The Suicide Room of Maynooth

Two students committed suicide in the same dorm room, but could a demonic entity be responsible?

St Patrick's College, Maynooth. The pontifical university was once the largest seminary in the world.

Elisa.rolle / CC BY-SA

The small county Kildare town of Maynooth is located 15 miles (24 kilometres) from Dublin city and is home to two important educational institutions. There is Maynooth University, one of the 8 major higher education providers in the country and a popular choice for many young school-leavers embarking on their undergraduate studies. But there is also St Patrick's College, from which Maynooth University officially separated in 1997. St Patrick's is famous in Ireland and abroad because it was, at one point, the largest seminary in the world; the original purpose of the institution was to train about 500 Roman Catholic priests a year.    

Yet despite the vast numbers of clergymen who have graced the hallowed halls of St Patrick's over the last two centuries and more, there is a part of this small pontifical university which is shrouded in darkness. According to the lore of Maynooth, room number 2 of Rhetoric House--now home to the History department--is haunted by an evil entity. However, the activities of this unwelcome visitor extend far beyond merely cultivating an uneasy atmosphere; two related incidents from the mid-1800s suggest that the presence in room 2 has actually directly contributed to the deaths of two seminarians by suicide.

Even though Ireland has always been a predominantly Catholic country, there was a long period of time when it was difficult--even dangerous--to be a member of the church. This is known in Irish history as the era of the Penal Laws, a succession of measures introduced and developed by various British governments after the Reformation. That tumultuous event led to numerous prolonged conflicts in Europe, with the already strained historical relationship between Britain and Ireland being particularly badly affected. Britain's population mostly followed Henry VIII in his split with Rome, but the Irish--generally--remained stubbornly faithful to the Vatican. As a result, British policy in its neighbouring colony became focused first on discouraging Catholicism, and then later, actively punishing it. The vast majority of Irish Catholics were forbidden from owning property, becoming members of parliament, or even voting. Priests themselves became outlaws, celebrating mass illegally in the woods at the country's numerous "mass rocks".

An example of an Irish mass rock. During the Penal Laws, Catholic services were forbidden and mass had to be celebrated in secret.

Kenneth Allen / Glen Mass Rock / CC BY-SA 2.0

Ultimately, however, the Penal Laws failed to bring Ireland into line with Britain. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, a Republican movement began in Ireland that aimed to put the country's Catholic population on an equal footing with the Protestant minority. There was a major rebellion in Ireland in 1798, and even though it failed to establish a republic, it was one of a number of developments that finally motivated Britain to begin the relaxation of the Penal Laws. There were very pragmatic elements at work too, one of which was the realisation that most active Catholic priests in Ireland were being trained in France--home, at the time, to some very radical political ideas. Instead of having Catholic priests influenced by dangerous, anti-establishment French teachers, perhaps it was best to have them train in Ireland? Perhaps it was also best that those they would end up preaching to would have some opportunities in life, instead of remaining a constantly disenfranchised and resentful fifth column within the United Kingdom.

It was in this context that St Patrick's first opened its doors to seminarians in 1795. For many Catholic Irish families, the possibility of sending a son to seminary was an incredible development. For the entirety of the 19th-century, and a great deal of the 20th, having a family member become a priest was a mark of social prestige, and many young boys must have set out for St Patrick's with a considerable weight of expectations placed on their shoulders--often regardless of whether they even wanted to become priests or not in the first place. Many of those who ended up attending St Patrick's as seminarians did so because they were the youngest male child in families of eight or more children, and some parents were as motivated by practical matters of inheritance as they were by any other social factor. It was often the case at the time that an oldest male child would inherit whatever small property his parents owned, the middle male children would emigrate, and the youngest would become a priest. 

Of course, we can only speculate about what this meant for each individual seminarian in terms of his personal relationship--or lack of it--with God, and there is no historical record of the religious convictions of either of the students that met their end in room 2 of Rhetoric House in Maynooth. But the details of the cases do remain.

A priest's library, photographed in Wexford in the 1930s. 

