The Ghost Bus Tour

During my trip in Dublin, I have done a very interactive and funny activity: the Ghost bus tour.

The bus used is specially customised for the tour. The exterior of the bus is purple, with ghosts painted on it. When you enter the bus, you quickly notice the purple seats and the curtains added to the windows to create a gloomy mood. It is dark and on the 1rst floor, there is a seated skeleton on the left, just behind the driver. To go to the 2nd floor, you have to go through black ribbons that are hanging before the steps. Once everyone is sitting, you meet the tour guide who is all dressed in black. He takes a mike and tells you that the tour includes two stops where you get off and visit locations where ghosts have allegedly been seen.

The bus leaves O’Connell Street to first stop at the College of Physicians. You stay in the bus and watch the building while the guide tells you the story of Dr Clossey, a surgeon paying body snatchers for fresh corpses. His spirit is still walking the corridors carrying a bucket of human entrails. This story leads you to St Kevins Churchyard. There, the man tells you about a priest who have been tortured and gives you more details about the grave-robbers. He asks then for a volunteer to show you how the robbers did to rob parts of the corpses.

The next stop of the tour is St Audoen’s Church and the 40 haunted steps. The apparition of the “green lady” and her child in this place has been reported in Ireland for generations. On the way back to O’Connell Street, the guide tells you about a young boy and a woman who have been possessed by the devil 40 years apart in the same area.

I appreciated it because it was a very uncommon activity. The tour guide was a very good actor and put us at our unease by locking the door of the churchyard and startling us in the dark. The bus in itself was an attraction and it was interesting to discover the chilling legends of Dublin. It is a way of learning more about the city. The activity was quite interactive because we had to recognise horror films just by hearing the sound track. We also listened to recorded tapes of a dead girl called Mary Masters and of the woman possessed by the devil. The negative points were that it was very cold outside and that it was sometimes difficult for me to understand all the details of the stories.

Amélie Bulon