The Maher family name carries serious weight in this part of Tipperary. The clan, in Irish Ó Meachair, held the ancient barony of Ikerrin – the territory stretching from Roscrea to the Devil’s Bit and on to Templemore – for centuries before and after the Norman invasion. It is fitting, in a strange way, that a story like this would attach itself to a Maher household on this stretch of road.

According to an account preserved in the National Folklore Collection, a house on the Templemore Road outside Roscrea, once owned by a family named Maher, had a reputation for being haunted. The family was troubled by strange noises that came only at night, and despite their best efforts, they could never trace the source. Eventually they decided they had had enough. They sold the house, and everything in it.

An auction was held for the furniture and farm implements. The whole neighbourhood turned out, and nobody quite understood why the Mahers were leaving a home they had lived in for so long.

One man bought some farm implements and loaded them onto his cart. On the way home, he noticed they were smoking. There was no flame anywhere to be seen, and nothing he tried could put it out. Along the road he met a woman who had also been at the auction, carrying a bucket she’d bought. Hers was smouldering too.

By the time either of them reached home, everything they had bought at Maher’s auction had burned down to ash.