Until the mid-nineteenth century, the park was a graveyard attached to St Mary’s Church – which itself is now a popular bar, restaurant, and nightclub. The graveyard was cleared in the 1940s to make way for a playground and the park was created in the 1960s. Visitors will still see the old tombstones now set against the walls that surround it. With stories of overcrowding and graves being disturbed, it should not be a surprise that a few of the other buildings surrounding the square are also said to be haunted by restless spirits, including the Jervis Shopping Centre.

A notorious figure interred at the square was John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury – also known as “the hanging judge”. Considered to be one of the most hated people in Ireland at the time, he seemingly took grim pleasure from condemning people to death, and folklore tells that he was cursed by the dying widow of one of the men he sentenced to hang. Following his death in 1831, his ghost was said to haunt the area in the form of a phantom black dog, doomed for eternity to prowl the streets, dragging a heavy chain.

Another local phantom is a tall, dark figure who passes through a wall and walks out across the square, but the bottom part of his legs are underground.