'He’s a very big, tall man and he is not happy that we’re here at all’

Spine-chilling paranormal investigation at Lynch's Motor Bar in Trim

Hannah McNamara

My first paranormal investigation is an experience I'll never forget. I've always been open to the idea of the spirit world but after Saturday's investigation I'm sure there's a world beyond this one.

Our inspection was taking place in one of Trim's traditional pubs, Lynch's. Lynch's Motor Bar is a small, intimate, family pub known for its friendly atmosphere. It is a true old-fashioned pub with plenty of little nooks and crannies to enjoy a drink with family and friends.

Michelle Connolly from the 'Back in Time' team had been casually out one night in the pub when she started sensing a strange atmosphere. She approached the owner, Rob Lynch explaining the work she does and he was more than happy to have the team come investigate the building.

Michelle Connolly, Mary Nolan, Niamh Farrell and Stuart Farrell were the team members who were present on the day. And I got to tag along too.

We started off with a show and tell of the objects they use. They're quite old-school in their investigative ways, they don't use all high-tech equipment, in fact the only technology they use are evp tape recorders to capture any strange noises at frequencies that humans can't typically hear, and a K2 meter which is a device that picks up on energy and reacts through beeping and lighting up.

The demonstration of the tools alone had me feeling like I'd just met the Ghostbusters team.

To get underway, Michelle had us all stand in a circle to complete a 'grounding' exercise. She said: "This ground work just helps to make us feel safer when going into an investigation that nothing can connect to us".

Team member Mary is considered an empathic investigator meaning she is sensitive to energy and can get visions and images of spirits. Our investigating began downstairs at the back of the pub where Mary sensed a woman sat down smoking a cigarette in the corner of the room.

We placed the K2 meter where Mary stated she could see the woman. We asked the woman to make her presence known to us by setting off the meter, and so she did.

Following this confirmation of a presence, Michelle took out two dowsing rods which are used to communicate with spirits through movement. These are hand made Y-shaped bronze rods with an Irish oak handle. She asked questions like "Is there anyone here with us willing to communicate?". She advised the spirits to cross the rods for yes and separate them for no. This technique saw us receive a lot of responses. I swapped places with Michelle and held the rods, copying some of her questions to see if there were any responses. I repeated the question mentioned before, and received a 'yes' instantly! Out of nowhere my entire body began to shake. Mary explained: "That is how they feed off your energy in order to communicate with you".

Compared to upstairs the activity we got downstairs was little but still had me stunned.

We made our way up the stairs to a small room with blacked out windows. Instantly the team members felt a shift in energy. Mary said: "There was definitely a death in this room. I have this image of a woman laid out in a black dress with frills around the neckline."

As a novice, I didn't notice much change at the beginning but standing in the room a few minutes, the right side of my body went cold. At first I was reluctant to announce it, I was worried that it was all in my head because of the environment I was in.

Seconds later, Mary pointed to the space between us, saying there's someone standing here. She explained to us what she was seeing: "He's a very big, tall man and he's not happy we're here at all."

They took out a glass and placed two coasters on each end of the table, one with 'yes' wrote on it and the other with 'no'. The glass was placed upside down and like an Ouija board we all placed a finger gently on the glass and asked questions.

At one point Mary removed her finger from the glass and took a break for a minute claiming she "didn't like the energy at all".

Suddenly the atmosphere changed, and each one of us in the room could notice it. There was a lighter energy, and the glass seemed to be moving much quicker, it was a completely new energy.

Through reading out the alphabet and asking the spirit to move the glass to yes when we reached the first letter or their first name we got 'H'. Niamh instantly questioned "Henry?" to which the glass made its way back over to 'yes'. We then repeated this method to find out his age and found the answer to be 14. When we approached Rob Lynch with these facts he stated that there is no record of a death of a young boy in the building connected to his family, however the Lynch family bought the building in the 1920's and there were two landlords prior. With old building leases, the team plan to research and attempt to connect the spirit back to one of the two families.

For a couple minutes I stayed in the pitch black room alone to see if I could get any activity through the K2 meter. The K2 meter was spiking up crazy but that's not all, I could feel a hand placed gently on my hip, to which I said out loud: "I can feel you on my left side but can you come to the right and light up the K2 meter box?". The box lit up instantly. If I wasn't already convinced this is what truly got me.

All of a sudden the responses and activity just stopped. I felt this heavy pressure on my chest and what I can only describe to be cold air behind me that was almost like someone stood looking over my shoulder.

Stuart came into the room to see how I was getting on and this negative feeling disappeared. Being the only man on the team, they explained that the spirits would see him as a 'protector' for the women which made sense considering earlier in the night when Stuart would leave the room the amount of activity we were getting would jump massively.

The following day Michelle listened to the evp tapes, which allow the investigators to listen back and discover if there were any strange noises that were missed. She told me that while I was alone in the room asking for a sign of a presence, there was a clear banging noise in response that I didn't hear at the time.

When we completed the investigation we made our way back down to the main bar where we filled Rob in on our experience. He was surprised but not shocked. He said that there have been times when he would get a "strange feeling upstairs but it's never been anything uneasy".

Going into the investigation I was sceptical, I was open minded but I just wasn't completely convinced.

Leaving the investigation, I can't fully explain what happened but it left me with the unnerving feeling that there really is something else beyond.