Our ghostly encounters... NI people who believe in the paranormal
On Halloween when all things scary are abroad, Linda Stewart talks to three Northern Ireland people about their brush with the supernatural
‘Jack took a photograph and then we started to run’
Dolly Parton impersonator Donna Stewart, currently rehearsing for her Dolly’s Jukebox show at the Marketplace Theatre in Armagh next month, had an eerie encounter in Hillsborough five years ago when she was walking with her son Jack (20). She says:
It was about this time of year — Jack was doing a GCSE in art and he got his camera. It was a really misty morning and he said he was getting really good photographs of low lying mist, so he wanted to head over to Hillsborough and see if there was any mist on Hillsborough lake.
We could see there was mist on our street and he wanted to get some really atmospheric photographs.
We had a German Shepherd at the time and we took him. He was just toddling along beside us — he wasn’t the kind of dog you put on a lead.
So we were walking around and Jack was taking close-ups of leaves and anything that was a bit arty.
It was about 7.30am on a Sunday and everything was really still — we were the only people there. We were walking round having a normal chit-chat when all of a sudden the temperature changed and the wind started and it started to rain out of nowhere. I went ‘that is so unusual!’
We were about three-quarters of the way around the one-mile walk and the next thing our dog stopped dead and started growling into the bushes — he looked like a wolf. But he was the softest dog you’d ever come across and I’d never seen him growl before.
Jack said: “I don’t know what it is but I’m going to take a photo anyway.” He took the photo and I said ‘let’s go’ and we started running around the final quarter of the lake.
The dog was absolutely shaking and
it was raining — it was just awful. Then all of a sudden, the rain stopped and the mist came back.
We came home and Jack looked at his photographs — and then he says ‘Mum, wait till you see this’. I couldn’t see it at first then I went ‘oh my god’.
It looks like a face — it’s like the face in The Scream.
I put it up on Facebook straight away and it went mental. People were saying is it an image coming off the lake, but it’s in behind trees and the path is in the way.
Jack looked up the history of Hillsborough and he said there is something there. I have simply said I don’t want to know about it!”