Rev. Bamber all at sea.

Bamber’s Ghost.

bamber2.jpg (34817 bytes)

Mr. Bamber, a Presbyterian from the North, was a big man, twenty four stone to be exact. He lived in a little thatched cottage in the ‘Slads’ at the end of Molly Ban’s Lane in the East Mountain of Howth. “Bamber,” as he was called, swallowed twelve raw eggs every morning for breakfast and Mrs. O’Brien’s hens were working round the clock to keep Bamber happy

Well insulated as he was, Bamber was an all year round swimmer, or floater I should say perhaps, as he was rarely seen to move a muscle in the water. He just floated on his back, wearing his knee-to-neck striped bathing suit and the tide did the rest. He was never without his bible, almost proportional to his bulk, which he rested on his voluminous chest, well above the water’s reach as he floated out to sea.

In the late 1890’s the Great Northern Railway offered free changing cubicles to first class passengers on the line. These were on Balscaddan Strand which was the popular bathing place for the well-to-do. It was a source of puzzlement to the bathers, not knowing Bamber’s ways, to behold this striped object rocking gently half a mile or so out to sea and gradually shorewards with the incoming tide.

There were several reports of a drowned man off the Naze of Howth. On receiving such reports, the coastguard’s first questions were: ‘Is it big, striped and motionless?’ If so, they knew it was the holy man coming or going with the tide.

He was known to be a kindly man, fond of children, but never saying much as he walked or floated along bible in hand. When at last he met his maker it took eight strong men to carry his coffin to his final resting place and the box was twice the height and breadth of a normal coffin.

Sometime when you are looking out to sea from Howth Head and you think you see something strange floating along the horizon, too small to be a ship and, you think, too big to be a man … look very closely, perhaps it is Bamber’s ghost.

Home.