The Ghost of Inverin: the Indreabhán poltergeist, County Galway, 1916

Inverin, Indreabhán in Irish, is a village in the Connemara Gaeltacht of County Galway. In the spring of 1916 Ireland was about five weeks away from the Easter Rising. Around Inverin, one household had become the talk of the district.

Saturday, 18 March 1916. The Galway Express ran a story under the headline "The Ghost of Inverin." It concerned "Mr Costello and his family, of Bawnrough, Inverin." The paper built it from local rumour and from letters sent in by several correspondents. By then the tale had, in its words, "developed rapidly into an avalanche of untold dimensions."

According to the reports, the family were "banged about their heads with raw potatoes and sods of turf." The thrower could not be seen. Then the crockery moved. Plates and dishes "are alleged to have flown from the kitchen dresser and sailed out through a rather substantial roof." Neighbours told the story "with bated breath." Many people throughout the district, the paper said, had "their nerves unstrung by the fearsome narratives put abroad."

The men in blue took possession of the kitchen. In 1916 the rural police in Ireland were the Royal Irish Constabulary, and these officers were presumably local RIC men, though the article does not name the force. They settled in by the hearth. Then, "whilst calmly sitting at the turf fire," they were "greeted with a volley of fine black turf, which came from 'nowhere.'"

The officers are said to have "fled from the place as if the Huns were after them in alarming numbers." The paper added, "we have our doubts." One more rumour went round. A clergyman had visited the house and was struck with a sod of turf. The Galway Express called that "too ridiculous for words."

The paper offered to send a correspondent of the Galway Express to the premises for a night. The reporter asked for "a car… a six-shooter and a tidy little shot gun." The editors called it "a sporting offer, which may safely be accepted." No report of that night has been found.

The Galway Express was openly sceptical. It said the throwing would be "well worthy of the attention of the famous conjurer, Herr Dobler." Then it turned serious. "These 'haunted house' fairy tales in the present days of education and enlightenment are evidently invented for the purpose of intimidating some person or persons who may have outside interests."

The line hints at a local quarrel, perhaps over land, but no names were given. The usual reading of object throwing cases is that someone in or near the household did the throwing. No one was named or accused. No exposure, confession or follow up has come to light.

In 2016, a century on, Galway County Council's Decade of Commemoration blog reprinted the story as "The Poltergeist of Indreabhán?" In 2022 the Poltergeist Archive posted a full transcription, beside other Galway cases from Kinvara in 1954 to Corrib Park in 1997. Bawnrough itself has not been located. It may be a newspaper spelling of an Irish townland name, perhaps Banraghbaun South near Ballynahown. The Costello household remains unnamed beyond Mr Costello. And the promised overnight vigil may never have happened at all.