Ballymacarrett Railway Station once stood in East Belfast, serving the growing industrial districts of the city from the early 20th century until its closure in 1977. The station was ultimately shut as part of wider changes to Belfast’s rail network, with services consolidated into what would become a more centralised system.

Long before its closure, however, the area around the station had already become associated with a far more unsettling story.

In 1896, the remains of a young servant girl named Katherine Hanvey were reportedly discovered near the railway line in the Ballymacarrett area. Contemporary accounts of her death are unclear, and it has never been definitively established whether she died by suicide or as the result of a tragic accident involving a train. The circumstances surrounding her death appear to have remained unresolved, leaving the story open to interpretation.

It is from this period hat the station’s ghost story is said to emerge.

According to local tradition, one foggy November evening around the turn of the twentieth century, a railway signalman travelling from County Down disembarked at Ballymacarrett. As he stepped onto the platform, he became aware of a young woman behind him. She spoke briefly, giving her name – reported as “Hanvey” – before the two parted ways without anything seeming out of the ordinary.

The man continued on toward the nearby Bridge End area, stopping at a local public house – often identified in retellings as the Aero Bar – where he mentioned the encounter in passing. Those present, recognising the name, are said to have informed him that no such woman could have been at the station that night. Katherine Hanvey, they told him, had died years earlier, her body having been found near those very tracks in 1896.

Realising what he may have encountered, the story suggests that the man had unknowingly spoken with a figure long deceased.

Since then, it has been claimed that the spirit of a young woman has been seen or sensed in the vicinity of the former station – particularly in conditions of low visibility, such as fog or mist, echoing the setting of the original account.

As with many such stories, there is little surviving documentation to confirm the details of the alleged encounter, and much of the narrative has been passed down through local retelling rather than formal record. However, the persistence of the name, the setting, and the circumstances has allowed the story of Katherine Hanvey to endure as part of East Belfast’s lesser-known folklore.

Today, the station itself is gone, but the story remains.