The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels has never been solved. Original poster from the Dublin Metropolitan Police reporting the Irish Crown Jewels as stolen. Dublin Police(Life time: 1907), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons It was supposed to be the central moment of King Edward VII's impending visit to Ireland; at a ceremony in Dublin Castle in July, 1907 he would use the insignia of the Order of St Patrick--otherwise known as the Irish Crown Jewels--to invest a Knight into the order.  But it was not to be. Days before the monarch set out on his Irish visit, the Jewels would van ..read more

No answers for loved ones more than 50 years after girl taken and murdered in Sligo Bernadette Connolly was abducted and murdered in Sligo in 1970. Her killer has never been found.  Credit: Sunday Independent The afternoon of April 17th, 1970 was a memorable one for many people. It was the day that the Apollo 13 lunar module landed back on earth, with millions glued to TV screens waiting to see if the ill-fated mission would actually make it. But for one family in Collooney in Sligo, the date will forever be remembered with the most profound sense of loss.  Bernadette Connolly w ..read more

Did a childhood pact lead to a ghostly visit from beyond the grave? An image of a ghost from 1899, created by double exposure. The Beresford ghost remains one of Ireland's best known cases of spectral visitations. The National Archives UK If there is one factor that can be said to have affected the course of Irish history above all others, it would have to be that of religion. The early Christian period on the island saw the establishment of influential monastic towns and settlements, many of which amassed such wealth that they would eventually attract envious interest from maraudin ..read more

Strange burials in a small settlement in 7th-century Ireland points to a belief in vampires. An image of one of the skeletons uncovered at Kilteasheen in Roscommon. The rock placed in the mouth was intentional, and occurred after death. "Kilteasheen Skeleton" by Chris Read credit poweredbyosteons When Chris Read, a lecturer in Applied Archaeology at Sligo Institute of Technology, teamed up with some colleagues from St Louis University in the USA to develop a site for excavation in the quiet area of Kilteasheen in County Roscommon, he assumed that he would find lots of skeletons ..read more

A brutal murder in a small community leads an innocent man to the gallows. The body of Moll McCarthy. Her murder in 1940 shocked the small community of Marlhill, and is unsolved. moll mccarthy credit Irish Post Prisons are not known for their beauty or charm, but the room in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison that Henry Gleeson entered in 1941 was a particularly grim one even by those low standards. Just a few square metres of grey stone, the one distinguishing feature there was also the most horrifying: a gallows occupied what little space there was in the small room's centre. Gleeson had been bro ..read more

The Devil once came calling, according to legend, but is there something else lurking in Ireland's most haunted house? Loftus Hall. Often claimed to be the most haunted house in Ireland, it is now a tourist attraction. Gfox228, Loftus Hall, Wexford, Ireland - panoramio, colour by Irish Mysteries, CC BY 3.0 It is perhaps Ireland's most well-known tale of the supernatural. On a stormy night in the early 1770's, a ship is wrecked off the Hook peninsula in county Wexford. One of the sailors washed ashore makes his way to Loftus Hall, the massive country house that dominates Hook Head. The H ..read more

The town of Ardreigh survived for centuries before disappearing, but what happened to this ancient Irish settlement? A view of the plains of South Kildare. The area where the town of Ardreigh once stood now resembles this, with little evidence of a settlement having existed at all.  Sarah777 / Public domain Bad sections of roads are common in Ireland, and one of the most notorious bad bends was for many years located just outside of the midlands town of Athy. A part of the regional road R417, leading southwards out of the town in the direction of its larger neighbour Carlow ..read more

The discovery of two preserved bog bodies raises questions about both political and religious rituals among the ancient Irish. An Irish bog. Bog bodies are common throughout Europe, with several high-profile cases having been found. Sarah777 / Public domain In March of 2003, workers at Bord na Mona--Ireland's leading provider of peat fuel--encountered a problem with one of their harvesting machines. Closer inspection of the vehicle revealed something horrific: there was a body trapped in the machinery. Had it not clogged the harvester, the corpse could easily have gone unnoticed. The visi ..read more

Two students committed suicide in the same dorm room, but could a demonic entity be responsible? St Patrick's College, Maynooth. The pontifical university was once the largest seminary in the world. Elisa.rolle / CC BY-SA The small county Kildare town of Maynooth is located 15 miles (24 kilometres) from Dublin city and is home to two important educational institutions. There is Maynooth University, one of the 8 major higher education providers in the country and a popular choice for many young school-leavers embarking on their undergraduate studies. But there is also St Patrick's College ..read more

A Royal Navy vessel sinks in calm weather along the Irish coast with the loss of most of the crew, along a route it had travelled many times before. HMS Wasp, pictured in 1880. Unknown, HMS Wasp (1880), marked as public domain On September 21st, 1884, HMS Wasp set out from the harbour in Westport, County Mayo, on Ireland’s western coast. It was bound for Inishtrahull island, the most northerly of the many small islands that flank the country’s Atlantic seaboard. The Royal Navy gunboat had sailed the route many times in its short career as a commissioned ship of the line. Most of the journ ..read more