This Paranormal Life - #387 Spike Island - Ireland’s Alcatraz (w/ Real Life Ghost Stories)

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

This week Kit and Rory are joined by Emma Ozenbrook, the host of the hit paranormal podcast Real Life Ghost Stories. Emma helps them investigate Ireland’s most haunted location — Spike Island. Originally a monastery, Spike Island would later become a prison and military base, housing many of the most unfortunate souls to ever set foot on the Emerald Isle. Tune in as Rory, Kit, and Emma evaluate some shocking photographic evidence and drink a few BuzzBallz along the way…Find Real Life Ghost Stories hereFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip ShackladyResearch by Ewen Friers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can ghosts swim? If cryptids are real, why doesn't the military deploy them in war? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the comedy podcast where every Tuesday we dive into a different paranormal tale deciding by the end of the episode whether it's real or not. And Rory today is very special because we have help. We are being joined by a fan favorite, the host of one of the biggest and best paranormal shows in the UK, Real Life Ghost Stories. You've seen her on TikTok. You've heard her movie reviews. She's a veteran paranormal investigator. It is Emma Osenbrook. How the hell are you doing today, Emma? I'm okay. I'm excited to be here.

I'm really, weirdly nervous. Well, you shouldn't be because am I right in saying Real Life Ghost Stories has been going, like, is it a similar amount of time? Do you think it's TPL? I think I'm about a year or two behind you guys because interestingly, a different gen. Little fun fact. Yours was the first podcast I ever listened to. Really?

I thought I had to tell Kit this the other day that I think that was the first time I met you was at the podcast show. I was like, it's Rory Powers. Yeah. And I think I said, shut the f*** up. I'm on the phone. Yeah. And then walked away really quickly. Emma turned to her friend and said, Rory Powers is the only podcaster there is. I've only heard one show and it's him. Yeah. Interesting. It was at the podcast show and I thought, wow, all of these other people are here for Rory? That's wild. That's crazy. I'm going to say something because you guys need to hear this and you need to hear it

from me. Okay. Cause I am a friend in the industry. So this is a gift, but it's also maybe somewhat of a threat. It's a knuckle sandwich, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I'm sorry. You guessed. You guessed well. So there have been whisperings, murmurings in the commune. Our commune? Your commune. People have been questioning your investigative skills. What? Yeah. This is news to me.

So I brought you something which might alleviate the murmurings. Okay. Okay. Give us some straight cred back. I would appreciate that. So I'm a fish, technically a doctor. I've got a doctorate. What's it in?

That's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. Life. Yeah. So that means that I can bestow a PhD onto you guys. I don't think that's how it works. Yeah, it is how it works. Okay. Do you have a PhD? Not yet I don't think that's how it works. Yeah, it is how it works. Okay. Do you have a PhD?

Not yet. So you don't know how it works. And I brought you something that will alleviate the murmurings. Okay. Okay, I like this. You're on our side. I've brought you.

Oh, wow. Oh, shit. A doctorate of Sasquatch. Wow. This is, oh my goodness. For anyone who's not watching on youtube.com, Emma is holding up a beautiful frame certificate. I feel like I'm in a 90s game show.

Of our collective. It's, I mean, me and Rory are so entwined. We both have a, we have a combined doctorate. And it says Bigfoot University, which is definitely real. For sure. Upon recommendation of the faculty and approval of the Board of Trustees, which is me and by the virtue of the authority granted to them, hereby bestow upon Kit and Rory for completing the required combination of countless hours of research. Wow. And exploration is to be considered

an expert and is thereby presented with this Doctorate of Sasquatch. I also brought one for Phil. is to be considered an expert and is thereby presented with this Doctorate of Sasquatch. I also brought one for Phil. Oh. So I added a plus Phil. Wow, thanks Emma. That's all right, no worries. That's great.

And finally, because it's your graduation day, I brought us drinks to celebrate. Okay, here we go. I also brought glasses. Because we don't have any glasses. We don't have any. We have so many mugs for coffee I also brought glasses. Because we don't have any glasses. We have so many mugs for coffee, but no glasses. Oh god.

What the f*** is that? It's a buzz ball. Rory, have you had a buzz ball in your life? I have had the joy of experiencing a buzz ball before. I would also call it a joy. It kind of does. It is paranormal adjacent. They do kind of look like little wizard's potions that he would kind of throw in a joy. It kind of does. It is paranormal adjacent. They do kind of look like little wizards' potions that he would kind of throw in a duel. I would say that these maybe would be better served as weapons. So what we're going to

do is we're going to have a taste. Okay, right now. I love this. I love this. Yeah, I'm really excited. By the ingredients and the shape and the whatever. But on the side, women owned. Owned by women. So that's good. Happy graduation. Cheers!

Let's kick off this investigation. Happy graduation. Cheers. Let's kick off this investigation. Oh, God. This is a sign of things to come. That's delicious. Oh, yeah. It's so good that I didn't actually drink it. What?

So full disclosure, right? I did actually get these with the intention of being like, this is, this is cute. They'll be lovely. I saw it on TikTok. TikTok never lies. Like, it'll definitely be good. And then I bought them and drank one and it was like drinking misery. Yeah. Oh yeah. God, they're awful.

You clearly didn't try doing it again. You can get big ones too. The size of like an elephant skull. They're called like big buzz. That's a very specific size that measures. That's what I got. An elephant skull. Yeah, it's, you know, it's a big one. That's fantastic.

Thank you so much for beautiful gifts. And I know Phil appreciates it. Phil, would you like one? Oh, let's go. Phil's like, I'm editing a podcast right now. Anything to take away the f***ing pain. All right, let's just get a live reaction on the pod, Phil, right now. That's not, it's not as bad as I thought. That's my guy. That's my guy right there. That's not, it's not about the Northern.

That's my guy, that's my guy right there. That's that northerner in Phil. He's not fazed. And Phil, it's women owned. I actually don't think women should be owned. That's my controversy, so. So needless to say, Emma is really trying to kick things off

with a buzz over here at TPL HQ. Thank you so much for coming down and seeing us. Checking out the studio, we will have to be kind of putting a bag over your head to and from the location so you don't share it anywhere else. But rest assured, everyone, we have a fantastic paranormal tale for you today, which is why we brought in the big guns. You can probably hear so far listening to this podcast that Emma is Irish. So I thought who better to help us tackle one of Ireland's greatest hauntings of all time.

That's right, Corny the Ghost. Not really. Something much scarier than that. We are going to get right into it after a couple of words from today's sponsors and a couple of sips of our nice buzz balls here. God, they are just horrendous really, aren't they? And a reminder, you can get every episode of This Paranormal Life ad free over on Patreon.com forward slash This Paranormal Life. Our story begins. Why are you looking at me like that?

Sorry, sorry. Ooh. I'll stop, I'll stop. Our story begins in 1942. We are on a tiny island off the coast of County Court in the deep south of Ireland. Not deep south that way, but just very, very, very south. The world has descended deep into World War II

and Irish soldiers are stationed on the island. And on one night, a young lieutenant was on night sentry duty, stalking the perimeter of the barracks. Now, while Ireland was neutral in the World Wars it was not safe. It was bombed north and south by Nazi Germany and was at risk of being used as a kind of stepping stone to attack Britain. I actually only figured this out recently. I didn't realize that that Belfast had any involvement in the Second World War until my aunt and my uncle got married recently at Belfast had any involvement in the Second World War until my aunt and my uncle got married recently

at Belfast City Hall, which I actually think was demolished during the Second World War. It was really heavily bombed. And I only remember this so vividly because one of the guests of the wedding was my German uncle, Uncle Walter. And when he heard this, he was like, I will keep my voice down then, yes?

