In the spirit of Halloween

Paranormal sceptic Brian O'Connelland his son Óran meet a team of ghostbusters to search for ghosts, spirits, or anything else that might go bump in the night, at Cork City Gaol

ALTHOUGH I'VE HAD my trouble with spirits in the past (clink), when it comes to ghosts, ghouls and spectres, I'm a paranormal sceptic.

For me the prospect of spending the day with a team of self-confessed "ghostbusters" was like one of the Village People booking into the Playboy mansion for the weekend.

I met the ghoul grabbers from Ghost Hunt Ireland at Cork City Gaol heritage site, a 19th-century site of imprisonment, hardship, hanging, death, misery, cruelty, horror and the most unspeakable acts of bloodcurdling, barbaric . . . you get the message.

I also took my (almost) nine year-old son Óran along to cast a not-so-cynical, younger eye over proceedings.

The group included Tom Flynn from Middlesex, a medium who has encountered spirits since his early teens, and Breda Duggan, group leader and founder member of Ghost Hunt Ireland. Also there were Cathy Fitzgerald and Seán Ahern from Co Kerry.

Every few weeks Ghost Hunt Ireland takes groups to various haunted sites around the country in search of paranormal activity. On this occasion it brought four silver cases of ghost-capturing equipment, ranging from CCTV cameras, to electromagnetic reading machines and night vision cameras. (Think Scooby Doomeets Mission Impossible.)

The plan was to arrive, set up surveillance equipment, kick back and wait for the ghosts to show. Cork City Gaol manager Elizabeth Kearns was a little hesitant. She wasn't denying that the historic site was haunted, but she was concerned that potential visitors would be discouraged because of what we might find.

I pointed out "happenings" didn't do Ballinspittle any harm and we agreed not to interfere with any of the tourists on site. Elizabeth proved very helpful and even relayed some of her own experiences, which we'll get to later.

By way of introduction, ghost hunter Tom Flynn described his first experiences of the spirit world when his dead father appeared to him as a child.

"When I was 15, I lay in bed and could see pictures and people moving like television on the walls. After that, I saw different little things through my life. I remember in my 20s seeing white balls of light going round my bedroom. I didn't take much notice until one day I was lying in bed and, suddenly, when I turned off the light, the whole room lit up for a moment."

I asked Tom if he was feeling anything in the jail.

"WHEN I WALKED in the door I went very cold and saw a little man with no hair who greeted us. I don't know what the history is here, or if he walks the grounds. I get the feeling though he was a good man, maybe a priest or doctor, here to help sick people. There's so much activity here it's amazing."

Throughout the afternoon, Tom said he felt cold and sensed pain and suffering. He also said he could see a female spirit. Pressed on what she looked like, he said she was thin with scraggy hair and dressed in rags - which narrows it down to about 90 per cent of the 19th-century jail population.

The group gets requests from private home owners determined to rid their premises of things that go bump in the night. For now, members say it's a hobby, but there may come a time when they can pursue ghostbusting full-time. Like most other sectors, though, the full effects of the recession has yet to be realised on the spirit world.

"We started up about four years ago. I've always had a great interest in the paranormal, mainly from listening to parents and older people telling ghost stories," says Breda Duggan.

The venture started when 11 members visited Ross Castle in Cavan and spent the night, having been told the place was haunted. Now they do a tour to a site every six weeks.

I WOULD LIKE to be able to say I had a spiritual awakening on our visit to Cork City Gaol. I didn't. Notwithstanding the fact that the ghostbusters weren't able to get all their gear set up, I found their findings vague and somewhat obscure.

In order to get an unbiased view, I asked Óran, who had listened attentively to the ghostbusting team recounting their experience. Before the visit he expected it was going to be strange to hear people who had witnessed ghosts talking about how they try to capture them. But he wasn't convinced afterwards.

"I thought we were going to see freaky stuff and meet real ghostbusters . . . Some of the stuff they were saying was nuts, about seeing things and that. I could see shadows on the walls too, but that was just people behind me. If they did find ghosts maybe there would be a real reason for it."

He wasn't overly spooked by the jail itself either. "Cork City Gaol is just a jail where lots of people went, and it's not at all scary. It's just a place where people got tortured and it has nothing got to do with ghosts. The real ghostbusters are the ones in the film."

Leaving the crack team of ghost hunters aside, manager Elizabeth Kearns told of her own experiences working at the jail.

She admitted when she first took on the job she was a committed spirit sceptic, but her mind has changed. On occasion, visitors contact her to say an extra person has come out in photographs they took, for example.

Kearns told me lots of other strange stories about electrical fixtures going on the blink for no apparent reason, of audio equipment being moved during the night, and of countless sightings by her and members of staff of two women roaming the grounds.

(Psst . . . I was sworn to secrecy).