Spooked Ireland

This is Ireland.

My home.

I'm Vogue Williams,

and since I was a kid,

I've been obsessed by the supernatural.

I have spent my childhood terrified of banshees.

'Now something incredible is happening here.'

Look at that. Something is sitting there.

Do you hear that? I heard that.

'With incidents of paranormal activity

'being reported across the country.'

He's here. I'm scared!

So I've invited spiritual medium Chris Fleming to investigate.

Argh. Back off, back off.

'In a lifetime of investigating, I've never been to Ireland,

'but when I heard what's happening here,

'I had to check it out.'

Puca! Oh, my God!

'We've discovered ordinary people

'who have had extraordinary encounters.'

It hit me so strong that I actually had tears coming out of my eyes.

'Local investigators are overwhelmed.'

I literally have a pain in my heart, I feel so scared.

'So Vogue and I

'have assembled a world-class team of supernatural experts...'

Tech guru Ryan O'Neill

is in charge of deploying cutting-edge equipment

that sheds new light on the spirit world.

And consultant parapsychologist Dr Evelyn Hollow...

How does that happen?

...will scrutinise all claims

with the most up-to-date science.

The shadow should cast on the outside of the stones,

but it's only casting inside of the stones.

'Led by the people of Ireland...'

It's straight through me, I heard an exhale of breath...

'...we'll expose the unknown forces...

'...plaguing the country right now.'

Get your hands off me. Don't touch me.

'This is Spooked Ireland.'

This is Achill Island.

On Ireland's majestic west coast,

overlooking the wild Atlantic Ocean.

It's where I spent my teenage summers,

and I still have deep links here.

For me, one of the scariest parts of Achill

has always been the village at Slievemore,

in the north of the island.

Built by the English in the 12th century,

it's now been abandoned for generations,

and is a hotspot for local paranormal investigators.

But it's at this hostel, just five miles away,

which has had a huge increase in paranormal activity...

They claim they see a shadow, or they feel something.

...where our investigation begins.

The house that we're going to... OK.

...the man who owns it

thinks that there's a lot of paranormal activity going on.

He wants to make sure that it's OK,

and people don't need to be scared coming here.

Normally, I think any owner wants to make sure their place is safe.

Mm-hm. And that anyone that comes here

doesn't have any issues with the paranormal.

So the mystery is he's probably wondering, "Who are the ghosts?"

'To find out who these spirits are,

'we've been given free rein to explore.'

Welcome to Achill Island.

We are at Valley House,

and Pat the owner

has said that there's a lot of activity,

and it comes from the same areas of the house.

If you could find out what areas those are...

OK. ...then we could hone in on those...

Yeah. Yes.

We're gonna go and speak to Pat now.

We're gonna speak to Pat. You guys go do a sweep.

Alright, thank you. OK.

'We meet owner Pat Gallagher in the hostel's bar,

'to find out more about the building's past,

'and see what's happening here now.'

How did you find yourself in Achill?

My father moved to Achill in the 1940s,

and he met my mother here, she was a tourist.

Myself and my two brothers and my sister,

we grew up in the house.

Wow, amazing. You know all the history of the house.

Yeah. Well, the house was originally built by the Earl of Cavan

in the 1850s,

and then it was taken over by Agnes MacDonnell,

and she ran it here until her death in 1923.

How did she die?

She died peacefully in the house,

even though there were some dramatic affairs in, in her life.

There was a gruesome attack by a local guy, James Lynchehaun.

On Agnes? On Agnes, yeah.

In October 1894.

Wow. And he burnt the house down.

With her in it?

He dragged her out of it and threw her into the stable.

And then he assaulted her.

Oh, God. Was she quite badly disfigured?

She was, her nose was bitten off.

Oh, my God.

So she wore a silver nose and a veil,

and one of her eyes was very badly damaged as well.

Like, that's...

Can you imagine seeing her... Yeah.

And do you think either of them haunt this place?

Yes, you'd feel that there's something present.

And over the years, people that have stayed here

always ask about certain rooms in the house.

They claim they see a shadow, or they feel something.

What rooms are they?

They would be the dining room...

Yeah. ...and bedroom number one...

...and number two.

There must be specific things that have happened in those rooms.

Possibly, possibly. Yeah.

Um, we know that one of them for some time was her bedroom.

Which was number two now.

Where should we be concentrating our search, then?

Up in those bedrooms and...

In those bedrooms and the corridors at the back bedrooms.

OK. Definitely, yes.

Spirits are often trapped by trauma,

and Agnes was attacked so savagely by James,

she could still be here.

We're at somewhere pretty scary, again.

And I wouldn't spend ten minutes in there on my own.

Being younger, coming here, it was great fun.

But there is kind of a, like,

I wouldn't wanna be here on my own at night.

I mean, a hostel is kinda scary in itself.

There's been a lot of activity here.

It's terrifying, but we wanna figure this place out.

We wanna see what's going on.

I feel like somebody might be looking at me out the window.

Do you get that feeling?

'We're heading to rooms one and two,

'which have seen the most recent activity.'

OK, Ryan, I'm getting a... residual energy

from a female spirit going past here.

OK. Going from room to room.

Er, let's go in this room first.

Number one.

Oh, oh, oh...

Are you getting it? Yeah.

As we know, when the field is broken...

...it produces its own field,

it will set off.

And as we come in, we've got just a little...

Yeah. ...breaking of that field.

Let's walk in here.

Wow. OK.

Um, right as I walked in here, I got, little bit of a chill.

Kind of like a static electricity in the back of my neck.

Just stop you there a second.

Um, we got a magnetic fluctuation there on the EMF.

And it's just disappeared. Right now?

Yes, it's come and went. OK.

I'm getting this feeling

of just standing besides the bed and watching somebody.

Like someone may get the sense of they're being watched.

It's quite... That looks like an impression

right there, doesn't it? It does.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Step back a second.

That looks like an impression of shoulders and a butt right there.

Yeah. Yeah.

This was freshly made.

Alright? Which means it should be perfectly... smooth.

But it's, that is, that's like someone laid down there.

There's no doubt.

'As we move into Agnes' bedroom, I start to feel different.'

I just keep wanting to sit down on the bed.

I normally don't get that when I go into houses,

but it's like every room,

I just wanna kind of lay down or sit down on the bed.

I'm getting this woman voice saying, "I call this my home.

"This is my home."

She's talking to me right now.

Did you touch it? No.

So you're here with us right now.

Can you make that light up again, please?

I heard these noises... Mm.

...last night in my hotel room. Mm-hm.

Then I started seeing all these spirits

that were coming forward to the bed. Yeah.

It was like the whole village, the whole town's people.

It was all these people that were floating above me.

And I'm like, "Listen, stop."

There's something negative that was there, too.

And I don't know what this negative thing is yet.

I've never seen anything like this.

But to see all these people from different generations,

all floating above me...

...was different.

But a woman stood out. Mm-hm.

So maybe that's telling me

that our focus needs to be on a woman

for this particular case,