He's like, maybe I am not so friendly here. Which was fantastic. I was like, yeah, it was a really interesting bit of history. I didn't realize that Belfast was bombed by the Nazis. Walter is a very good name for an uncle, I would say. He's fantastic. No, it is true. I like heard a thing about that a while ago, but they were like, yeah, we had other stuff going on at various points in history.

So it all got swept under the rug. But there was a Belfast Blitz and a Dublin Blitz. That's right. Crazy. It was silent and still in the middle of the night when the young soldier saw a figure moving through the mist of the courtyard. But no one else was on watch that night. Emma, I know that you... People may or may not be aware of that, but you actually have a bit of a history in theater,

so I thought, as you probably know, we do a bit of dialogue here sometimes on this part of my life. I thought I'd throw some lines to you if that's all right. Oh, how exciting. What the? As the figure was marching, he realized it wasn't wearing an Irish uniform, and his heart sank.

But it didn't look German either. It looked old. Halt! Who goes there? The figure stopped, then turned to face him and kept marching. Stop or I'll shoot! But it didn't stop. I am not playing. I'm standing on business. Ten toes, bitch. And the lieutenant didn't hesitate. He aimed his rifle and shot,

but the figure completely vanished into thin air, like smoke. But noise and commotion rang out in the vicinity. A shot had been fired, so people jumped out of bed, and the lad's officer was there in no time, presumably in his boxers and a white tank top. For fuck's sake, what happened, lad? Sir, I... I... officer was there in no time, presumably in his boxers and a white tank top. For fuck's sake, what happened, lad? Sir, I... I...

Spit it out, Junior! I shot a ghost! But his superior wasn't angry. He looked worried, puzzled. So you've seen it too. The specter of the Gaunt Gunner. We need some sound effects in there, Phil, desperately, expeditiously. Oh, and I'm playing the ghost, I assume.

Would you shut the fuck up? Me and Emma are really trying to cook over here and do something theatrical. I thought we did really well. Yeah, I think we did too. Because I don't know if you noticed this, while we were fannying about Edinburgh Fringe going to see shows,

Emma was doing a Shakespeare production, weren't you? Full on, yeah. Yeah. One woman Shakespeare production. That's really impressive. What was the Shakespeare performance? It was a one woman Hamlet. There's a lot of characters.

I have a lot of questions. You don't need to. You don't ask questions like that to a consummate professional. It was a woman owned production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. It's just, you know, you guys did a whole scene and you gave her a script and then I didn't get one. So I assume maybe like I'm the ghost, but it's mostly improv or something. Like I'm just trying to figure out how this. No, we're done. We are done. Yeah, I thought we did really well.

I think we wrapped it up nicely. Yeah. And I feel like maybe you need to work on this need for attention. Well, I could maybe, I can maybe just do some lines and then we can maybe slot them in, in post, like, if you want some like... Phil, turn off the recording. Yeah, for sure. Let's just...

Why don't you kind of get this out of your system for about 30 seconds? Then we can kind of roll the tape again. Well, I heard you say turn off the recording, Phil. You said it... You were looking me in the eyes when you said it. So I did hear that. I was only kidding. So yeah, stop the tape, Phil.

And... I feel like it's probably not going to go in now. Okay, yeah, man, you hit us with some lines that you think would have worked there. Some wilds. Whoa. Whoa. Well now, under a microscope, I feel like it's not. Emma, feel free to hit the bathroom or grab a drink or whatever, and he'll kind of get the sort of system. I am the ghost of I don't know where he's from yet. You haven't told me.

Does this happen often? Like Like is this a regular thing? This is pretty... yeah, most episodes kind of... That's why we can only really record like one episode a day, because even though the episode itself is an hour long, he like... Is it twisty as I actually am German? Is that what's gonna happen? Yeah, that was really good. Thank you. Yeah, that was lovely. He thinks everything is a self tape for some reason.

Can I get a second buzz ball please? Just because I'm burning through this one. Absolutely not. I think that might help me with the vocal performance. Is he German? Ghost? Is he German? I think we're good. Okay. So Phil, roll the tape again. Um, sorry, I said that out loud. Phil, roll the tape. Can I just, is this, is this going to continue for the whole thing?

Yeah. I got it. No. Yeah, it's mine! No! No! Nine? Nine! No! That was really good.

This is interesting. A ghost on an island appearing in front of a military. I'm assuming the testimonies that we're going to hear today are from military officers, usually pretty reputable members of society. Right, absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you caught the name of this thing, but this is a Gauchly soldier known as the Gont Gunner. Mmm.

Which is... Or Gunter, perhaps? No, no, I think... Maybe a bit of a German twist. No, I think it's... I think it would really... Why would that even make sense? How would that even make sense? I don't know! You haven't told me... They would have had to have killed German soldiers on the island, which hasn't happened.

I guess, okay. The gunner is only one specter! And this would be far- you're not hearing from the gun gunner again by the way. This would be far from the last. Sorry, is that it? I thought that was the whole investigation! So he could be German, we actually don't know. That's the bottom line here.

He could be! He could be! I need you to stop speculating for a second. I just want to stop Rory making German accents for one second. This would be far from the last paranormal event to take place on this mysterious island. Maybe the most haunted place in all of Ireland. Spike Island. Spike Island.

They really did a number when they named it, didn't they? They did, I know. This is not the first time you've heard this story, is it? No, it is not. But I will admit that my memory of this story is hazy. I'm pretty sure it's like, island scene missing, boo the English scene missing ghosts. I think that's how, oh sorry, spoiler alert. I think that's how it went. Right, right. I mean, that is all of Irish history, I think is what you just quoted. You were probably five,

six, buzz balls deep when you were covering this. I believe you did this about a year ago, actually. Almost to the day, because I was researching it. So, you know, implying that we're not going to hear from this ghost again, I assume this is an island where there's quite a frequent amount of paranormal activity. Because that seems like a pretty significant event to never hear from it again in this episode. Yeah, that could be the whole episode. Yeah. But the fact that we're like, we don't even have time to talk about Gunter. We have to talk about everything else that's happening at Spike Island.

Is it Gont Gunter? Gunter? Gunter? I've made you guys shut the f*** up for sure. It is not either of these two's first rodeo. They are putting two and two together and figuring out that this is a pretty wild ride as far as haunted locations go. I mean, Rory, we've covered plenty

of Irish stories over the years. Yes, some of them like Corny have been a bit sillier than others, but that is not really what we're getting into today. And while Emma has covered Spike Island before, hopefully by the end, I'll be showing her some evidence that even she hasn't seen to help us decide whether this is really paranormal or not.

