As you travel from Laurencetown towards Seapatrick, you may be forgiven for keeping a wary eye on the roadside after dark. For decades, motorists have reported unnerving apparitions along this otherwise quiet stretch of road.

One of the most striking accounts dates back to the 1960s. Around one o’clock in the morning, a woman known as Mrs. Evans was driving home to Banbridge after a dance in Tullylish Hall. As she approached an old mill, she suddenly found herself behind what appeared to be a funeral procession. A tall man walked solemnly ahead of a horse-drawn hearse pulled by two black horses, the cortege emerging onto the road directly in front of her car.

Forced to slow to a walking pace, she followed the procession for roughly a hundred yards, astonished that such a sight should appear at such a late hour. Then, without warning, the entire cortege turned sharply to the right and vanished.

When Mrs. Evans reached the spot, she realised something was terribly wrong: there was no entrance, no lane, and no gap of any kind — only a high fence and a dense hedge. It would have been physically impossible for the funeral to turn off the road. When she later shared her story, she was shocked to learn that other drivers had reported the same ghostly funeral along this very stretch.