Dracula, banshees and Jack o' Lantern - top ten Irish Halloween scary spirits - PHOTOS

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1. Dracula

The book was written by Bram Stoker from Dublin. A spirit  you can get your teeth into.

2. Leprechaun

Not the cuddly one, the one from the 1993 movie Leprechaun who almost knocked off Jennifer Aniston in one of her first roles. Pity he didn’t succeed.

3. Banshee

A sheet with eyeholes will do. She is heard  only when a loved one is dying. Literally means female fairy.

4. Devil

Devil, as in Darby O’Gill, not the sanitised Walt Disney movie, but  mythology where he is a much more wicked character. In Ireland he usually appears as an attractive man at a dance but if lady smitten by him looks down she will see his cloven hoof.

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5. Headless Horseman

 A difficult Halloween costume to produce but keep your head up. Dullahan is his name and he is said to inhabit an Irish wood near Westmeath

6. Werewolves of Tipperary

Ancient texts refer to the half man half wolf who inhabited this area. Old Gaelic chieftains used to visit and pray for their support before a battle.

7. The Undead Priest

An old priest from the Dublin mountains, who locals swear appeared to them after his death in the 1920s. Many independent verifications were received

8. The Mayo Vampire

Said to have existed during the famine, likely based on people who fled their homes during the hunger and lived in the woods near Westport but locals swore he came for their children at night.

9. Jack O’Lantern

Jack O’Lantern is where the modern pumpkin came from. Said to be a ghostly spirit who trapped Satan in a cross-shaped tree hollow. When Jack died he was barred from Heaven and Hell, suspended in a black abyss with only an ember in a carved-out turnip, the Devil's flashlight to help him navigate.

10. The Meredith Monster

In the Parish Church of Ardtrea, near Cookstown, there is a marble monument and inscription in memory of Thomas Meredith, D.D., who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and for six years rector of the parish. He died, according to the words of the inscription, on 2nd May 1819, as a result of "a sudden and awful visitation." A local legend explains this "visitation," by stating that a ghost haunted the rectory and it could often be seen afterwards cackling over the death of Meredith.

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Originally published Oct 2010.

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Nster.com