The banshee is alive and well on the western seaboard

It has been a while since I raced through the dormitories of the St Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, terrified that a headless earl of Essex was following me. The spooky story was all we incarcerated teenagers talked about in the lead-up to our Halloween break home. Of course, we didn’t know – or care less – that Robert Devereaux, the second earl of Essex, had been beheaded in the Tower of London in 1601, almost three decades before the castle was built by his son, the third earl. It was on the foundations of this castle the St Louis nuns began to build their convent and boarding school in 1888, and it was through these creaky corridors the decapitated nobleman followed me one night on my return from evening prayers. I was 13 years old. It is easy to conjure such memories as the season of Samhain approaches…