Folklore: The Dead Coach
Year: 1935
Collector: Seán de Buitléir
Location: Wexford
Informant: Paddy Roche
The dead coach need be heard or seen in many hearts of the Co. Wexford about fifty years ago. Some of the people would see it, but would not hear it, and others would hear it but would not see it.
Paddy Roche of Wilkinstown often heard the dead coach. He would hear it going the road, and he about three or four fields away. He said the sound appeared to him like the sound of four horses trotting, and he could also hear the driver's voice roaring at them. Paddy then would probably be telling that to some people near his own place, and he would tell them the exact hour the coach went along the road, and it happened that there were people on the road at that very time and didn't hear or see the coach.
There was a man named Michael Hickey of Misterin near Adamstown. He was working with some grand gentleman, and this gentleman used to be away some nights. He used to travel around in some kind of a coach. Michael would often be waiting for his master to come home, and he would hear a great sound coming to the hall door. He used to hear the horses trotting, and the driver urging them on. The coach would come to the edge of the house and stop. Then Michael would hear a whistle and would go out thinking of course that it was his master. When he would go outside he would hear nothing or see nothing. This happened him a lot of times, but one night he heard a very loud whistle and he ran to the window and looked out, and what he did see but the whole yard of great black dogs, and each of them had a pair of red eyes.
There is another story of a man that used to hear the dead coach pass by his window almost every night, and he used always be looking out to try and see it, but he never could, although he could hear the sound of the horses quite plain. One night he looked out and whatever he saw he wouldn't say a word about it, and his two eyes (God bless the mark) went crooked in his head, and remained that way until he died.
There was a priest, Father Lyng of Pollfur, and he was at a great dinner party at Cannon Doyle's of Ramsgrange. He drove from Pollfur to Ramsgrange in an inside car, and he had a man driving him by the name of John Devereuse. Cannon Doyle was a great man for writing letters in the papers, and when the dinner party was over it was nearly twelve o clock at night, he told Father Lyng to wait a few minutes as he wanted to write a letter. Father Lyng waited and when it was written, John Devereuse and himself started for Pollfur. When they were coming near the cross of Batterstown, John Devereuse heard great noise. The priest heard it too, and told John to pull in a bit, and let the car pass. A great coach passed them, and the strangest part of it all was the four horses that were drawing the coach had no heads on them. John Devereuse got an awful fright, and he asked the priest what in the name of God was that. "That", says Father Lyng to him, "is the headless coach and the devil driving it".
There is another story told by two young fellows named Nick Roche and John Cullen who live in Lambstown. They were out walking one night and when the came to Bulgan they heard a great noise behind them, coming up quite close to them, but on looking around they could see nothing. The next time they heard the noise right in front of them, but on looking they couldn't see anything.
There is a woman named Mary Anne Murray who lives in Bulgan says she saw the dead coach in the middle of the day. It was coming along towards the cross of Bulgan from Wexford. She saw the four horses and the driver, and everything about the whole affair was black. She made a lot of inquiries but no one else saw the coach that day only herself.
I got the first story from Paddy Roche of Wilkenstown. I got the next three from Mrs. Kennedy of Carrigbyrne, She is about sixty years of age. I heard the rest of them from Nicholas Roche of Lambstown.
I heard a lot of stories about the dead coach long ago, and I must try and see if I can get a few of them now. The dead coach was heard in a lot of places in the County of Wexford.
Credit to the Dúchas project at the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin.
Please find more of their fascinating work here:
https://www.duchas.ie/en/info/res