Poinstown phantom ship and chariot

Poinstown, Co. Tipperary. The pamphlet that preserves this story dates it "March the second, 1678/9", the dual dating of an age when the legal year began on 25 March. In modern reckoning that is 1679, though many retellings say 1678. The place lies in the barony of Slievardagh, and St John D. Seymour pointed to two townlands called Poyntstown, both a few miles from Killenaule.

It was a Sunday evening. "Several gentlemen and others" walked forth into the fields to watch the sun set. It was "a very clear and calm evening, no cloud seen, no mist, nor any wind stirring."

First came "an Arm of a blackish blue colour, with a ruddy complection'd Hand at one end", beside something like one end of an anchor. It hovered, then moved north and vanished. Next, a ship. It came near enough for them to make out masts, sails, rigging and men. She turned and "sail'd with the stern foremost, northwards", sinking by degrees into a dark, smooth sea, "her men plainly running up the tacklings in the forepart of the Ship".

Then a fort, with something like a castle on top. Smoke, then a flash of fire. "The Fort then was immediately divided in two parts, which were in an instant transformed into two exact Ships." The ships seemed to fight, chased each other north, and sank. One man was seen climbing a bowsprit.

Then a chariot drawn by two horses. Behind it came "a strange frightful creature, which they concluded to be some kind of serpent", with a head like a snake. It caught the chariot and struck it. Out leaped a bull and a dog, the dog baiting the bull as they went north.

"All the phenomena came out of the West or Southwest, and all moved Northwards." They sank out of sight at much the same place. "The whole time of the vision lasted near an hour."

Sixteen people signed the account. At their head was "Mr. Allye, a minister, living near the place", whom Seymour identified as Rev. Peter Alley, curate of Killenaule Union. With him were Lieutenant Dunsterville and his family, Lieutenant Dwine and his brother, Mr. Christopher Hewelson, Mr. Richard Foster and Mr. Bates, a schoolmaster.

The statement was published at Dublin, then in London in 1679 as A True Account of Divers Most Strange and Prodigious Apparitions, Seen in the Air at Poins-Town in the County of Tipperary in Ireland. It was "Attested by Sixteen Persons That Were Eye-Witnesses." No official inquiry followed. Seymour cited a 1697 reprint by William Turner, and carried the story into Irish Witchcraft and Demonology in 1913.

No source calls it a hoax. Read sceptically, every figure rose from the west at sunset and sank at a single point, much like shapes found in a bank of cloud, though the witnesses insisted there was no cloud at all. Superior mirages are often blamed for phantom ships, but no published source applies the idea to Poinstown, an inland site. The London printing also came during the Popish Plot panic, when prodigy pamphlets were a common genre.

Seymour placed the account beside lore of O'Brasil, the phantom island of the west. Ireland's annals also hold the Airship of Clonmacnoise, a ship with a crew seen in the air. In 2021 De Búrca Rare Books offered a copy for €1,750, and the Irish Times captioned it "An account of the first UFO sighting in Ireland". Tipperary Live called it the county's earliest UFO record, nearly 300 years before the 1969 Mullinahone sighting.