In A Park After Dark

An unnerving experience for a novice Irish photographer

The following happened fifteen years ago, when I had just discovered a passion for photography, and decided to test a new camera at my then local park (in Priorswood, North Dublin).

Having grown up nearby, I knew the park very well and so visited all my favorite spots — like the now deserted playground, surrounded by trees that had once seemed gigantic to my younger self, or the small pitch-and-putt course, now occupied by a lone player; totally focused on their game.

I eventually walked the long path that snaked around the outer edge of the park — one side dominated by skeletal woodland, and the other by open grassland — and I took many pictures, my mind lost in happy creativity. A lack of any real photographic skill didn’t matter to me at the time, and I was just having fun discovering a new creative outlet . . . being so engrossed, in fact, that I never took notice of the sinking sun – until I was at the farthest end of the park and suddenly needed the camera flash.

I stopped taking pictures, looked around, and realized I was now all alone in a large open space, and one that was growing darker by the minute.

My creative joy was now replaced by a chilly nervousness. So I zipped my camera up in one jacket pocket and then started along the outer path, moving quickly and at a steady, if not exactly hurried pace, for my feet knew the path well and the still bluish darkness made my route easy to see.

I saw no one else in the surrounding gloom and heard little either, bar my own footsteps and a faint wind that occasionally rustled through overhead branches. After what felt like a good half-hour (probably nearer ten minutes), I was relieved to make out the park entrance gate ahead, and looming closer and closer and closer until —

I stopped suddenly, and my eyes were now focused on a certain spot, surrounded by low, if not easily penetrable bushes; this being the same pitch-and-putt course I had passed only an hour before. But it was not recognition that held me, but rather, a murky silhouette that stood in the exact same place — and in the exact same pose — I had only briefly noticed earlier. His or her hands were holding what I had assumed to be a golf club to the ground, with the head and shoulders hunched slightly forward as if contemplating a next move. And so I just stared, lost in some strange fascination that kept my feet rooted to the path, and still the figure never moved . . . and yet was clearly there.

I briefly thought that someone was playing a joke, or that this person had somehow fallen asleep standing up, yet both ideas seemed illogical and downright silly, before darker thoughts took over — that I was looking at a ghost, or perhaps some lunatic holding . . . something far more dangerous than a golf club. These thoughts finally broke my spell and made me rush towards the gate, but again I stopped, and found myself looking back.

The figure was now gone, though this did little to comfort me — quite the opposite — and as I turned to move again, another thought made me halt; the realization that the pitch-and-putt exit faced the park gate, with a roughly six-foot distance between both. And so I then thought, maybe this mystery person was now hiding and waiting for me to pass before they sprang out and . . . God only knows.

I tore back the way I came, like the Devil himself followed behind . . . my mind now racing with all sorts of nightmarish scenarios that fueled the panic powering my legs. And so I nearly tripped by the time I reached a certain point — across the road from a lonely street lamp, its glow showing a thin and remembered gap in the bushes. I squeezed through the space, enduring the broken brambles that scraped my body, and finally collapsed to the ground outside – just relieved to be finally free from the park.

I took a different route home through the maze of houses beyond, the journey taking longer than usual, but worth any safety I now felt. I was near people and lights, and away from the park and whatever lurked there.

So looking back all these years later, and away from Dublin, I’m still not sure what I saw that evening. If I really saw anything . . . though there had been most definitely a slightly hunched shape — dark, static, and unnerving. I believe in ghosts as something people can experience, but whether what I saw was really a spirit, or an axe-wielding weirdo, or just my imagination playing tricks in a dark spooky environment…who knows. Either way, the experience will haunt me (and my imagination) for the rest of my life. And I’ve been back to Priorswood Park a few times since; to have a quiet ramble around and take a few photos, my photography now much improved. But I’ll only ever go there by day, and never ever after sunset.

Thanks for reading! And a special thanks to my friend Dolly Spalding who helped me edit this piece in its original form last year.