And once you know the history of Spike Island, how we've got to this point of f***ing Gont Gunter, we realise it's crazy that we don't know more about it because it is right at the heart of Irish history. That history goes back well over 1000 years when a monastery was first built on the island, and where monks lived and made pilgrimage to the island for hundreds and hundreds of years. Clearly feeling the island had some spiritual significance, but its history became dark in the 1650s when Oliver Cromwell, the most hated man in Irish history for his ethnic cleansing of Ireland. Yeah, you know what?

F*** this guy. He turned Spike Island into a massive prison. Wow, I didn't know that. Jesus. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll not get in. We'll not set aside too much time for it, Emma, but if people don't know about Oliver Cromwell, it's kind of crazy, isn't it? That like, I think you mentioned your podcast, even to this day, people kind of recoil like

a cat hissing when they hear the name Oliver Cromwell in Ireland. Yeah. And he meticulously kept documents of all of the terrible things that he did. It was like, near diary, killed a lot of Irish people. It was a good day. Yeah. That was pretty much it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's it. I don't think people maybe realized that the kind of colonization of Ireland and the ethnic cleansing and everything of that period. It was one guy, by the way. They were just like, Olly, my friend, we've got a job for you. And then he went over and it was only a campaign of a couple of years, I think. Yeah. It was a very short campaign, but like he really put his all into that campaign. He put his busty into that whole thing. He did not shy away. He really did. I didn't think I'd hear Oliver Cromwell and busty in the same in the same couple of sentences. Jesus Christ. Oh we got a couple buzz balls down here guys.

Well this is you know you're creating an environment where there's going to be a couple of buzz balls down here guys. We're onto the shop. Well this is, you know, you're creating an environment where there's going to be a lot of unhappy souls soaking into the ground. Yeah and I am still like, I know I said earlier about, you know, they really hit the nail on the head con at Spike Island, but considering it started as a monastery, a pilgrimage for monks, I just, name it better, like the island of serenity, the island of peace and prayer. Yeah. Who said Spike Island? I went absolutely. Oh yeah. 100% Spike Island. That sounds good. Spikes. Didn't they put that in Jesus's hands or something? Yeah. That's the one. Oliver Cromwell used Spike Island as a holding pen before people would be shipped across the world to be used as indentured

servants in places like Barbados. Sadly, when we're looking at ghost cases, this is absolutely what we're looking for. Total misery. Ghosts are basically, and stay with me here, the opposite of wagyu beef. You remember how wagyu cows get given like beer, fresh porridge and classical music because it makes the most delicious beef? Yeah. Unfortunately, happy people don't make good ghosts. There's a reason no one's ever seen a ghost of Bob Ross. Dude was happy as shit. Right.

No one finished business whatsoever. Loved by everyone. I'm slightly joking here Emma, but I mean, would you somewhat agree, I mean, from your investigations that, I mean, it's kind of a pattern, isn't it? That it's like, it's not like a happy nuclear family die in a house and then it's haunted for all eternity. It's usually some semblance of unfinished business or misery. I mean, if I was in a happy nuclear family and I died horribly in a house somehow, I think I'd probably hang around. That would feel like unfinished business to me. Not in a fire or something. You know, they just all die of old age. Happy death.

All together. Yeah, fine. I'd be like, sure, I'll move on to the next life, whatever that means. But you know, I sometimes think that I wouldn't because I've read so many ghost stories. I'd quite like to be a poltergeist or some sort of scary, scary ghost. You think it sounds like banter or nothing? Yeah, you could wreck people's heads. Think of all the people in the world that you don't like. Like, presumably you could just go and poltergeist the shit out of them.

Yeah. Ruin their lives. Set fires. Set some fires. If they had a kid, punch the kid. Just do whatever you want, really. No consequences. Punch the kid?

I think that crosses the line slightly out of poltergeist activity. I'm a ghost. I don't know that it does. Brother, I can do whatever I want. Yeah. Where's the line? You're transparent. Like where's the line? It's fine. Punch the kid. Hashtag punch the kid. Can we get this trend in please? Kids are annoying.

I have a friend. Your dad's a bastard. He bullied me in high school. Yeah. And now you're gonna pay for some reason. Because I'm still a little scared of him. He bullied me in high school. BOOM! And now you're gonna pay for some reason. Because I'm still a little scared of him. BOOM! But as we say, there is abject misery already at Spike Island but it was sadly only getting

started. Spike Island was built into a British military post in the 1700s and 1800s. But if there wasn't enough ghosts on the island already, the Irish Famine happened in 1945 and it was reopened as a prison. At the time, the biggest prison in the world. Wow. This thing makes Alcatraz look like the f***ing teacups at Disneyland. Conditions were diabolically grim. Victims of disease and hunger were packed into cells, silence was brutally enforced and there was terrible mental illness. Over 1,300 people died on the island and at its peak 2,400 people were crammed in at any

one time, earning it the nickname Ireland's Hell. Okay, that's pretty damning. Personally, I called my first uni house share in Belfast, Ireland's hell, but agreed to disagree. Were there 2,400 people crammed into that too? There was... hey, they smelled like 2,400 people. Let's get... I realize we're quite far in right now. Emma needs to see this, but Rory, more importantly, has never seen this before. Let's get a look at what this place looked like.

Wow! Okay. Is it weird that it's kind of smaller than I thought it was gonna be? Yeah, I- you know what? I was literally just having the same thought. Yeah. Didn't I say they were crammed in? Yeah. I mean, this is an aerial view, top-down shot of the prison. This looks like it was taken pretty recent days, so I assume this still exists on the island.

But yeah, you can- you can see it. It's almost in like a weird shape of a chunky star. You have this big thick wall surrounding the parameter of these kind of buildings set out in the middle of this thing. And you can see on what looks like either side of this building, just jagged rocks and ocean waters coming from the sides. Yeah, I mean, hell, great place to put some prisoners. Let me tell you. I'm not... What, an Oliver Cromwell? I'm just gonna say, I'm not going to, you know, reinforce the reasoning behind

putting prisoners here or anything like that. But let me tell you, if I want to put someone in prison... If you want to get someone out of the way. Jackpot. Bingo. This is a great prison location. Yeah, I really do feel like you're about to rip off your face and it's just Oliver Cromwell underneath a Rory mask. It's, yeah, I don't know if they're beating kind of the paranormal allegations

by making it a hexagram kind of star shape. It does feel loosely paranormal. So look, we need to understand why there might be ghosts at this place, but that is more than enough history. We need to see some more paranormal evidence. So we're jumping way forward in history to very recently. 2018, and a woman named Louise Bunyan. Nothing happened in the interim period. Yeah, I refuse to believe nothing happened until 2018. This is a Tarantino feature.

We are gonna be front, back, side to side. We are going all over time. Okay. It just has been quite linear up until this point. And suddenly we're in 2018. I appreciate we don't need to go into the depths of the history, but that seems like a big jump. Yeah, that is a large leap.

A woman named Louise Bunyan is on Spike Island in the dead of night, exploring a maze of dark corridors. Thankfully, she's not a prisoner. At this point in time, it's not a prison anymore and she's on an after hours night time guided tour. Okay. She's having a great time exploring, taking photos on her phone. But nearing the end of the tour, the group were brought into the infamous Block AB. A section of the prison known for its dark history, and now its reports of strange occurrences. For sure gotta give it a cooler name than that. If weird stuff is going down you can't keep calling it Block AB. We've got Spike Island.

