Fermanagh ghost stories: A haunting at Leitir barracks

By Aaron McGurk 

ON Saturday, May 11, 1949, the ‘Herald reported on the spooky shenanigans that were afoot at the police barracks in Leitir at that particular time.

The first sighting of the ghost was reported by Sergeant McNeil, who had heard several knocks on his bedroom window and heavy footsteps entered the room.

However, while he was the first, Sgt McNeil was far from the last to hear the noises.

After his first report of the knocking, between every two or three weeks, the noises were heard again for three or four successive days between the hours of 4.30pm and 2am.

These noises come in the form of floor boards of bedrooms, landings, stairways and the attic creaking and groaning under what sounded like an extraordinarily heavy body.

Doors slamming closed, walls shaking and large police records dashed across the room. Much to the bewilderment of the RUC men, they found that the ghost was sensitive to interference and resented investigation.

One RUC man poked at the ceiling when footsteps were heard in the bedroom above him.

The ghost reacted angrily, as the RUC man heard the steps sprint across the room, slamming doors so powerfully that it would shake the building and the man to his core.

Creepy criminal

The police carried out investigations in September 1945 and ruled out the possibility of a practical joker.

One officer was quoted stating that “he is best left alone.”

This very same officer, many a time, rushed up the stairs with a torch in hand, searching through the darkness for a glimpse at the supposed ghost.

Footsteps passed and re-passed him, as doors slammed closed around him, but no figure could be seen.

This officer had to fight the urge of leaving the haunted barracks in the late hours of the night.

Two policemen could not bear enduring the waiting and listening and had to leave the barracks.

The ‘Herald reported at the time, “the Police Guide does not say how to come to grips with a ghost that is guilty of breaking and entering, and stealing the peace of a police barracks.”

The constables had a little dog who would always give a warning of the ghosts’ arrival.

The dog would rush into the barrack orderly room and hide under a table, shivering with fear.

Half a minute later the noises would follow without fail.

Even members of An Garda Siochana and customs officers from both sides of the border had been in the barracks when the noises were heard.

The barracks had previously been used as an Orange Hall before becoming the residence of the local parish priest, during which time the residents also had creepy encounters.

For example, the priest’s nephew, who had been sleeping in a large bedroom, had reported waking one night to find a lowset man with a goatee at the foot of his bed, vanished before his very eyes.