The small brick farmhouse stood silhouetted and still in the night, a black monolith under moonlight perched up high on the hill. To observe this quiet scene from a distance is to participate in the grand illusion of permanence, the world seeming for a moment like a grand tableau fixed in time. Should we gaze on this house a little while longer, however, it would not be long before our illusion was punctured by the distant caw of a disgruntled crow or the haunting screech of a fox in the undergrowth or by the movement of a thin mist steadily creeping toward it from out of the valley below. In fact, should we stare long enough, we would see that even the stars above that seem so fixed in the sky, are in a state of constant shift.

Inside the house, a small fire cracked and crackled in the hearth as Bridget Murphy and her oldest daughter Anne slept under the soft flickering light of the flames. Next door in the bedroom to their right, 18-year-old Mary, 14-year-old Bridget, 9-year-old Catherine, and the youngest 5-year-old Bridget, 9-year-old Catherine and the youngest 5-year-old Jane Ann slept soundly together in their bed, while 23-year-old James had the fortune of a bed to himself at the other end of the house.

It had been only a matter of months since eight had become seven, after Michael Murphy, the father, and Bridget's husband, had been violently upended from his cart and fallen head first onto a rock, killing him instantly. That night, with the fire having all but gone out, Bridget awoke suddenly in the dark, alerted to what sounded like something moving about in the attic above. Although the room, which could only be accessed from a stone stairwell outside, was being used as a makeshift barn, she knew only too well that it was currently unoccupied. Hearing the sound again, with Anne fast asleep beside her, Bridget made a quick check of the bedrooms but found all her children accounted for. Having just returned to the central room, a tremendous thud rang out from behind her, followed by the startled screams of her four daughters as they bolted from their bed. With James joining them moments later, Bridget urged him to investigate upstairs. As the rest of the family huddled by the hearth, the sound of footsteps could be heard above as James inspected the attic, finding nothing inside but bales of straw.

No sooner had he returned downstairs, a violent bang, echoed through the house, then another, and another, each one louder than the next. Make it stop, cried Catherine, as Bridget gathered her in her arms and they all looked anxiously toward each other when finally the banging stopped it would be a few nights later when young Jane Anne woke up screaming having felt the bed move across the room and that something had been pressing down on her from above.

Over the next few weeks, the terrifying sounds continued, always beginning late at night in the children's bedroom or from the makeshift barn above, but not once did they see any sign of a culprit. Confused and scared, Bridget sought the council of her friends and neighbors, inviting them round to hear it for themselves. Together they sat, huddled in the center room, as the colossal bangs echoed through the walls and rattled the windows. Or that strange foot-dragging sound lurched from one side of the ceiling to the other. And soon the rumors began to circulate.

One neighbor had heard that the Cherry family, the previous owners of the house, had only stayed one night before hurriedly leaving for reasons unknown. The property had remained unoccupied for six months before it was sold. Others told of a man that had hung himself in one of the bedrooms many years before. By now, convinced that something otherworldly was taking place, Bridget turned to their local priest, Father Smith, for help.

Smith arrived at the house late one night, keen to make an assessment for himself before deciding what could be done, to find the family in a state of deep distress. Asking for them all to gather in the central room, Smith solemnly made his way around the house before being led upstairs by James to inspect the barn. Returning back down, Smith requested permission to stay the night. As the family slept, he took a seat by the fire and waited... And then it came.

It was like the sound of straw being rustled from the room above, followed by a tremendous thud. As the others ran screaming from their beds, the sound only intensified until it was as if a horse was kicking at the walls. Without thinking, Smith gathered them together and hastily recited mass. As the family held hands and clutched each other tightly, Smith's forthright voice rose over their quiet whimperings, and slowly the sickening noise began to dissipate until it stopped altogether. As Smith related his findings back to the church, a different set of rumors were beginning to circulate in the nearby towns.

When the girls attended their crochet lessons, others in the class would move away from them, pointing and whispering from a distance that the family had the black art, and had used it deliberately to invite a demon into their home. Others rejected the nonsense entirely, believing instead that the family were just making the whole thing up. Having spoken to Father Smith, the regional bishop instructed local Reverend Coyne from nearby McGuire's Bridge to get a second opinion. Since Smith's visit, the disturbances had steadily intensified and were already in full swing when Coyne arrived late one autumn night. With an anxious Bridget, hurriedly showing him into the children's bedroom, Coyne looked on aghast at the terror on the faces of the girls, lying down on their bed as a series of bangs rattled out around them.

Turning to two men in the room who had also come to help, Coyne told them to take hold of the children's arms and legs to make sure they weren't the source of the disturbances. At the next break in the bangs, they held them down. Satisfied they were sufficiently restrained, Coyne took a seat at the end of the bed. But almost as soon as he sat down, the thumping started again, continuing for 10 minutes, until the other two men leapt suddenly from the bed, crying out in horror. Something had pushed them off, they cried. Having felt nothing himself, Coyne resisted the urge to move. But just moments later, with his eyes firmly on the children, became the most peculiar sensation at his back, as if something else in the room had drawn right up to him, and then the bangs started again. Just then a collie, the family farm dog, wandered into the room, giving Coyne an idea. Picking the dog up, he placed it under the bed. Whatever is there, he said, I ask you if you have the power to do it, push the dog back out. A deafening cacophony of barks engulfed the room like nothing they'd heard before, sending the dog, leaping and yapping from out of the bed in a fit of terror, before scurrying out of the room altogether.

