much time there before leaving...
>
> Darky Kelly was executed, for the alleged murder of her child, the
> body of whom was never actually produced. Her prosecutor? One Simon
> Luttrell, Sheriff of Dublin, alleged Hell-Fire Club member, and
> reportedly the father of the child...
>
> We roll downhill, and around the corner onto Cooke St. On our right is
> the rear of *Adam and Eve's* church, which faces onto Merchant's Quay.
> In Penal times, when Catholic mass was outlawed, there used to be a
> tavern on the site called... *Adam and Eve's*. This pub had a small
> church hidden inside it, where illicit worship was carried out - think
> of it as alcohol prohibition in reverse. Consider it... people going
> out under the auspices of drinking, but instead *really* going to
>
> mass. For Joyce fans, *Adam and Eve's is mentioned on the first page
> of *Finnegans Wake*, albeit the other way around.
>
> 'riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
> of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
> Howth Castle and Environs.'
>
> The bus stops off again by the north-facing gate of the city walls,
> dating back to 1240AD. James unlocks the gate, and we crowd in, and up
> the 'Forty Steps'. Here we hear tales of nuns making reports to the
> Gardai in 1955, following their encounters with leper ghosts, and
> mysterious green ladies, thought to be Darky Kelly bringing her
> unwanted offspring to St. Audeon's church. Fine frightening environs
> for dusktime tales...
>
> [St. Audeon's:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/17thc/staudeon.htm]
>
> [City Walls:
> http://www.archeire.com/archdublin/17thc/citywall.htm]
>
> The remainder of the tour brings us around Smithfield, on the north
> side of the Liffey, where we hear tales of 'Billy the Bowl' - the
> legless murderer of Stoneybatter, 'Prince Hackball' (Patrick
> Corrigan), the infamous pickpocket, and the mysterious 'Scaldbrother',
> mentioned in a previous Blather issue. Some tales of Irish wakes (i.e.
> funerary traditions), and we amble back to O'Connell St., where Molly
> prepares to collect another horde of unwitting victims.
>
> Highly recommended, for tourists and residents alike...
>
> Scaldbrother:
> http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no24.html
>
> Departs from:
> Dublin Bus
> 59 Upper O'Connell St.
> Dublin 1
> +353 1 8734222
>
> http://www.dublinbus.ie/
>
> The Dublin Ghost Bus Tour site:
>
> http://www.dublinbus.ie/html/travinfo/tours/ghost.html
>
> Price: £12.00
> Duration: 2 1/4 Hours
>
> Departure Time:
> Tuesday-Friday: 7:30pm
> Saturday: 7:30pm and 9:30pm
> Sunday: 7:30pm
> No Monday Tour
>
> At the moment, the Ghost Bus seems to be operating between March and
> late Autumn. It may a good idea to phone Dublin Bus to confirm that
> the tour is actually on.
>
> Dave (daev) Walsh
> June 18th 01999
>
> This issue is archived at
>
> http://www.blather.net/archives3/issue3no2.html
>
> _____________________________________________________
>
> OWLMAN PLEA! - From our man in Exeter, Mr. Jonathan Downes.
>
> "Three years ago I published a book called *The Owlman and Others*
> which told the story of how my ex-wife and I travelled across the
> semi-mythical land of Cornwall in search of high adventure, free
> drinks, and the legendary 'Owlman of Mawnan' - a grotesque feathered
> bird-man which haunts the area immediately surrounding Mawnan Old
> Church in southern Cornwall. Last year, noted fortean Film Director
> Ben Cusden and I started work on a feature film loosely based around
> the book. Very loosely.
>
> Setting my fevered imagination to work I wrote a screenplay which owes
> more to cult American 'trash' director John Waters than anything else.
> The results of our labours can be found at
>
> http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/arecibo/236/
>
> Now - here's the complicated bit. We only made sixteen minutes of it
> because we ran out of money. The reaction we have had from press and
> punters is stunning. Everyone loves it (even though it is completely
> ridiculous. We need about ten thousand quid to finish it, and anyone
> investing in it could be reasonably assured of a decent return on
> their investment as well as being part of the most influential piece
> of fortean bollocks to have been made for video ever!
>
> Any fortean philanthropists out there?"
>
> - Jon Downes, Centre for Fortean Zoology
>
> http://www.eclipse.co.uk/cfz/
> su2...@eclipse.co.uk
>
> _____________________________________________________
>
> BLEEDIN ERRATA!
>
> In a classic show of carelessness, in the issue *Hell-Fire Francis* we
> accidently referred to the late Anton Szandor LaVey as 'Anton Salvador
> LaVey'. Appropriate punishment has been delivered. Thanks to Marcello
> Truzzi and Peter Lakbar for catching that one...
> _____________________________________________________
>
> http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/newmag.htm
>
> What's new at Magonia
>
> 06/06/99
>
> Visions of Bowmen and Angels
> The strange case of Arthur Machen and the Angels of Mons. By Kevin
> McClure
>
> Magonia Monthly Supplement #15
> ETH - questions that need answering; Satanic update; Allagash under
> fire
> _____________________________________________________
>
> Octocon X
>
> The Tenth National Irish Science Fiction Convention
>
> Guest of Honour:
> Robert Rankin
> Bestselling author of
> The Brentford Trilogy and Apocalypso
>
> Other Guests Include:
> Eugene Byrne, Storm Constantine,
> Maggie Furey, Robert Holdstock,
> Graham Joyce, Tom Mathews, Ian McDonald,
> Kim Newman, Geoff Ryman, Michael Scott,
> Brian Stableford, Dave (Daev) Walsh and
> James White
>
> 9-10 October 1999
> Royal Marine Hotel
> Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland
>
> http://www.iol.ie/~jshields/octocon/
>
> _____________________________________________________
>
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Katie
was featured w/pic on the front. Thanks for the URL
--
katie
Gate keeper and member of the round-up squad.
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We have loved the stars too fondly,
To be fearful of the night.
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maia wrote in message <376B3610...@pdq.net>...