Remember the prostitute’s ghost who was reportedly encountered by different taxi drivers on the Quay in Waterford on two separate occasions? Then, according to reports, she took herself off to Tramore on her holidays?Well, it would appear that she returned to Tramore over the August Bank Holiday Weekend where she took up residence on the seafront but only late at night and into the early hours. A late night fisherman and his son were walking home at around 2.30am when they saw a girl leaning against the Prom wall.
“Are you all-right Miss,” said the father. The ghost’s reply hasn’t been recorded but the fisherman and his son didn’t stop running until they got home and have taken to fishing off the Ladies’ Slip instead.
This is an archive photograph of a Waterford street singer (and street walker) who was known as Happy Henrietta. Some people think that she was the infamous Waterford and Tramore ghost now finally at rest.
On the last occasion that the ghost appeared in Tramore, several motorbike enthusiasts, walking near McCarthy’s shop and restaurant late at night, said they were approached by an oddly dressed and strange looking young woman babbling in a language that was clearly English but which they couldn’t understand. (It was later identified as a 19th century dialect known as Newgate Cant).
One man who thought she was begging for money actually tried to give her some coins but when he touched her hand she screamed and disappeared into thin air. “I got some shock, I nearly fainted,” he said, adding that touching her hand was like touching a block of ice.
Another biker told The Munster Express: “I knew straight away she was a spook. I’ve never seen a ghost before and I never thought that I would. Thinking back on it, I wasn’t frightened at all and I said a little prayer for her when she disappeared.”
It is believed that the apparition was the ghost of a 19th century prostitute who used to ply her trade on the Quay in Waterford and visited Tramore in the summer months when the well-heeled gentry came to bath in the sea.Those that admitted to have encountered her claimed the air around her was extremely cold. An ‘expert’ in these matter, who asked not to be named, told The Munster Express the apparition was nothing to be afraid of and was merely a poor, wandering soul that needed prayers to help her pass over and finally find peace.
The expert said research had shown that the ghost in question might be that of a young woman known as Happy Henrietta who was also a street singer of some repute. She may have been attracted to the seafront by the presence there most days of a group of local musicians. “The poor girl may have sought the company of kindred spirits,” suggested the expert.
Appropriate prayers have now been recited and there has been no sign of the ghost ever since. It seems she has finally gone and won’t return. RIP.
PS: The musicians are still there most days but they are not to be confused with the street singer’s ghost – that’s their normal look!