As Father Coyne later explained to Bridget, though he regretted to be the bearer of such disturbing news, there was no doubt in his mind that they were sharing their home with something malicious and most likely diabolical. In the following days, fathers Coyne and Smith continued to visit the house, often together as they attempted to bring comfort to the family but also with talk of performing a possible exorcism it was vital for them to get a better understanding of what they were dealing with on each, after the children had been put to bed, the knocking would start up, sometimes instantly, but other times a good hour later. One night, with the children fast asleep and the house completely silent save for the sound of the fire in the hearth, Coyne requested to hear more about the strange noises that seem to emanate from the attic room. As Father Smith stayed with Bridget by the fire, James lit a candle, and lead coin into the second bedroom, the gentle light of the candle pushing the shadows away as they went. The room was sizable, with blinds pulled down over both its windows, and in the corner a bed covered with a white quilt. Together they stood for a moment and listened. Their faces bathed in the orange light of the candle as the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.

There, said James suddenly, pointing to the ceiling. Do you hear it? Coyne strained to listen. It was barely perceptible at first as if a small animal were burrowing into straw. Yet it was clearly moving from one side of the room to the other. Asking James to stay put, Coyne took another candle and slowly made his way out of the house and up the stone steps to the attic door. Pushing it open, Coyne peered into the door. Pushing it open, coin peered into the darkness, lit his candle, and stepped inside. As he stood in the silent room, pushing the shadows back with the candlelight, he saw nothing but bundles of straw.

Moments later, Coyne returned to the bedroom, where once again he could hear that peculiar sound coming from the room above. Having asked James to repeat the test, this time, Coyne stood below as James went upstairs to investigate. With the priest carefully listening out, despite clearly hearing James enter the room, not once did the other noise desist. As soon as James joined Coyne back downstairs, something even more peculiar occurred. As both men would later go on to attest, it felt as if something had rushed down from above, shooting past them like a gust of wind straight down into the floor. Unnerved, Coyne ordered James to lift up the blinds, and in an instant the room was bathed in the hazy light of dawn. Then, turning to look back into the room, James gasped in horror, pointing a finger toward the bed. Coyne slowly turned around. The quilt was moving, softly billowing about as if being blown by the wind. Coyne stepped forward and brushed his hand over it and felt for a moment as if a barrel of eels were squirming about underneath it. Stepping back, he watched with alarm as the amorphous sheet, seemed gradually to fix into shape, outlining what appeared to be some kind of figure lying underneath. At the point where a chest might be, Coyne watched with bemusement as the quilt began to rise and fall as if that chest were heaving up and down, struggling to breathe, and then suddenly the entire quilt began undulating violently, as if whatever was under it were in the final throes of death. Wasting no more time, Father Coyne broke immediately into mass, directing it toward that shape as a steady din of what sounded like a hideous gurgling flooded the room as if something were dying right in front of them.

All the while he kept on spitting out the words with ever-increasing intensity as the bed began to rock back and forth, lifting the legs inches from the ground, and then, as quick as it had begun, the quilt dropped down, and the mayhem ceased. As word travelled far and wide of the apparent hauntings in the Murphy's home, more and more people requested to come and observe it for themselves. One evening, a well-known horse dealer arrived at the house to see what all the fuss was about. Sitting next to his driver as they approached on his pony and trap, there was no doubt some apprehension as they caught sight of that small stone house perched high up on the hill before them.

Its windows like eyes flickering ominously with the candlelight from within. All was quiet as the driver brought them to a stop outside. James, who'd been expecting them, greeted the horse dealer before showing him inside, while the driver was instructed to wait alone under the moonlight. It was sometime later, as the driver blew into his hands to keep them warm, that he noticed the silhouette of a figure walking toward him from out of the distant dark. The driver watched it as it drew closer and closer, until eventually it passed him by and disappeared into the night. It was strange he thought since there was some distance from the nearest neighbor or village for that matter. Thinking nothing more of it, the driver had just turned his attention back to keeping warm when he caught sight of another figure approaching from out of the same direction as the one before, only for them to again pass straight by without a word and then vanish.

Grabbing a torchlight, the driver held it out behind him and squinted into the dark, but saw nothing. Turning back, he jumped at the sight of yet another figure emerging from out of the distance, again from the same place as the other two. Calling out, the driver demanded to know their business, but got nothing in response.

As all the while the figure drew nearer and nearer, walked past the cart and vanished back into the night. Just then a heavy gust of wind swept across the hill, blowing out the driver's light and throwing the pony into a frenzy, neighing and stamping and raising up on two feet before the driver could bring it under control.

It was with some relief when his employer emerged moments later from out of the house and demanded to be taken back home. Though both Father Smith and Coyle urged the Church to grant permission to conduct an exorcism, in the end it was decided not to take such drastic measures. Perhaps one of the most unusual incidences occurred shortly before Father Coyne was due to transfer to another parish. On one afternoon, while out visiting a sick neighbor of the Murphy's, Coyne was passing the Murphy household when he decided to check in on the family. Little had changed since he last saw them, but on this occasion he had a holy picks with him containing the consecrated host, wafers of bread which are considered in Catholicism to be the body of Jesus Christ. As more of an experiment than anything else, Coyne entered the children's bedroom and holding the picks aloft made the sign of the cross with it.

This moment was followed immediately with such loud bangs, everyone else present threw themselves to the ground in fear of what might happen next. Panicking, Coyne was then said to place the picks on the floor, at which point the sound seemed to travel through the wall down toward the small holy container before dropping under the floor below it moving deeper and deeper into the ground until it could no longer be heard. In the end, unable to escape the strange phenomena, Bridget Murphy eventually decided to pack up and move the family to America. Though it isn't known what happened to them after their arrival in America, or if they continued to be plagued by similar hauntings. Some have reported that passengers traveling on the same boat as them heard peculiar noises coming from the family's cabin late at night. As for the clergyman that had spent so much time with the family, their involvement apparently was said to have led to two of them, suffering spinal meningitis and facial paralysis respectively, while a third suffered a complete nervous breakdown.