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| The castle at the back of the Silken Thomas pub and restaurant © Eugene Brennan |
My
grandparents and family were evacuated off the Curragh during WWII and
lived in the tower house at the back of the now Silken Thomas pub/inn.
As far as I know, this is one of the remaining towers of a more
extensive medieval castle, which no longer exists. I remember hearing
that skeletons were discovered when foundations were being dug for the
cinema, the latter now forming part of the Silken Thomas premises. When
we were young we heard stories about poltergeist activity and paranormal
events in the castle. According to my father, they had two terrier
dogs, which used to bark at blank walls. Beds supposedly also used to
move and eventually they had to get the place blessed/exorcised, or so
the story goes. I visited Kildare Cathedral a couple of weeks ago and
got talking to someone who was checking that there were no people
remaining on the grounds before the gates were locked at closing time. I
had never been there before, and still haven't seen the inside,
although it's primarily a Victorian Gothic Revival structure, only
fragments of medieval walls still remaining when it was reconstructed in
the 1860s. So not terribly interesting from my point of view and just
like the legendary Ship of Theseus or Trigger's Broom. Anyway this
person said she had also heard stories about supernatural happenings
(although these could have been due to my stories which I had been
posting on social media over the years and had just done the rounds!)
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| My grandfather Eugene Brennan in front of the Silken Thomas Castle, circa 1944 © Eugene Brennan |
I'm
sceptical about the paranormal. I think a lot of these type of
experiences can be put down to pareidolia (seeing faces in places) which
can be either visual or auditory, hallucinations, suggestion, optical
illusions etc. Pareidolia is believed to be due to the way our brains
are "hardwired" to pick out faces (like the way smartphones can do now)
and which in primeval times gave us an edge to be able to spot predators
lurking in the undergrowth. I don't believe people necessarily tell
lies. They see and experience things they think are supernatural but
those things aren't necessarily real. The human mind also creates what
we perceive, based on input from our senses. It also interpolates,
or "joins the dots", filling in what's not there and the creation in
our heads isn't necessarily what's actually "out there". So it can take
shortcuts or make guesses.
The Chequer Shadow Illusion
Here's an example, the chequer
shadow illusion. Incredibly, squares marked A and B are the same shade of grey, but
influenced by the variation of shades around them. If
you don't believe me, Google "Chequer shadow illusion" and download the image. Cut out the squares in your favourite photo
editor and paste the pieces onto a white background. Alternatively, use
the eyedropper tool to sample the RGB components.
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| The Chequer Shadow Illusion. Squares marked "A" and "B" are the same shade of grey. Image attribution: Edward H. Adelson, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ |
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| Image attribution: Edward H. Adelson, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. (Image edited by Eugene Brennan) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ |
What do you think? Is the paranormal "real"?
Maybe
my father made up the stories to entertain us? My grandfather served in
the British Army in WWI and although he didn't experience trench
warfare (he was in the army service corps or ASC), he had vertigo and
it's possible he was also shell shocked. Maybe that was responsible for
the seeming movement of beds or other furniture. All those involved are
dead now, so we'll never know. The castle was last occupied in 1996.