In August 1997, an English family moved into a century-old fisherman’s cottage in the seaside village of Rosses Point, County Sligo. Overlooking the narrow channel, the cottage was one of several along the waterfront whispered to be haunted.

At first, the disturbances were subtle. The family’s eldest daughter and one of her brothers both reported an uneasy sense that someone else was present in one of the spare rooms. The daughter kept a rabbit and a guinea pig in that room, and one day she swore she felt a breath against the back of her neck—though no one was there. On another occasion, she entered to feed the pets only to find them loose from their cages. No tools had been used, and her brother swore he had not touched them.

Soon, other strange incidents followed—objects vanishing without explanation, items falling from walls, and faint, untraceable noises. One night, the daughter awoke to see the figure of a woman in late 19th-century dress sitting at a desk, silently watching her sleep.

The phenomena were not limited to that single home. A woman living just a few doors down claimed to have been in her bedroom one evening when two ghostly fishermen stepped through her door. They looked at her, nodded politely, and then turned and vanished. On more than one occasion, she also caught the faint but unmistakable scent of cigarette smoke in her otherwise empty house.