Mayo story to feature in new 'spooky tales' book

COMMUNITY NOTES: BALLYHAUNIS - WESTERN PEOPLE (OCTOBER 8 EDITION)

The reputed appearance of the devil at Tooreen Hall in 1954 features in a new children’s book of 32 spooky stories in Kieran Fanning’s new children’s book, Haunted Ireland: An Atlas of Ghost Stories from Every County, published by Dublin-based Gill publishing group.

The book’s author Kieran Fanning explained to this column how the devil was said to have appeared one night while Fr James Horan (of Knock Airport fame) was supervising a dance in Tooreen Hall on October 3, 1954.

By the 1930s, the Catholic Church had become concerned that céilí dances popular in Irish homes were ‘occasions of sin’, so it pushed the government for a ban, the author explained to this column.

“Instead, dance halls were built all over the country, so that dancing could be supervised, often by the clergy themselves. The Church even published a pamphlet called ‘The Devil at Dances’, with a list of rules telling young people what to wear and how to act at these dances. “The story goes that a strange black car with tinted windows pulled up outside the dance hall and a man dressed in black got out. The stranger had long dark hair and unusual clothes for the place and time. His flared trousers were so wide that they hid his feet completely, and he walked with an unusual gait, his footsteps making a clicking sound, as if he was wearing high heels.

“Some of the women who flocked around the exotic stranger, later said that he emitted a sulphurous aroma, like that of burning matches. At the time, however, they were too infatuated to be suspicious.

“They followed him into the hall, where the band were already playing hits like ‘Money is the Root of All Evil’ and ‘The Hokey Pokey’. They lined up on the opposite side of the hall to the men, all wondering who the stranger would ask out to dance. He chose a girl, unnamed in the article that would become front page news in the Western People a few days later, but named as Brigid O’Flynn in a song that was subsequently penned about the incident.

“According to eyewitness accounts, the couple danced like no other couple ever danced in Tooreen and soon Father Horan was trying to pull them off the dancefloor. Every time the priest tried to intercept the cavorting couple, the dark stranger steered his partner out of Horan’s reach. They escaped to the mineral bar and while they drank Moonduff Kola, Brigid took the opportunity to get a better look at her dancing partner by watching him in the mirror behind the bar. Somehow, the man sensed this and gazed right back at her through the looking glass, smashing it into seven pieces.

“The stranger took Brigid outside, but the cold reminded her that she’d forgotten her jacket. As she fumbled in her purse for her cloakroom ticket, she dropped her lipstick to the ground. When she bent down to pick it up, she saw, for the first time, the stranger’s feet that had been hidden by his flares. They were cloven, like those of a goat. Brigid gasped and stumbled away from the man but he grabbed her.”

After freeing herself from his grip, Brigid ran to the safety of a group of men standing nearby.

“When she turned to look back at the man that had grabbed her, a goat stood in his place. Before she could comprehend what was going on, the same black car that had arrived at the beginning of the night, returned. It pulled up beside the goat, blocking Brigid’s view of the animal. She heard the car door open and then close. When it drove off, there was no sign of the goat. Brigid and the men examined the ground where the goat had been standing and found cloven hoofprints burned into the grass. “Brigid O’Flynn and Father Horan refused to ever talk about the matter again, but there were many people at the dance on that fateful night who believed that the events outlined above were true. One of those men, Michael Henry, spoke candidly in a documentary on TG4 in 2009 called Diabhal ag an Damhsa (Devil at the Dance).