By 
IN the autumn of 1966, talk of ghosts returned to the quiet districts of Clady and Urney near Strabane. It had been 80 years since local people in that district last spoke of the ‘Tullymoan ghost’ – but for several weeks that October and November, the strange happenings at Hunterstown brought the old story back to life.
It began at the cottages of the Preston and Potts families. They told of a very tall man who appeared late at night and disappeared just as quickly. Nineteen-year-old Ernie Preston said he first saw him standing at his front door one evening.
“I thought it was my father,” he told the Ulster Herald, “but when I went inside, everyone was in bed.
“We searched around the house and saw him again – running like a bullet over the fields, jumping ditches and hedges.”
Soon, word spread through the district. Each night, dozens gathered on the Hunterstown road to see for themselves. Cars lined the verges and people stood in groups waiting for something to happen. “The Tullymoan ghost is back again,” they said.
The Tyrone GAA footballer Noel O’Kane apparently got nearest to the figure, within five feet.
“I went to the Preston home for a laugh,” he later admitted, “but I didn’t think it was real until I saw it myself.”
He and a friend sat in the dark of the Preston cottage when they saw a hand appear outside the window.
“There was knocking and we ran out. Our chase lasted two fields. I got within five feet of him, but by the time I’d covered five yards, he was 20 away. He runs like an antelope and jumps like a racehorse.”
Others also gave chase but with no better luck.
Some nights the figure appeared, other nights not at all. People brought dogs, lamps and torches.
The crowds caused such congestion that locals began to complain.
Stones were thrown at the cottages, but nobody could ever find the thrower.
One large stone landed in the yard of Councillor Tom Blair. “It came from behind an outhouse,” he said, “but there was no one there.”
As the excitement grew, older residents began to recall the ghost of Tullymoan – said to have haunted the same area 80 years earlier.
Eighty-four-year-old Patrick Carlin remembered his father talking about it, and Mrs Mary Jane McGlinchey, one of Clady’s ‘grand old ladies’, said she too had heard the stories when she was young.
That earlier haunting, they said, centred on a poor brother and sister who were suspected of bringing bad luck.
Neighbours accused the woman of putting the ‘evil eye’ on their cattle after she refused to bless a cow in the usual way.
Not long after, strange things began to happen.
Furniture was seen to move around the house, pots and pans were thrown but never broken, and one night the woman appeared to catch fire – though when her brother tried to put out the flames, she was unharmed.
Their cow was pelted with stones, but none could be found.
The incidents continued for six months before stopping suddenly.
Some said a priest had ‘laid’ the ghost on the Hunterstown Road.
Others blamed two local men who were said to have been dabbling in ‘Black Art’ and later broke the spell.
Then, around Halloween in 1966, history seemed to be repeating itself.
Once again, stones were being thrown, windows were breaking, and no one could see who was responsible.
On a Friday night late in October, Charles Preston and his son heard noises outside their bedroom window.
They went out with a powerful battery lamp but saw nothing. When they returned to bed, a lump of coal came crashing through the glass. Neighbours joined in a search, but the stone-throwing continued until 4.30am in the morning.
Two nights later, Edward Foley of Clady was sitting in his car outside the Preston home when a large stone smashed through the rear window.
Other stones followed, but after an hour-long search, nobody was found.
By then, police from Strabane had become involved, as the incidents were causing fear among families in the area – especially children.
The disturbances eventually faded away as quietly as they had begun.
No explanation was ever found.
Some believed it was the work of pranksters.
Others thought the old stories about the ‘laid’ ghost might have had more truth in them than anyone cared to admit.
One theory that did the rounds at the time was that Strabane Rural Council had recently dug a trench through the very field where the Tullymoan ghost was said to have been buried 80 years earlier.
“The old folk wonder,” wrote the the Ulster Herald, “if this digging has disturbed the ghost.”
Nearly 60 years later, the mystery remains unsolved.
No culprit was ever caught, and no one has explained the strange mix of fear, excitement and folklore that gripped Hunterstown in those dark autumn nights of 1966.
