The first mention of unusual goings-on at the long-since demolished 91 Beechmount Grove appeared in a small news story on the front page of The Irish News on Wednesday, June 7, 1989.
The Beechmount Haunting is a story of a violent ghost that supposedly haunted a house in Beechmount Grove in West Belfast in 1989. The story goes that a young newlywed couple moved into the house, but what was meant to be a wonderful life together turned into a nightmare. The ghost was said to be violent and caused objects to move around the house, doors to slam shut, and strange noises to be heard. The family also reported seeing apparitions of a man and a woman. They fled the house and never returned.
The haunting has returned to public attention thanks to Real Life Ghost Stories, an Irish podcast series.
The Beechmount haunting has been the subject of a book called “No 91 A Belfast Ghost Story” by John Skillen. The book recounts Skillen’s own experiences with the ghost, including seeing an apparition of a woman and having the bathroom door slam shut behind him. But, friends, I have not found any public records to confirm whether John Skillen lived at 91 Beechmount Grove or not.
Skillen’s story aside, 91 Beechmount Grove may have bad juju because bad things happened there and the location harbors some pretty dark energy now. Many people have disappeared or have been killed in the Beechmount area. Like Joe Lynskey, a former Cistercian monk from Beechmount in west Belfast who went missing in the 70s. However, his disappearance had nothing to do with anything supernatural.
Lynskey had been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In 2010, almost four decades later, the IRA finally admitted their responsibility for Lynskey’s abduction and murder. In 2015, the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR), an organization established to locate the bodies of those “disappeared” during the Troubles, discovered Lynskey’s remains in a shallow grave in County Meath, Ireland.
Hauntings or government disappearances, we can only prove one, but this particular ghost story is set to run at Belfast’s Grand Opera House. The drama, which has previously starred both Lily Allen and Cheryl Cole during different runs in London’s West End, will arrive at Belfast’s historic Grand Opera House on November 14 and run until November 18, 2023.
Casting by Matilda James. 2:22 – A Ghost Story is produced by Tristan Baker and Charlie Parsons for Runaway.