Any suggestions? Pretty good right? And then it's like Block AB, Really? Did you use up all your creativity naming it Spike Island a thousand bazillion years ago? That sounds like something a child plays with. Because they've been doing nothing else on the island. Yeah. Apparently until 2018. So not thinking of good names, clearly.

Yeah. Call it, call it the Voight. Call it Knife Block. Call it Crime Squares. Something edgy and dark. I think that was probably named by the prison officers, not presumably the cool criminals you're trying to describe. No, that's true. There should have been a nickname for it to kind of just depict how terrifying it is to enter.

Block AB, it's not doing it for me. Yeah. Louise was taking photos on her phone, capturing the Victorian cells because they looked cool and for the memory of her trip. But when she turned her camera to an empty corridor, to her surprise, on her phone screen, the yellow facial recognition shape flashed up, appearing to register a face at the bottom of the deserted hall. She would later be interviewed and said, the yellow circle came on, which was odd as the entire corridor was completely empty.

So she took the photo and then said, I checked the photo afterwards and could see the outline of two legs. I zoomed in on the photo and could see a bit more. Guys, I have that photo to show you right here and now. I would like to say before I see this picture, this was taken in 2018. If this is a grainy pixelated picture, I'm flipping this table. I agree with his energy. I will say.

This feels like excuses are brewing. I will say... Give me a second. I will say... The printer said it was almost out of ink. Our printer in the studio said it was almost out of ink. So, okay, why don't I... Here's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, because for the record, this is 2018,

a time where she could have also Instagram live to the corridor. That's how recently this was. Alright, mother f***. Alright, hey, I'm trying to play ball here. I'm trying to play ball. Play buzz ball. Which, Emma, by the way, that is a very disappointing amount of liquid from your buzz ball consumed.

I just want to point out. Would you like another one? I'll take another buzz ball, yeah. I'm flying through mine here. Would you like a cocktail glass? Yeah. Are you serious? That would make me feel way classier. I used to be... They're plastic. I used to be a teacher

I'm prepared for everything. Oh, this is amazing Sorry kid, you keep doing your thing. I think you're doing like a case or something. We're I'm assembling a Thank you, oh my god Oh, this is adorable What are we doing here? What are we doing here? Everyone? This is turned into some kind of frat party This is ridiculous. Sorry tells me all ridiculous tells about ABC town or whatever you guys. All right All right, do you have any salt for the rim? Oh, actually I do No, I don't That would have been great. I feel like a paranormal investigator might have salt on hand for circles. Where is the,

I mean I think at this point we do. I'm not afraid of anything. This is just turning into an episode of drink chumps. We just need to get the alien vodka. We'll have to do, that'll be our gift to you Emma afterwards. Will be a shot of our alien skull vodka distilled through a meteorite seven million years old? I honestly couldn't think of anything worse. There you go. Oh, well actually anything worse is the buzz ball. I think that might be worse. We're drinking anything worse.

Here we have it guys. We're not even at the first ad break. Sorry. We're... I'm ruining your show. This is the show that everything just implodes. We've got green cocktails. Also, I'm sorry, but... Remember everyone to hit the kid. Don't forget. Don't forget. That's an important takeaway.

It's so disappointing that... Look, Rory, we're Irishmen, right? And we did Corny the Ghost. Okay, we did that at the very beginning of the podcast. And everyone loved it because we were like drunk or whatever and going nuts talking about an Irish story and we set back the Irish people decades with that podcast and for years we have been toiling tirelessly and staying sober on the podcast. I don't think we've drunk since the Atlantis episode, the notorious Atlantis episode and now that we get one Irish guest in the podcast and now we're drinking again.

Yeah, yeah the stereotypes couldn't be stronger. And I'm just worried if you were drinking green booze and you're talking about hitting kids. It's... I feel like I'm being told off by my dad. Like, this is really... I'm sorry. I'm just quick sidebar Roy, I'm like, I don't know. Oh, let's rein it back. Let's rein it back. We're so disappointing. Okay, it's fine. To be fair. Cilantro.

Sorry, what was that? Cilantro. Cilantro. Cilantro. I gotta pretend that didn't happen. Hell yeah, cilantro. Cilantro. Cilantro.

Hit the can. Is it better from a glass? Slightly actually. It actually is, yeah, I'll give you that. Alright,inte. Hit the can. Is it better from a glass? Slightly, actually. It actually is, yeah, I'll give you that. Alright, let's see this picture. Here's how you can make it up to me. I am a disappointed father right now. I have this paranormal evidence.

Let me know what you think. And you said you were a teacher in a past life, Emma. I'm going to distribute the evidence amongst the class. One of you is getting the paper one, the dodgy ink printer. Give me that. The other one is getting, okay. The other one is getting a screen where you can see it properly. I think Emma will flip the table if she doesn't get the screen.

So I'll take the slightly blurry print. Behold the photo that Louise took. I wish I had the screen. I'm just going to say that it's not as terrible as I thought it was going to be. Hell yeah. I'm going to give you that. Am I wrong? Okay.

That is a photo of a- Rory Harris a swap. Yeah, can I okay one please? There's actually also seen all I mean a zoomed in version. Oh, no that makes it worse kid Don't be a good person keep it zoomed out or attract that Hmm, I can see Rory on my phone zooming pinching to zoom as far as you can go don't zoom We've got a do zoom. We've got about a half hour left. Don't do zoom. It's all there. It's all there. I'm gonna need to hear more.

What? No! Hey. That's a guy in a corridor, yeah. Yeah. Yes, it is. Not a ghost. I didn't say ghost. All right, let me ignore this f**king guy.

Gonna cut that from the podcast. Emma, my friend. Look, you've covered a lot of ghost cases in the past on the podcast. How does this, you can be completely honest here, how does this kind of image rank with other compelling ghost evidence you've seen? I want to say it's pretty low down in the ranking. Okay. And I would like to add that five minutes ago you were berating us,

actually, for drinking on the podcast. So don't come to me with Emma, my friend. Yeah. Oh, damn it. Especially because more alcohol might have helped your case at this point. Yeah, actually it might have. I could be like if we had more alcohol I could be thinking, my god, this is it. A triple yes right now.

What do you mean this is pretty low down? Rory, all right let me go back to Rory. Rory my friend. All right. How many times have we got a JPEG of a ghost? Not often. Right. Because we know better to bring that to the podcast.

What? It'll get ripped apart. A JPEG of a ghost is a very contradictory statement. No it's not. I'm sorry, no it's not. I think, you know, what you're showing us a picture of is something that could quite clearly be just a guy in a corridor. There's nothing in that photo that defies scientific understanding. He's f***ing see-through, for is not. He's just in the dark.

You can literally see the floor through his leg. I don't know what that is. A bit of a blurry patch on the floor. I'm just not convinced. Just not enough for me. Maybe if this was CCTV footage, a video, we'd be having a different conversation. Alright, alright. Like you said, it's 2018.

Yeah. Babe, get on Facebook Live. I refuse to believe there's not CCTV at this. On this fortress of an island? We can't even get five bars of 5G inside our London studio. You said she's on a ghost tour. So I assume this is just a tourist destination now where you can go do ghost tours? Yeah, but you've got to get a boat to it.