National Library of Ireland on The Commons / No restrictions

In 1841, Rhetoric House was used by St Patrick's as a dormitory. Room 2 was occupied by Sean O'Grady, a 21-year-old seminarian from Limerick. One day in that year, for no apparent reason, O'Grady jumped out of the window of Room 2 and fell to his death. His classmates and the academic staff of St Patrick's were shocked and mystified by the act; O'Grady was generally known to be a cheerful and popular student, and nobody could quite figure out what could motivate him to do such a thing. It is worth noting that, at that time, suicide was considered a grievous sin by the Catholic church, and the suicide of a seminarian--a priest in training--must have been a truly horrific act to contemplate. Perhaps this was what prompted some of O'Grady's colleagues at the time to start talking of a demonic presence in room 2, one that had got under the skin of the young seminarian and, ultimately, caused his death.

Room 2 was closed for a long period after the incident, but in 1860 it was reoccupied by Thomas McGinn from county Wexford. The 27-year-old actually arrived at the campus a week before term began, and so he was allowed to lodge in the room while the quarters he would take for the academic year were being prepared. McGinn apparently found the atmosphere in room 2 oppressive and reported feeling uneasy. In particular, he was concerned with the mirror over the room's tiny washbasin, telling classmates that he was both drawn to and repulsed by it. It was only after he was moved from room 2, however, that he learned of O'Grady's suicide 19 years earlier. This revelation disturbed McGinn greatly, and he became obsessed with the room and what had happened there. One Friday morning, while McGinn's classmates were preparing for a lecture, it was remarked that he was missing from the assembly. After a short search, he was found lying in a puddle of his own blood--on the ground beneath the smashed window of room 2.

Thomas McGinn did not die immediately, however, and before he succumbed to his injuries he was questioned by Dr McCarthy, the Vice-President of St Patrick's college. Dr McCarthy learned that McGinn had been experiencing horrific demonic visions in the room. Nonetheless, he had still felt a powerful compulsion to return to it. On the Friday morning in question, he had visited room 2 directly after mass and, upon looking in the mirror, felt a diabolic power urging him to slash his own throat. Incredibly, he began to do just that, and at the last moment ran for the window in a frantic effort to escape. Later that day, McGinn died from blood loss and the injuries sustained in the fall.

There is a legend among alumni of Maynooth that, following McGinn's death, a priest spent a night in room 2 and emerged the next morning in a state of distress, his hair turned white from shock. This is probably not true; those who tell tales about any haunting naturally add embellishments to the details and, at any rate, there is no evidence that it happened. What did happen, however, was that the Trustees of St Patrick's college, acting on advice from Dr McCarthy, agreed to convert room 2 of Rhetoric House from a dormitory room to an oratory of Saint Joseph. A statue of the saint now blocks the window from the inside, although it is still visible from the outside. Saint Joseph, incidentally, is the patron saint of a peaceful death. The room has never been occupied since, although it is now used as a waiting room for the History department. Visitors are politely--but firmly--urged not to bring mirrors into the room.

The vaulted path to the cemetery of St Patrick's, Maynooth. Sean O'Grady and Thomas McGinn were laid to rest in the cemetery after their deaths by suicide.

William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland / CC BY-SA

There has been sporadic interest in room 2 since the events of the mid-19th-century. It was once visited by Hans Holzer--a paranormal researcher and author--and his wife, who reported psychically detecting an oppressive presence and the suggestion of a "four-legged" demonic entity that inhabits the room. That is interesting, but perhaps the claims made by psychic researchers--whose job is to "feel" unseen presences--should be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps the room is a hotspot of so-called "infra-sound", a phenomenon of low-frequency sounds which are believed to induce feelings of dread in some people and may go some way towards explaining paranormal experiences. Or perhaps there was nothing more mysterious at work than the "ripple effect" of suicide, where the decision of one individual to take their own life influences another to do the same. 

There are problems with both of these too, however; 19 years is a long time for the ripple effect to have any real impact, and infra-sound--though fascinating--has not yet been consistently demonstrated to explain hauntings. In the cases of O'Grady and McGinn, there will be no definitive answers and only speculation remains. The two seminarians are buried in the cemetery of St Patrick's, Maynooth. Their graves are marked. As suicides, who committed a grievous sin in the eyes of the church, their final resting places remain unconsecrated.