In 1678, a house near the Dublin suburb of Smithfield became the focus of a disturbing and widely discussed haunting. If the date is accurate, the case may represent one of the earliest recorded accounts of alleged supernatural activity in Ireland.

The incident was later documented by a man named Daniel Williams, who stated that the house was occupied by a young woman whose uncle owned the property. According to Williams, the woman began experiencing a series of terrifying disturbances centred on the rooms she most frequently used.

She reported hearing loud, unexplained noises within the house and claimed that whenever she sat upon the wooden chests or wainscots – a form of paneled seating or furniture common in the seventeenth century – she would suddenly feel violent blows striking her body, as though delivered by an unseen attacker.

Believing the house itself to be the source of the disturbance, her relatives removed her to another residence. Yet the strange events followed her. The same mysterious sounds continued and the assaults reportedly resumed.

She was then moved again, this time to a house on Patrick Street in Dublin, but the phenomenon persisted. Almost every night, typically around two o’clock in the morning, the unexplained noises returned, leaving the young woman exhausted and deeply frightened.

In desperation, a group of local Protestant ministers gathered at the house to pray with her and attempt to drive away whatever force seemed to be tormenting her. During these prayer meetings, witnesses claimed that loud blows echoed through the room, striking wooden chests and walls as if some invisible presence were reacting to the prayers.

Daniel Williams himself was reportedly present during one of these gatherings. According to his account, he joined the ministers and delivered a sermon from the Bible. After this final prayer and preaching session, the disturbances abruptly ceased.

The young woman was said to have been freed from the haunting after enduring approximately three months of relentless activity.

Whether the case represented a genuine unexplained phenomenon, a psychological ordeal, or something misunderstood by seventeenth-century observers remains uncertain. However, the detailed testimony surrounding the events has ensured that the Smithfield haunting of 1678 remains one of Dublin’s earliest recorded ghost stories.