On 30 January 1816, the transport ship Sea Horse was driven onto the sands of Tramore Bay during a violent storm – one of the most devastating maritime disasters in Irish history.

On board were 394 souls: soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 59th Regiment, along with their officers, wives, children, and crew. They were en route from Ramsgate to Cork, part of the great movement of troops in the uneasy aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Only 30 survived.

Over the following months, the sea gradually returned the bodies of those lost. The scale of the tragedy meant that most were interred without ceremony – some in the grounds of Drumcannon Church, many others buried where they were found along the shoreline itself. The last recorded beach burial took place in late May, nearly four months after the wreck.

In the late 1990s, a holiday village called Seafield was constructed on the seafront. Many of the homes are now used as primary residences.

The area has attracted its share of unsettling accounts over the years. A former resident, writing on a public forum, described renting a property there for two months. Despite having a blazing fire going, the house always felt stone cold. One day, his girlfriend was upstairs moving belongings from the bedroom to the spare room when the bedroom door slammed shut in her face as she tried to re-enter. No windows were open at the time. She refused to stay in the house after that.

A neighbour reported hearing a loud bang in their kitchen one night and finding that the end of a sliced pan had been thrown across the room. Their young daughter had repeatedly told them there was a man in the wardrobe who had a tail and feet like a horse. They also left.

He wondered aloud whether the disturbances might be connected to the mass graves believed to lie in the area – a legacy of the Sea Horse disaster.