Stage Fright!
Some of the greatest performances ever staged at Mullingar Arts Centre were by actors from beyond the grave, writes Megan D'Arcy.
In 2004, fire ripped through the building, sending valuable costumes and props up in flames.
When the fire was extinguished the firefighters would not go into the room worst affected by the blaze.
For in the middle of the room, on ground covered in the ashes of props and costumes, lay the crown of thorns used in Jesus Christ Superstar. The crown was the only item in the entire room that was not destroyed by fire.
It now hangs in the office of Sean Lynch, arts centre manager, a constant reminder of one of the centre’s greatest mysteries.
One of Sean’s spookiest personal memories from the centre is the night the music would not stop.
“The cathedral had launched a Christmas album in the arts centre,” Sean told the Westmeath Examiner last week. “We were piping the music through the rooms and everyone was having a wonderful time.
“When people were starting to head home, I heard the music start again – I thought, who left the music on?
“I went down to the deck, which I was sure had been switched off, so I started shutting it down, but the music kept playing. In fact it was getting louder.
“I went straight back into the main reception area and got the bishop and I brought him back to show him everything was switched off.
“Then I reached down and unplugged everything, and the holy Christmas music could still be heard. “
A sense of the power of the arts centre reached out to four mediums, when they took a detour on a trip from Dublin to Galway to visit Sean and offer their help.
“When they came in, they told me, they could sense death.
“They sensed that the site of the arts centre had once been the site of a gallows and they refused to set foot in the side alley,” says Sean.
The mediums had brought specialised equipment with them to scan the area for manifestations or any physical or tangible evidence that the building was haunted.
They braved the basement, where the dressing rooms are, and told Sean they sensed a malevolent spirit.
“What happened next was truly terrifying. Blood began to spill from the medium’s nose. They told me they had to leave straight away.
Spirits in the bar
The arts centre also has a poltergeist that Sean believes is more mischievous than malevolent.
“I have been here from the start,” he says, “and from day one there have been unexplained incidents that are witnessed by staff, people who set up stage and visitors.
“Doors opening and closing, footsteps, glasses suddenly shattering, pictures flying of the wall, glasses falling off shelves and rolling up and down the floors.
“We even have ghosts that take up seats that play-goers have bought tickets for.
“Once a friend of mine was being kept a seat but when he turned up there was a man sitting in it, so he headed on up and took a free seat further back. At the first interval he came down and his companion for the evening asked him, ‘Where did you go?’ and he told her, ‘Well, I couldn’t sit beside you, there was a man in my seat’.
“‘There was not indeed,’ she said, ‘I have sat on my own all night’.
“But when they asked the other people in her row, they had all seen the man that had taken the seat, but everyone in the row behind was adamant the seat was empty.”
Now that’s the kind of theatre goer you want to sit behind, one that you can see through!
Sean believes that there is a full company of theatre loving ghosts in the arts centre – most of whom are kind spirits that just love the energy of everything that happens there – and it’s always filled with energy with 2,000 people coming and going every week.
Then there is the tragic history associated with the site. It was once the site of Mullingar’s gaol its gallows, where many people lost their lives.
The last man hanged there was Brian Seery in 1846, for an alleged assault on Sir Francis Hopkins of Tudenham House.
It is said that Brian was innocent and that so many people turned up for his funeral that you can still meet the procession.