Morfa Colliery

 Carrickfergus Advertiser, 18th September 1896.

A Haunted Coal Mine.

The Morfa Colliery, South Wales, possesses the unique, if unenviable, reputation of being haunted. This has always been a singularly unlucky pit, and the scene of several terrible disasters. Some time in the "sixties" these uncanny traditions appear to have been started owing to an elderly miner one day solemnly refusing to go down to work, asserting that the strange sounds he had heard in the workings were a warning of approaching evil. He adhered to his resolve, and there was an immediate explosion of fire damp, resulting in the loss of many lives. The terrible explosion of six years ago, when nearly one hundred miners were entombed, must still be familiar to the minds of many, and shortly before it occurred the most extraordinary noises were fully attested to. Cries, groans, and what was described as a weird "twittering music" reached the ears of all in the lower galleries. Heavy doors in the roadways were seen to open and shut of their own accord, and on the eve of the fatality the cage bell was mysteriously rung, and an apparition attired in a black oil-skin suit descended from the shaft by the side of a tram of coal on the stage, and walked across the yard to a building that a few hours later was destined to be used as a mortuary for the terribly mangled bodies of the victims. Immediately after the explosion one of the officials of the colliery, dressed in the same manner, did exactly as the apparition had done.

Only last December the scare broke out afresh as a recurrence of the same curious sounds took place, and, direst sign of all, one Sunday night a dove was found perched on a coal truck in the weigh house. By way of reassuring the miners, who had all struck work in a body, the Government inspector, the chief manager, and a small party of officials made a strict examination of the workings, but though they found nothing changed, it was several days before the superstitious miners could be induced to resume work. It is quite conceivable that a seismic tremor, or a settling of strata over the older workings, some of which extend under the sea, caused the sounds and movements thus described, and in either case there might be danger. But according to the miners the "weirds" of the victims of the past are giving warning to their living successors.