Grannagh sits quietly on the Kilkenny bank of the River Suir, just off the N24, in the shadow of a thirteenth-century castle that has stood here since the Norman lords first staked their claim to this stretch of the south Kilkenny countryside. It is not a place that lacks for history. But it is a more recent building on this road – a modest old house standing opposite the Dawn Meats factory – that -acquired its own quiet reputation.

The house was empty for a long time. The last known occupant was an American woman who took up residence there briefly in the late 1990s and left after a short stay. Nobody lived there since, and by most accounts, nobody has been particularly eager to.

The story attached to the house centres on a young boy who once lived there and was killed when he was struck by a vehicle while out on his bicycle, on the road directly outside. Local belief holds that he never left – that his presence has remained in the house long after his death, and that it makes itself known in small but persistent ways.

Drivers passing the property have reported an odd and consistent detail: radio reception cuts out as they draw level with the house and returns once they have passed. It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to dismiss once, but harder to ignore when it keeps happening. One person who stopped to photograph the house later noticed something in the image that hadn’t been visible at the time – a shadow in one of the windows, with the unmistakable shape of a figure looking out.