Okay. So that makes it legitimate? Because you gotta get a boat immediately, real ghosts. Yeah. No, because you gotta get a boat to it, there's no phone signal, probably, which is why you couldn't go on Instagram Live! Why are you guys making me say this stuff? Of course he's not going on Instagram Live!

I just think it's different as well when this story is coming from someone who's paid for a ghost tour experience This isn't like a night watchman. I never said it goes to I never said it goes to experience. I said a night tour After hours tour and after hours night tour a haunted prison island. Yeah, the most haunted island. It's a very historic prison Very historic, but we seem to have missed a huge amount of the history. So I'm like, I feel like Boromir getting f**king shot with arrows. I am lying against a tree.

Head all f**ked up. There must be more. Tarantino was back, please. I'm blowing the horn. Do I need that anymore? No, it says Emma Rory, I have the photo. I have that photo actually. It's what?

Okay, I'm going to skip the bit where I ask you guys what you think. It says actually after that, lean back in chair and smirk. They're obviously going to love it. Yeah. So that was obviously notes that you wrote in because you were so confident at this point that things are going to be going better. Yeah, I feel like it was premature. I'm going to keep it completely abuck with you.

This is supposed to be the big like ad break cliffhanger. Okay, we're going to try and figure out what this ghost is. Just see if we can get some more evidence. Any evidence would be good. In the next part of this investigation on Spike Island. After a couple words from today's sponsors, I'm going to need another drink. All right, we are back and I am fighting for my life up here. Island after a couple words from today's sponsors. I'm gonna need another drink. All right, we are back and I am fighting for my life up here. Okay, we mentioned earlier the story of the Gaunt Gunner who I said was never coming back. He's back, baby. He's back like Katy

Perry. You thought she was gone and she's back. One of the more notorious ghosts from this island. was gone and she's back. One of the more notorious ghosts from this island. He's believed to have come... Stop making me laugh. This is serious stuff. It sounds like things haven't gone the way you want to do, so you're now like... Bring Gunter back. Yeah, bring Gunter back. They liked Gunter. He's believed to have come from the military period, and stop laughing for sure, the military period of the 1700s. Sadly, oh you're not gonna laugh at me now, right?

Sadly at that time, suicide amongst the British ranks in Spike Island was high. Is that funny to you guys? That's really sad. And the German soldiers? There was no German soldiers. I don't know, I'm not really convinced anymore that there wasn't. With the level of evidence we've gotten so far, I feel like you could be right about this one. I think so too.

I take it back when I was mean when you said about Gunther. I take it back. Thank you, Emma. I appreciate that. Like I say, sadly at that time, suicide amongst the British ranks in Spike Island was very high. And after a few tragedies, soldiers started to witness a ghostly figure wandering around the compound at night. It was in military uniform, and witnesses said he was, quote, eyeless and malnourished. Ooh!

He was able to disappear, reappear, and even pass through walls. And these sightings were so common that the men nicknamed him the Gunt Gunner. Oh, I see. I just got that. It's the same guy. I thought it was a different guy. Okay, sorry never mind.

We're still on one ghost. The first one, yeah. What I'm trying to say is that ghost, no, no that is the ghost. What I'm saying is that could have been the Gaunt Gunner, maybe. That's just legs. I don't, you said he had no eyes. Louise could have, he's so malnourished, he's see-through. Didn't I tell you? The reality is, Louise could have captured any of several ghosts.

And she didn't. Because this island is like the cast of f***ing Reservoir Dogs. We got Mr. Pink, Mr. Orange, Mr. White, Mr. Brown. But you only talked about one. Would you let me finish for one second? Because there's, uh-oh, Thomas Morris, who hanged himself in 1862. Could it be him?

We had Patrick White, a rebel shot during the War of Independence by the British forces. But there is one other ghost on Spike Island that I don't think Louise captured that day. The Black Entity. A creature that takes the form of a black spirit moving through the halls and buildings. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a prison guard on Spike Island who was later interviewed by an Irish historian. And the prison guard told of one

prisoner who was both disturbed and dangerous. In his cell he would complain about being visited by a black entity. The entity would enter his cell and plague him. The officer thought nothing of it, deciding the man was a kook. Unfortunately, when that man was finally released, he went on to commit a triple murder. Oof. Wow, that really took a turn. Shouldn't have released him then, yeah. Some believe that they know exactly who the Black Entity is, a notorious serial killer named Seamus Walsh, who was imprisoned in cell six for three years in the 1840s.

And for 150 years afterwards, prisoners locked in cell six complained of a ghost visiting them. This is very cool. You should have started with this. I'm into this one. I really feel like you made a very bad decision with Gunter in the beginning. And now you're talking about the Black Entity, serial killers, fellas being in a cell being like, ah, we're being visited by a dark spirit. Yeah. This could have been the whole thing. We didn't even have to hear. I don't know where this picture from 2018 came into it. This is great. This is interesting. So you're saying there was a serial killer kept in a cell who was so effed up that even after he died,

his spirit remained in this jail whispering evil to the prisoners that inhabited the same cell. That's cool. That is really cool. It's crazy when, actually when I say it, it does sound right. Like there's just something about it. When a kid says it, it's like, I don't know, it's a little something, something. Maybe block AB would have been better if it was framed differently. Yeah, right. Maybe if it's cell 6, you could do like cell 666 or something.

Yeah, right. Maybe the problem here is actually, is actually kit. All right. Okay. So I'm going to step in here. Hey, if you go see the Killers live, Yeah. Do you think they f***ing end with some B-side? They end with Mr. Brightside. Actually that's not true, I did recently see they open with Mr. Brightside.

But that is very unlike A-list rock bands. If you go see, why can I think of a rock band? It's amazing that you went with The Killers, the one rock band that actually... Yeah, it was... I'm probably going to remove that from the episode. If you go see friggin'... You gotta say a band. Foo Fighters. Okay. They have too many good songs. Every song is. Hard analogy. Really good. Do you think they open with Everlong? They might. No. They could, actually. Yeah, they could.

Obviously they could, but they don't. You end with the... Forget the bands. You end with a good song. You end with the best song. Because then everyone goes out in that high to have a big emotional moment, and then they might give a double yes to the episode at the end. Right.

Slipping slightly more back into the world of TPL in that analogy rather than Foo Fighters. If I had started with the black entity and then ended on the 2018 photo, you would have hanged, drawn and quartered me. Well arguably you want to start with something strong so people listen. Yeah, and people are more inclined to believe the rest of the evidence, right? Yeah, you can kind of win people over, are they? Believe it or not! In 2016, photographer Shay Wolfe was taking part in a business startup event that was

being held on the island. That's a weird place. What strange place for a business startup event? Yeah. Let's go to this terrible haunted island. Yeah, unless you're launching like a brand of paranormal hunting equipment maybe or prison electric chairs. Do you know what?

Especially business startups, easy to get to I would imagine. I don't want to have to get a boat to a haunted island. To deal with a dark entity. To get some candles that are made by Karen who lives down the street. I'm not doing that. This is wild. Here's one thought on it. It doesn't f***ing matter.

