In the Kilrossanty district of west Waterford, on a rise of land containing a Rag Well, there once stood a house at the top of a field known as Bán an Táilliúra – the Tailor’s Field. The name came from a man called Farrell, a tailor who lived there, and the story that attached itself to the house long outlasted him.

Farrell’s brother was the source of the trouble. He had taken a wife – a woman who had returned home from America – and by all accounts the wedding night did not go smoothly. The groom’s state of cleanliness was so poor that his new bride was compelled to scrub him down before anything else could proceed. Three days later, he was dead, carried off by pneumonia. From that point on, his room stood empty. Nobody slept in it. Not then, and not later, when the house passed to other occupants and other lives were lived within its walls. Whoever came to the house, the room was left alone – because it was understood, without much discussion, that it still belonged to Farrell’s brother. His presence had not left with his body.