The Long Walk: The Nun by the Mud Dock

In 1920 during the War of Independence, Michael Walsh, a publican and republican sympathiser, was seized by the Black and Tans in his bar, now The King’s Head. They dragged him through the narrow streets, beating him with rifle butts as they marched him toward the river. Residents heard the shouting, the boots on cobbles, and then, the silence. Unable to provide help, unarmed, they winced at the savagery of the assault, never imagining the tragic end of this unlawful arrest. At the Mud Dock on the Long Walk they shot him twice and threw his body into the Corrib. The next morning a woman dressed as a nun was seen kneeling at the water’s edge, praying. Some said she prayed for Walsh, others that she prayed for Father Griffin, a priest murdered days later by the same patrol. Each winter since, people walking along the Long Walk have seen her again, a solitary figure in white, kneeling where the dock meets the tide. When they approach she fades like breath on cold glass.