I feel like it really does. What they... If I could get to... What was doing there? Kate, you gotta treat this case with some respect, man. I feel like you're being quite flippant about the whole thing, so... Like Louise, our friend from 2018, Shay was just trying to capture some general photos of the prison and the island.

That is until... Well, not like her, because her thing happened two years after this, because we're doing a time warp thing. Yeah. Because it was two years before she even existed. It's still like that. It's still like that. It doesn't make a difference what order it happened in. I don't know. It's weird to make stuff. Shea who's taking photos. Mind is doing business. Until Cell 6. Got to Cell 6.

Phil, brother, I'm sorry, bro. I don't know why you're gonna... Phil brother, I'm sorry bro. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're gonna... This is gonna be like the f***ing Snyder cut of this paranormal life. It's gonna be eight hours long. You're gonna be chopping changes. I'll stop. We'll stop. We've had a drink. We're having fun. Right, stop. Shhh. No more. Alright. Well, Shay... Once Shay got into Cell 6, everything changed. Can you guys stop laughing?

Shay took a photo inside Cell 6 and captured more than he was bargaining for. What was it? I'm sorry. This is unprofessional. bargaining for. She claims he saw nothing in the room at the time, nor through the viewfinder Now this is two years earlier, so the photo quality will be... Ah! It was face when she saw the picture! Right. Wait, is there no one from me? I'm gonna give you some prior warning. In Emma explaining it for Rory, she'll be explaining it to the audience too. Okay.

I would argue there's actually very little to explain. So you've got a sort of... Right. You've got a cell. Cell six, I believe. Okay. There's two windows. Curved windows and then a shadow in front of the window, which...

I believe is probably the dark entity, I would assume. Yeah, I'm going to assume it's meant to be the dark entity, but when... Unless I'm missing something, which I really... Judging by kids' face, I suspect that I might not be missing something. Are you ready to see it for yourself? I'm ready to take a peek. Brace yourself. This might blow this whole case wide open.

Let's see here. You set it on me. Oh, okay. Wow, this is surprisingly artistic, this photograph. Did you print it in black and white or was the original in black and white? That's a great... The printer might have run out of ink at this kind of late stage of the script. Hey, you know what?

I kind of f*** with this. This is kind of cool. Yeah, it's a photo of, yeah, I assume a cell. Okay, boom, I've got Rory. Let me show Emma the digital version. Yeah, I'm not sure that works. Okay, still no biting. Alright, shit. Alright, no, no. It's definitely better quality. You need to get a new printer.

I like this a lot more than the first photo that you showed me, because yeah, yeah, this is a cell, And granted, look, it's black and white. There's obviously light coming in from the windows. There's a lot of shadows being cast, but I would agree. The shadow in the corner that we're kind of seeing, it does look like it is not natural. To the point where, like, look, it's overlapping with the light where clearly light should be coming in

through the grating. Yeah, you can see it's in the foreground of the image or the middle ground of the image. Yeah, very cool. Now, we are entering 2016, which I would say is an era where it would be incredibly easy to hoax an image like that, which we do have to be aware of. This isn't a photo from the 1960s or something like that, even though it does look like it. But I would say this is cool. Even if this isn't evidence in the case, this is a cool depiction of what a dark entity inside of a prison cell could look like. You're kind of losing me there at the end because you started to suggest that this is

an artist's interpretation. That's what it feels like. When this is actually first-hand evidence. From a guy at a business seminar? What was it? Something like that. A photographer, right? And he was just trying to take average little photos when, uh-oh, he's going back through the business seminar photos and he sees the black entity. Okay. Stronger than your last piece of evidence, I will say. And I actually think out of this whole story, the history of the island, Gunther, the German ghost, the prisoners, the soldiers, the ghosts of the soldiers

who were still on the island, all of this, the dark entities, probably the one part I'm vibing with the most. This is kind of cool. I do really like this. I wish there was more of a pattern of prisoners who had stayed in this cell who had heard the voice or maybe everyone who stayed on that cell when they were released went on to do horrible things. Yeah, well, plenty of them did. At least one of them did. Killed three times,

which is almost as good as three individual murders. Yeah, I suppose. Does that count? You know what I mean? Is it, he murdered three times? If it was three different guys, would you be like, whoa, you know, that murdered three different people? Maybe, maybe slightly. That's how we're measuring this, okay.

But he said for, just for the record, so I haven't understood, this murderer, when they were like, why did you do it? He was like the dark entity. Is that kind of what he was on record? Well, I don't know if he ever said it like on the dock, like, you know, kind of like in long legs or something that he serves the dark lord. That's kind of what I'm waiting for is like, like they're strapping him to the chair and he's like, go into the cell, you'll hear it too.

But the prison officer, what does that prison officer have to gain or lose by in an interview being like, yeah, this one guy wouldn't shut the f*** up about the black entity. And then he did this crazy s*** when we released him. Hmm, I don't know if that's as compelling as you think it is. Yeah, yeah, I mean, because he's already... He's in prison. Yeah. What?

He's already displayed a pattern of crime, you know? So he's like, he wasn't, presumably it wasn't an innocent man who was thrown in there and then turned evil. So he probably did something to end up in prison. I would question as well, releasing him with the ranting and raving about the dark entity in the cell. Yeah, yeah.

How much was he talking about the dark entity? Cause this isn't a kind of prison where you open the doors and send him out. He's got a cue for the boat. Yeah. He's got to get the boat. And if you're like halfway through the journey from the island to the mainland and he's like, the Dark Lord will be happy when I arrive at the shores. He's like, turn the boat around. Turn the boat. He wasn't

ready. This was a mistake. Send them back. I know he served his time, but honestly, just a couple more years in a different cell, by the way, don't put him back in with the Dark Lord. That's a huge mistake. Presumably that's a huge mistake presumably that's why they call it block a b if some shit goes wrong and block a you move them to block b like we can at least we don't have more than that yeah because if cell six is this bad yeah you don't want to keep them in there forever yeah yeah but this is the part of the story i'm enjoying the most so far the dark entity you know at You know, at the start of this, Emma, I kind of bigged up that what I was hoping to bring today was a case with evidence that you hadn't seen before. Now I'm getting the feeling you

might have seen it and just not included it in your investigation for good reasons. It was interesting diving into your investigation on Real Life Ghost Stories podcast And because it goes the other way, where you were mentioning things that hadn't come up in my research on the case, namely and disturbingly, that there on this island was a prison for children inside an ammunition store where the boys had to sleep in hammocks. Hashtag hit the kids. We've got to stop saying that for sure. But yeah, I mean, that just goes to show just how reckless this place really was.

Not a good idea. Seems like a terrible place to keep children, really, doesn't it? Prison life for you. You might have judged. Yeah, I guess that's the whole point. You want to put them in a place they don't enjoy. I mean, this is the story exactly where I would put loads of children. Bad kids. Yeah, they're going to hate it there.

Although I would say, as a lad, the. Yeah, they're gonna hate it there. Although I would say, as a lad, the only place I wanted to be was a hammock. I dreamed of sleeping in a hammock. Yeah. I saw them in movies, cartoons, and my parents were like, no, you've gotta sleep in a bed.

And I was like, fuck you, my dad. So honestly, sleep at a certain age, having to live on an island with borderline no adult supervision, with loads of other kids sleeping in hammocks, kind of sounds like the dream. In an ammunitions depot? That's basically a fireworks factory. Yeah, with the Dark Entity knocking around. This actually sounds great. I'm back in.

