Dublin church offers eerie underground tour
With the approach of Halloween, it is said the walls between the worlds of the living and the dead become thin, but at St Michan’s Church in the center of Dublin, Ireland, such a barrier seems almost nonexistent every day.
While the current St. Michan’s stone structure dates back to 1685, its foundation is what remains of the original Christian Viking church that was built on the site in 1095.
And within this Medieval base of limestone rock, burial crypts house centuries-old coffins and, even more haunting, bodies that defy the notion of dust-to-dust.
St. Michan’s, on Church Street just to the north of the River Liffey, is an operating Protestant church, but guided tours of its eerie underground are offered every day, except Sunday. The exploration begins outside the church in front of a heavy, slanted metal door that opens with an appropriate slow, ominous creak. At the bottom of the narrow, steep stone steps, retreating sunlight is replaced by small electric wall lamps that cast a chalky, spooky glow down the dusty corridor flanked by shadowy, vaulted chambers where the dead reside. In these voids of darkness, curious eyes so inclined can peer into the dimness to glimpse stacks of coffins and, because the wooden caskets do fall apart over time, bodies.
One chamber, however, is lighted. Within this small netherworld, crumbling coffins have opened, revealing remains that, for their age, are in surprisingly good condition. In particular, there are four well preserved bodies known as the Mummies of St. Michan’s that defy decomposition. The corpses, including one that is at least 800 years old, are, of course, decayed, but much of their skins, rather than drying up and falling away, have hardened to leather-like coverings, taking the creepy factor up a few notches.
The reason for the mummies? Limestone walls and ground-source methane could contribute to such controlled desiccation, but since the vaults typically have normal humidity levels, there seems to be something else yet to be discovered that has caused this mystery.
Guides usually offer adventurous visitors the chance to touch one of the mummified fingers of a corpse known as The Crusader, which, they say, will bring good luck, but contact with the hard, smooth, extended digit is more likely to bring a good chill.
The tour, which costs 6 euros for adults and 4 euros for students, is normally about 30 minutes long, but the memories of this strange place suspended between heaven and earth will certainly last much longer.
More haunts
▪ The Gravedigger Ghost Tour (www.thegravedigger.ie). A two-hour bus ride into the Dublin night, stopping at such notorious haunts such as the Kilmainham Jail, Bully’s Acre Cemetery and St. Audeons Church.
▪ Glasnevin Cemetery (www.glasnevintrust.ie). This 124-acre Dublin cemetery was opened in 1832, and is the final resting place for many of Ireland’s most famous people. Entrance is free, but take a paid guided walk – it will include many interesting, odd and weird stories behind the stone markers.
▪ Hellfire Club Tour (www.hiddendublinwalks.com). A nightly, three-hour, guided bus trip up Montpelier Hill, which overlooks Dublin, to the ruins of a building that once housed the infamous Hellfire Club, an organization of upper-class Dubliners who, in the 18th century, participated in excessive and, some say, even satanic activities.
This story was originally published October 10, 2015 at 6:31 AM with the headline "Dublin church offers eerie underground tour."