A Kildare Possession

CON COSTELLO - SAINTS, SOLDIERS AND HORSES

A young woman was employed in a house in Johnstown, by a family who had lost their only son in the Great War. Turning to spiritualism as a means of contacting her dead son, the mother used the maid as a medium, and consequently the girl became possessed. Her condition manifested itself when she went to work for the priest at Allen during the winter of 1919/20. With the permission of the bishop, a priest drove the spirit from the girl, during which it was said, his hair turned snow white. This priest died soon after, and this confirmed local belief in this sensational occurrence. The girl herself, went on to work in a house near Naas. She later married happily and had a family.