Macetown Mill doesn't work as a mill any more. But the people who live there know of the past history. A neighbour asked if they were sleeping well, be cause the place was haunted. He declined an invitation to spend a night in it. Maybe, writes Pru Symmons, who lives there now, it's Mary Flanagan who, over a hundred years ago, met her death when her red hair caught in the machinery, as she was calling the men to come for their meal. Or it could be the far older inhabitants of the site, whose resting place was disturbed in 1992.
The dates of the burial were, scientifically put at the period between 510 and 590 AD. The bones have been removed to the National Museum. Do they haunt the mill in whose grounds they lay?
Or the local men who lost their lives in a motor accident at the Hurley river? Or the worker, who lost his token in 1792 by the mill pond? Has he returned to collect his wages 200 years later? "Do these still haunt the Mill?" asks Pru Symmons. "Whoever it is, we heard them one night as we were reading quietly by ourselves - their voices crossing time and distance - not raised in dispute or anger, but talking about the day's work, as they watched the golden grains fall between the bedding stone and the runner; and the white dust rose to lay its film on their clothes and faces as it had done for hundreds of years in Macetown Mill."
A friend tells of acquaintances of his who used to rent a cottage somewhere in the Millisle/Carrowdore area of County Down. They got it cheap because voices could frequently be heard. The renters, very matter of fact Belfast people, were not at all put off.
The Macetown Mill story comes from A Window on the Past: from The Rathfeigh Historical Society, Tara, County Meath. Many other contributions. A letter from America 1886 tells of the doings of emigrants from Rathfeigh who were running a creamery, a country store and so on, in Iowa. ("I am sorry to see Parnell's land bill was defeated. I am greatly afraid the English Tory government will make trouble for Ireland.") Elizabeth Hickey has an illustrated article on the excavation of a ring barrow at Skryne.
A good deal of hard work and useful, constructive work goes into this and other such local historically minded and entertaining journals. May they flourish.