In my last post, I wrote about the setting for my new novel The House on Devil’s Lane, and how I was inspired to cross the border for the location.

The House on Devil’s Lane is available to pre-order HERE. Ebook and paperback will be released on 24/09/24

The main ‘character’ in the novel is, of course, Kat’s strange new home, and people often ask me if I have ever lived in a haunted house. Well, it all depends on what you believe ! I can confirm that I have experienced occurrences that I find hard to explain.

When I lived in Ireland, for example, we renovated a 300-year-old farmhouse in rural Limerick called Victory Hall. If any property was going to have an uncanny presence, it was going to be this one, right?! It certainly had a fascinating tale to tell. According to local legend, it had once been a parochial house, but the incumbent priest had committed a sin so grievous (I never found out what it was) that he was visited in the night by a furious mob, armed with blazing torches and pikes (hayforks). They evicted him from the house and marched him down to the river, presumably with the intent of drowning him. He survived, but lost his parish and was condemned to live out his days in a hut down by the very water that could have ended his life.

The ghost of a black-garbed man was said to pace the grounds of Victory Hall, pleading to be let back in to the house, but I never saw anything. We had to completely gut the place, and many ‘ghost’ artefacts came to light. The leather cover of a Bible, a part of a saddle, and so on, all helping to fire the imagination. On dark nights the blackness was absolute, with only a sole farmyard light flickering across the valley. Standing outside, you could hear all manner of rustlings and scratchings in the hedgerow, and even inside, the old timber would creak as it came to rest in the cool of the night. On the whole, the place had a rather peaceful air about it.

The great open fire in the kitchen was the perfect place around which to spin a yarn on a winter night, and I often wonder how many tales it had witnessed.

However, two strange things did stand out for me during our time there. Scratched into the lintel of the kitchen door were the letters WW, which I later discovered were not the priest’s initials, as I had assumed, but interlocking Vs, referring to the Virgin of Virgins. They were witchmarks, ancient graffiti calling upon the Virgin Mary for protection against evil. Were they there to keep the priest out?

Check out my fourth novel Sight Unseen to see where that idea led me! Honestly, no detail is ever wasted when a writer is around! You can find it HERE

The second thing? My youngest son, then around 3, called me over to the window one day, claiming to have seen ‘a man in a long black cloak’ crossing the yard. The house was accessible only by a driveway- one way in and one way out. No one had knocked on the door and I wasn’t expecting visitors. My scalp prickled. With two under- fours in the house, I was always on high alert. I ran outside, but there wasn’t a soul to be seen…

What had he seen? You tell me!

More tales from my current home next time! If you would like to subscribe to my mailing list please click HERE. It is quite occasional, but you can catch up on all my workshops and book news, and I also do a writing prompt in each edition. The perfect excuse to sit down with a cuppa and a notebook!