Dr Dejection was on his way to investigate a ghost sighting in the graveyard of Crumlin Road Gaol.
When he entered the graveyard, he saw a figure that was different from the description he had been given by the warden. It was a translucent, white figure wrapped in cloth, with chains binding it to a tombstone. It had long hair that was waving around in the wind.
“I have to make this quick,” he thought to himself, “there’s a storm coming.”
He decided to head back into the safety of the jail, unaware that he was being followed. He opened the door that led away from the graveyard. It was stiff and rusted.
He walked into the hanging room. The door slammed shut behind him. He heard glass shattering in front of him, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw two figures walking around the room. The same silhouette from the graveyard was somehow in front of him now. It was dragging the tombstone as it walked. The other figure was a little girl sitting next to the ghost, playing with a rock from the crumbling wall.
“Help us…” whispered the figure with long hair. “I’ve been trapped here for… I don’t know how long.”
Dr Dejection’s knees went weak; he felt like he was going to collapse. He tried to leave but the door was locked. He fell back a few steps, startled.
The girl cocked her head to the side. She looked up from the stone she was playing with. She opened her mouth; the voice that came out was faint from years of silence.
“I’ve been so lonely for so long; won’t you please come and play with us?”
The aim of the Cross Border Story Seeds Project was to promote a positive sense of self and the community, bringing young people together across the Border and across traditions through creative expression.
Over the course of this project our facilitators, artists and volunteers visited more than 120 primary and post-primary schools and community groups, working with approximately 10,000 children and young people in Counties Antrim, Louth, Down, Monaghan, Armagh, Donegal and Derry.
Working with primary schools, chapters were exchanged back and forth across the Border, with each school adding a chapter in response to what was written by the previous school, culminating in finished stories and the publication of the zine Story Seeds Across the Border, weaving together a refreshing and insightful description of community life along the Border counties and beyond.
Working with post-primary schools, students created stories within the Gothic genre and wrote fantastical stories that were full of creativity and imagination that celebrated important local landmarks and investigated the folklore in their communities. The stories are also published today in the zine Gothic Tales: Stories of the Mysterious and Macabre.
Working with community groups, groups of those with additional needs and youth clubs, some of the participants contributed stories to the Gothic Tales zine. However, they mostly created stories, plays, screenplays and radio plays that will make up the next two episodes of the Story Seeds podcast that can be heard on the Fighting Words podcast.
The project was funded by Creative Ireland and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports & Media. The project ran from April 2023 to March 2024.
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