Look, I can reveal two things. One, we are at the end of our investigation. Two, I can reveal that while we, the three of us, still need to go to Spike Island to understand further or see the Dark Entity for ourselves, researcher Ewan was hot on the case of this story and he happened to be roughly in the vicinity of Spike Island when he was writing this. Wow. And he actually went this week to Spike Island himself and he did one of those tours that we mentioned like Louise did. That's awesome. That's actually exciting.

Yeah. And he said... He should have hosted this actually, arguably. Well, fascinating and worthwhile, he did not see any paranormal evidence first hand for himself. Did he have a camera? Because clearly that's the only way to see these things. It's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah. They both said didn't see anything with their eyeballs. Great point. We're going to be seeing him tomorrow. We will. That was too late for this podcast, but we will ask him, make sure. But I would say I'd be shocked if he wasn't taking.

He is a happy snapper. I know that of him. He's an amateur photographer and I would be shocked if he wasn't flat out taking photos. So I think it would have come up by now, had he caught the black entity on camera. So I will say a little bit disappointing that our man on the ground at the scene didn't see anything, but that is what you come to this paranormal life for. That is, I said before, we are not Zach Baggins.

We are not gonna bullshit you as much as I would love this case to flourish and get a triple yes on the podcast today. We are gonna tell you like it is, which is someone from the team went there and didn't see shit. That being said, we do have a long, long history of haunting. We have multiple witnesses. We have, don't screw up your face, we have a long history of haunting, multiple witnesses and several pretty compelling pieces of photographic evidence. Two, to be exact.

Where are your heads at? Oh my god. Why? We didn't say anything. Your expressions said it all. Let me just... Where are your heads at? In the case today of Spike Island.

Emma, would you like to kick things off as I get... No? Okay. Oh my god. There's a lot of things I like about this story. Gunter, mainly. Well, Gunter, for example, he was actually a bigger part than Kit let on at the beginning of this podcast. He came back multiple times.

Look, you know, whenever we're investigating paranormal cases, especially hauntings and ghosts, a lot of the time you're met with very similar events. People seeing a ghost down a hallway, people taking a photograph and the ghost appearing later, people hearing noises, seeing strange things, and it all kind of gets lost in a blur of very familiar events. So what does make ghost cases interesting and exciting

are the events in question that led to the haunting. And I think that's what we do have today that actually is very interesting is quite a complex and rich history of events taking place on this island. And I think that's what makes this case really quite cool is not only did I not know that this island existed, I didn't know that it was used as a prison. I didn't know that people were killed there I didn't know it was a child's prison or it was a station for British

Soldiers during World War two this huge history of an island that I didn't even know existed Is quite fascinating and as you said kit it is the backdrop that where ghost would flourish This is a place where probably a lot of bad things did happen and as we know if the people, the souls, the spirits have experienced traumatic ends on this island, there's not that many places for them to go. It's gonna stay on the island. I don't know if ghosts can swim, they can kind of float. Maybe they could hop on the boat, enjoy ride back to the mainland. But to be honest, their demise happened on the island. They're gonna wanna stay on the island.

So I think what we have is quite a cool setting for this haunted location. Unfortunately, setting isn't enough and history isn't enough. Because at the end- Can I just make sure we got a clean take of everything Rory set up to this point because that is gonna be really compelling in the final cut.

I just wanna bring some positivity to the case before I completely shut it down. Like the prison itself. Unfortunately, a history that rich and ghost sightings allegedly this frequent and prominent really should be documented more. The fact that we talked about- It is, that's awesome.

So there's one image right there and I can get up the others if you like. So remember you were like the black entities, that was- We talked about the 1940s- So close up. And then jumped to 2016 for our first picture and second picture two years later. It was a prison for all that time

and actually only stopped being a prison in the early 2000s. Didn't tell us that. So there was only public access. Didn't tell us that at all. It was still a prison in the 90s? And the early 2000s, yeah. For who?

Prisoners. Bastards. Dude, very different answers. Really, for just normal criminals? I think for all of Irish history, it was people who didn't deserve it. And then recently it was eventually people who deserved it. Yeah. So Martin Cal, the general was in prison there. I don't know if that means anything to you, but he was a really famous Irish criminal. But he was there and they moved him there because it was far enough away from

like his criminal enterprise in Dublin that they could keep prisoners there kind of. Essentially, yeah, Irish Alcatraz, you know, putting them on an island far away. Very cool. Wish I'd known it was a prison up until the nineties. Maybe that'll change some of your conclusions here. No, it shouldn't because we should also then have more testimonies from prison guards, from night watchmen, from people working at the prison

from all these years. We should have probably heard more stories about inmates who were influenced by the Dark Entity. If he had 60 years of whispering in prisoners' ears, I would have hoped he'd be a more prominent... I think I said 150 years, actually. Even longer then. That's worse for you. Because then he should have definitely influenced people more, or he isn't a very good entity. One guy...

He probably, after that guy... Yeah, but one guy who killed three people. Yeah. So, alright, don't offend him, anyway. I'm just saying. And after that guy, the, but one guy who killed three people. Yeah. So... Alright, don't defend him. I'm just saying. And after that guy, the Dark Entity was probably like, Psst!

Hey bud! Kill a bunch of f***ing people when you get out of here, but also, Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr of people when you get out and the prisoner is like that's what you told the last guy he's back in here he got caught immediately because he listened to you Mr. Dark Entity and I want to be a free man yes I know I lost my mind in this cell but I do want to be free yes so I'll refrain from coming down on my definitive conclusion right now until we've heard Emma's thoughts on the case but that's mine so far interesting backstory possibly lacking in evidence. That is actually more fair than I was expecting. Emma, please.

Oh, I'm gonna say yes. Whoa! Hell yeah. Well, can I say... What? Clearly, all right, all right, I will be honest. Emma is clearly just a lord of chaos and a troll, I think above anything else, let's be quite honest.

Which we respect. But Emma is actually, even if she doesn't particularly remember the details, thanks to too many buzz balls, the details of her own investigation into Spike Island, this is actually, maybe it's tapping into some ancient memory because you are actually being surprisingly consistent with your previous statements on the fact. Am I? That's really exciting. Because at the end of your own investigation into it, you were fair enough, because it wasn't tainted

by my bad research. You were pretty on board with the thing. And I'm going to throw this out here, that you said, quote, Oh, boy. You want to go and you want to spend the night there, but you won't do it alone. Yeah, that's true. And you need somebody brave to come with you.

Hey, brave is both of our middle names. I don't know if anybody knows that. That's a weird coincidence. That's why we started the podcast. That's why we never leave the studio. But whenever I heard that, I was like, let's go. I mean, this is a layup. We're investigating this all together.

Sure, some of us are more critical than others about it. And sure, you're only giving this a yes out of kind of trollish intent. But you did once say you were interested in going. This would be fun. I resent that out of trollish intent. You don't know that. Don't talk about my intentions on the podcast. Well, you spent the last hour berating the entire thing, saying it was completely ridiculous.

