Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McLean-Smith, where for the weeks in

between episodes we look at stories and ideas that for one reason or other didn't make

it into the previous show.

Last week's episode, a view from a hill, took a look at the haunting tale of the infamous

Coonion ghost house in Ireland.

As was mentioned briefly in the episode, it is said that author Sean Leslie, who wrote

about the Coonion haunting in his 1956 book, Ghost Stories, did himself grow up in a haunted

house.

Castle Leslie and the surrounding estate, located in County Monahan in the north of

Ireland, has been owned by the Leslie family since the 1660s, although the current castle

was built in 1870.

Now a high end hotel, the lavish, stately property, has been home to a number of distinguished

occupants over the years, some of which it has alleged have never truly left.

When Sean Leslie's mother, Leonie, was approaching the end of her life, she spent much of

her time bedridden in what was known as the Move Room.

Shortly before she died, it is said that her nurse witnessed her conversing with an elderly

woman who was assumed to be just a good friend of Leonies.

Later, after Leonie had died, the nurse was attending a memorial service at Leslie Castle

when she recognised the elderly friend in a family painting.

The woman was Lady Constance Leslie, Leonie's mother-in-law, who died 20 years before.

A second ghost said to aunt the castle, is that of Norman Leslie, Leonie's son and

Sean Leslie's brother.

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