The Shankill Graveyard, located behind residential streets in the center of Lurgan, dates back centuries.
If you dare to crawl through the wrought iron gates and wander amid the sinking tombstones, you’ll undoubtedly discover a few spine-chilling tales.
Jim Conway, a local historian, is the expert on the horrific legends that haunt the 17th-century location.
He first shows me the double burial of Margorie McCall.

When Margorie developed a fever in 1695, her family quickly organized a wake and buried her.
Soon after she was placed to rest, tomb thieves, who often raided newly buried coffins, dug her out and attempted to take the precious ring she was still wearing.
The robbers sliced off her finger because they couldn’t extract the ring from it.
But as they started their dreadful task, the lady awoke and, in Jim’s words, “she scared the devil out of the grave robbers, who soon skedaddled.”

Margorie emerged from her grave, brushed herself down and returned home, but her husband almost died of shock.
According to Jim, after hearing his wife’s knock on the door, Mr. McCall told his children, “If I hadn’t buried your mother, I would swear that was her knock.”
When he opened the door, he fainted, and Jim claims his hair turned white overnight.
Margorie survived her trauma and even had another child before being buried in what would become her ultimate resting place.

Not all graveyard stories may end so pleasantly, however.
The Cuppage family’s plot is located at the furthest corner of the holy ground.
Jim creates a horrifying portrait of one of the grave’s occupants.
Indian curse
Henry met and married an Indian princess while serving as a lieutenant in the British Army in India.
Jim claims Henry finally wished to return to Ireland, but owing to the strict environment of the period, he was unable to bring his wife.

“The tale says that as he was departing on the boat, she hurled herself into the water and perished. They also claim that she cursed him.
“After about a year, he fell in love with a girl from Dublin who said she would marry him, but then she changed her mind, and we think it’s because she found out about the curse,”  Jim recounts.
Devastated by his second loss, the former soldier walked to the railway track, where a passing postal train murdered him.
In an unexpected turn of events, a letter from his sweetheart accepting his marriage proposal arrived on the train.
“His spirit has never settled since that time, and I can see him around the graveyard with his head under his arm,” Jim tells me.