I don't think I ever said it was completely ridiculous. All right. This is a step too far. I'm being gaslit into being supportive. This podcast is women owned, all right? You treat them with some respect. It's not. I love this though.

I don't know geographically where this island is in correlation to the rest of the Nugget, but where are we talking here? Where is this thing? Literally down south. As south as you can go. Alright. Maybe one day. Who knows. Alright! Come on! Yeah, I will say it's not super duper duper easy for us to get given that we are from as north as you can possibly get. The northern tip.

But the nugget is small. That's true. The nugget is not that big. Hey, I'm down. This sounds... There's an airport in Cork. This sounds like a... oh shit yeah I can fly into Cork. I'm back in. I am back in. I can't fly I'm gonna drive. We should do this. Maybe our two podcasts combined we could like pull a little weight see if we could do a sleepover on the island. Check out Cell 6, Block AB, kill a couple dudes.

I'm into this. This sounds cool. It was your research. You told us that you kill people after you're in cell 6. So that's what's going to happen. Oh damn, we might have to go to death road depending on how that night goes. So three lucky fans will be joining us on the island. One way all expense paid.

You know what? Two unfil. Two unfil is fine. And hey, at the end of every episode of this paranormal life, we have to decide whether the given case we've investigated today is really paranormal or not. And this episode is no different. We have to cast our votes. Emma, what is it today?

Oh, I'm saying yeah. Do you know why? Wow. Because it's taken me a long time to get to this point where I'm physically in a room with you guys. So, yeah, I'm just going to say yeah. To be honest, no matter what you would have said, I probably would have said yeah anyway. So I think knowing your history of the paranormal, I think you're maybe a little bit more lenient on maybe ghosts and... Details. Details. Evidence.

But like, but Kit and I are... It's true. Like, you're the host of real life ghost stories. Whereas we... We're famously quite critical of ghost stories. Yeah, we're more UFO, cryptid, base people. So I always love a good ghost story and I'm glad one is getting a yes on this podcast. Rory, let's throw it to you!

It's a no. Okay. No for me today. Unfortunately, not quite enough evidence to get it over the line, but hey, I love the idea of us visiting as a trio, getting a little team involved, maybe doing a sleepover, bring a couple of buzz balls,

and I am more than happy to change my mind if we can capture some paranormal evidence. You know your boy is giving it a f***ing yes over here in the three way vote. But I will say I love where this is going. That leaves it in a kind of, okay, yes, there's two yeses and a no here today. But the yeses have it. But I will say, you know, there is a kind of tie-break situation we've created in our on location investigation. So I say we stick to that. We do it. And then we can kind of do a follow up pop, I suppose. I like this a lot. We can revise our decisions down the line. But for me,

love the case, love the history, love the photos. Those lovely high quality photos. And that gets across the line from me. Well done, Kit. Hey. Well done. I know we razzed you a little bit, but that was a great case. It was gorgeous. Well done.

That was really fun. OK. Well, thank you. That was a blast. I mean, no thank yous from me, of course. Thank you for Emma joining us here. Let's talk real life ghost stories. I mean, I know there is a lot of audience.

That is time actually. No, no, no. Just checking this. Appreciate you having you on now. No, no, no. We'd love to talk about your show, but we are wrapped for another week. No. I thought we settled this piece. You're halfway through your buzz ball. You go, just shut up and drink. Okay. But it is true. There's already a huge audience crossover with Real Life Ghost Stories and This Paranormal Life. I think you maybe mentioned to some of your patrons that you were coming on here, and they were dead excited. And the same goes our way. We were mentioning on the after party on Friday that it's happening and people were getting really excited in the comments. But for anyone who hasn't listened to Real Life Ghost stories, what can they expect over there?

Probably real life ghost stories to be honest. It just f***ing says what it is on the tin, innit? Yeah. I feel like we all collectively, we really went like SEO for search engine optimization on the names of the podcast. You crushed it. That's how I found you guys because I was like, what the heck's a podcast? And then I just typed paranormal into the search bar and there we were like, there

you were. Wow. Just like that. So my podcast is Real Life Ghost Stories. Obviously, I release episodes three times a week. Two of those episodes are dedicated to listener stories, which come in from all over the world. And one episode a week is like a famous case or claim. So it's a lot more narrative heavy rather than being good crack. Because there's no time for fun and joy

when you're a paranormal investigator of my caliber. Day one at paranormal Harvard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It is a fantastic show. And one thing Emma is particularly good at compared to us is social media. You're social media queen. And I would recommend that actually you of course go and subscribe to RealLife Go Stories. But also in the meantime, if you're just a heavy TikTok user or Reels user, hop on over

there because you are also doing kind of bespoke breakdowns. Yeah, little bite size. Yeah, of each case. Bite size stories, yeah. Over on those video platforms. So check that out as well. I think you were actually first introduced to our audience in an episode of The After Party where I was regaling our listeners with the story of after the Irish podcast awards.

Oh, where we went out. We went out and got hammered in that, in fibbers. Yeah, I just remember you bringing me a Jaeger bomb at one point and I thought I was going to start crying. I didn't do it. Really? Oh boy. You just disappeared and then came back with the Jaeger bombs and I was like, Oh no. My favorite part of that story is us spending 20 minutes watching a band talking about how much they, they sounded like Pearl Jam before realizing it was a Pearl Jam tribute night. And I think people would probably hear that and think we're exaggerating.

No, no. I was like, wow, that guy really sounds like Eddie Vedder. Like, isn't that amazing? And we were like, these guys are going somewhere. This is a banger. What is this? Even Flow? He keeps saying this is great. Yeah, wild. And literally 20 minutes later, I was like, oh Rory, this is a Pearl Jam treat. I think that qualifies you to be the drunkest people in the bar that night, which is actually a pretty high bar.

I'm just going to put it out there and say I was not that drunk. So I mean, you don't remember getting the anger bombs. I was not that drunk. So this is this is just who I am, apparently. There you go. Yeah. You can knock them back. And apparently I can't. Oblivious to the world around me is my general state of being. So where can the good people go to find everything you do?

If you want to find everything I do, you can just look up real life ghost stories anywhere, really. Instagram, TikTok. Follow me on there. I do theatre stuff. Sometimes I do shows. And you Instagram, TikTok. Follow me on there. I do theatre stuff. Sometimes I do shows. And, you know, if you follow me on there, you'll see if I'm doing a show near you. Ooh. Of questionable quality. Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they're less than great.

The woman known performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Yeah. As well. Keep an eye out for that. So this has been a blast. Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to we're going to do it again because we have to. We've gotta go to the island. I wanna go to the island.

But yeah, thank you. The island boy. Thank you so much for our gifts, our qualifications, our PhDs from the University of Bigfoot. And thank you for the buzz balls. Cheers. Cheers to that. Cilantro. That just about wraps it up for the investigation into Spike Island for now.

But if you can't get enough of this paranormal life, head over to patreon.com, follow the links in the description of this podcast or in the YouTube description, click the links there to take you to there where there is, let's face it, we will be, I guess a bit of deconstructing this week the behind the scenes of this paranormal life and this episode on the after party on Friday, along with a lot of deconstructing this week, the behind the scenes of this paranormal life and this episode on the after party on Friday, along with a lot of other cool rewards. We will be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale. See you then.

Bye bye.