In the summer of 1980, locals watched helplessly as the John Locke Inn—once a bustling establishment—was engulfed by flames. For many, it marked the end of an era, but for others, there was a deep sense of unease. Some believed the building wasn’t truly empty. A few claimed to see a tall, grey-haired figure peering through the smoke and flames. Perhaps they did.

For over three decades, the inn had been known as one of the most haunted places in Ireland. So, it seemed fitting that some of its ghostly residents might have been present at its final moments.

When the building was still in use, strange occurrences were common. Guests reported hearing loud tapping sounds, disembodied voices, and chilling screams echoing through the night. The unexplained events were so frequent that they became part of daily life, no longer questioned by those who experienced them.

In the mid-1960s, local tradesman Jackie Dunne was working alone in an upstairs room when he felt a sudden tap on the back of his neck. Expecting to see someone from the bar, he turned—only to come face-to-face with a tall man dressed in 19th-century clothing. The figure locked eyes with him and, in a calm, deliberate voice, said:

“Keep working, Jackie. Your time has not yet come.”

The figure then turned and faded from view.

Shaken, Jackie ran downstairs to tell a group in the bar what had just happened. Some laughed, but others didn’t. A few even admitted to hearing similar stories over the years—stories of the same man appearing upstairs, silent and alone.

A few years later, Philip Lynch, who worked at the inn, had just shown a guest to their room when he heard a loud noise behind him. Turning around, he found a clothes-horse overturned, with clothes scattered along every step of the stairway.

“There was no breeze, no one nearby—no reason for it to have fallen,” he later recalled.

But perhaps the most unsettling encounter came in the mid-1970s, when a travelling salesman stayed at the inn. Preparing for bed, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a foul, sulphurous smell. As he turned toward the door, he saw a dark, crouched figure with wings, its eyes glowing like embers. Frozen with fear, he shouted, “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

His cry was heard downstairs, and a few people rushed up to see what had happened. They found him pale and shaking. Some mocked his story, but others admitted to hearing whispers of a demonic figure haunting the upper floors long before.

Even the drinkers in the bar weren’t immune to the building’s oddities. Glasses were said to have been hurled from behind the counter, pints disappeared from tables, and cold gusts swept through sealed rooms for no apparent reason.

Then came the strangest story of all. A local garda officer’s wife claimed to have seen a leprechaun—dressed in green, wearing a hat, and offering her a shamrock. Terrified, she fled the premises. But some began to wonder: Was it truly a leprechaun, or something far more sinister—an entity using a friendly guise to hide its true nature?

As the disturbances grew more frequent and intense, an American priest was called in to bless the building. He moved from room to room, praying and sprinkling holy water, lingering the longest in the areas most often mentioned in reports. For a time, the strange occurrences ceased, and regulars at the bar even remarked that the building “felt lighter.”

But the calm didn’t last long. Just weeks later, news came that the priest had died suddenly after returning to the U.S. Not long after, the tapping returned. Doors slammed shut for no apparent reason. By then, the inn had fallen into disuse, the bar closed, and the building sat mostly empty.

One night, a passer-by swore they saw someone looking out of the upper window of the abandoned building. A tall, grey-haired figure. The same figure Jackie had described years earlier.

Then, in the summer of 1980, the fire came. Locals gathered on Green Street, watching as flames consumed the building, the roof collapsing in a blaze of heat and smoke. But amid the rising smoke, several witnesses reported seeing something unsettling. As described in local accounts:

“They thought they could make out the form of a tall, sad-looking grey-haired man in the midst of the billowing smoke, and in the flames that lit up the sky.”

Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Or maybe, just maybe, one of the inn’s oldest residents had returned for one final look.