My friend Liza was coming over from South Africa to visit us, and Derrick's old School friend was going to be in Cork, so we decided to go down to Cobh in Co. Cork for a week-end and show Liza a bit of Ireland and on the way pop in to see Charles and his daughter Emily.
We left in really crappy rainy weather and drove down, thank goodness for Google maps we found the farm no problem. They had put on a really nice lunch for us, so we spent a few hours and then continued down to Cobh.
We arrived in Cobh on the evening of the 2nd of January, we were pretty tired so just went to our rooms and then down for dinner. My Emily and Liza shared a room which was a few doors away from where our room was, we had a sea view.
The hotel we stayed in was the Commodore Hotel, I found it on booking.com and it was on the main road not far from the Titanic experience which I wanted to take Liza to see. I did not do too much research on the hotel, for a small town it looked nice, I read a few reviews - someone said it was noisy, but I thought well for 2 nights it will be fine, the price was very reasonable too.
The Commodore Hotel was completed in 1854 and opened as the Queens Hotel. The name commemorated the fact that Queen Victoria, on her first ever visit to Ireland, had stepped ashore just a few yards from the site of the new hotel.
The first evening we were there we were in the room just chilling before dinner and at one stage it got icy cold, it was winter, however it was unusual for the room to be so cold. I remember putting the heater on and covering myself with the blanket.
I don't remember too much about that evening but I do remember waking up in the early hours of the morning because I heard people talking, I thought there must be people in the room next to us.
The next day, we woke had breakfast and then did some sightseeing around cove, we had been there before but like I mentioned wanted to do the Titanic Experience, after we went for lunch and met a work colleague of mine. By this time it was late afternoon, we then went back to the hotel for a coffee and chat. My friend left and we went up to the room, we decided not to do Dinner at the hotel again but to go round to the pub, which we did.
After a few drinks we went back to the hotel. Again that night I remember waking up in the middle of the night or early morning with noises, but I promptly went back to sleep. We waited for Liza at breakfast and she came down like a bear with a sore head, she said she hardly slept because there was someone above her room marching up and down with heavy boots the whole night. She told me to remember to put in a complaint when we were checking out.
So once we had collected our stuff, I went to reception to check out and mentioned to the lady that Liza could not sleep as there was someone walking up and down with heavy boots the whole night in the room above. So she said: "There is no room above" ......... then she said to me you see that man sitting at the table there, he is a tour guide, tell him what happened.
So according to this Gentleman, an Army sergeant going off to join the Crimean war was staying in the hotel whilst the ship was en route to collect him and other soldiers. The Soldier committed suicide in the hotel and it is said that you can often hear him marching up and down, well both Liza and myself got the shivers. He also told us other stories of people hearing a baby crying in the middle of the night, and this was the ghost of a baby whose mother was waiting for a ship to go to New York, she was a single mother and she left the baby in a suitcase in the room. I guess she hoped that someone would find the baby and hand it in, but alas the baby died in the suitcase.
The hotel also had guests who were joining the Titanic on her Maiden voyage to New York and hence the "Titanic Experience" in Cove. When I got home I did some research and it was true we would not be the only one's to hear noises in the hotel. I wish I had known before we stayed there, however I somehow think had we read all these reviews we would never have heard the noises.
It also appeared that after the sinking of the Lusitania, the hotel was turned into a hospital and Morgue, so the sounds we heard that night could also have been the moving of beds around.
At least Liza had an experience that she could tell everyone when she got back home.
I found this write up on the hotel as well:
https://www.travelmyth.ie/Cobh/Hotels/haunted-historic
