By Michelle Crean

They have a love of things that go bump in the night – and it seems the public do too – as a Killarney man’s ghost hunting video has gone viral.

PJ O’Sullivan from Púca Vogue Paranormal Ireland and his ghost busting team posted a video online around Christmas time, but it was only over the last two weeks that it went viral – clocking up 1.9 million views and over 2k likes on Facebook.

“We were naturally shocked ourselves at this,” PJ, who is originally from Gneeveguilla but lives in St Mary’s Terrace in town, told the Killarney Advertiser.

The video was taken in Redwood Castle in, Lorrha, Co Tipperary in October when the Irish paranormal investigator invited like-minded people to the location for Hallowe’en.

PJ, who has been a paranormal investigator for over 15 years, set up Púca Vogue Paranormal Ireland three years ago and works alongside his son Leo and his partner Eva Walsh.

In the clip, Eva and Liz Kelleher are in the background with singer/songwriter Rebecca McRedmond front and centre.

“On the night we had a total of 10 people in the castle for the lockdown investigation including our own Rory Murphy and Veronika Slomiany,” he said.

“It was filmed on the ground floor inside the main entrance area. It was a Hallowe’en paranormal investigation where we had guests including Damien O’Rourke from Cuppa Tea TV.

“We were investigating the ground floor. It was filmed in total darkness and Rebecca had felt a touch as we started and shortly in this clip she felt another touch at her leg. Eva had also commented the room had now felt tense, so on review of the footage we can see what we believe is her dress floating outward, and on inspection both her ankles show her feet were on the ground; there was no drafts, and it tied in with the experience so we shared that clip.”

He added that they share clips from investigations but let people decide for themselves what it is that they see.

“We share what we believe we capture and this is just a few minutes as a part of the whole night as we investigate the castle over all floors usually from around 9.30pm to 4am with breaks and we have up to five cameras recording in 50 minute segments continuously which we download after for review. But as you can imagine with full-time jobs and life it takes time to review all the footage so we mix what we do with pictures and sites of interest. We are non-profit on all events. We had done Leap Castle the previous night, this is claimed as Ireland’s most haunted castle and again shared the experience, but this is the reel that just took off on Facebook which has us surprised, but we are all very proud of Púca Vogue Paranormal.

“This is not our first capture from this castle as we have previously shared on their social media, we experienced more on the night which we will share at future dates.”

To see the video go to our Facebook page: Púca Vogue Paranormal Investigations.

By Sean Moriarty

A Plunkett St coffee shop has been forced to shut its doors due to the soaring costs of doing business.

Bean in Killarney opened in late January 2021.

Last March it was named as one of the ‘Financial Times’ list of ‘Best Independent Coffee Shops in the World’.

It was just one of 30 coffee shops worldwide – and one of only two in Ireland – to make the list, which includes entries from world cities like Paris, London and Sydney.

Bean in Killarney is a sister café to Bean in Dingle which was set up by brothers Justin and Luke Burgess.

The local branch was managed by brothers Joey and Euan Boland, who are also from Dingle.

It was a popular coffee stop for locals and visitors alike but despite its popularity and accolades, the business could not survive the current economic climate.

“After two great years we have made the really tough decision to close Bean in Killarney,” said a company statement.

“We opened during the height of the lockdown with the hope that when all restrictions came to an end, the shop would kick off like the Dingle one did.

“However, 2022 brought about new challenges and unfortunately ended up being harder rather than easier. We are a family-run business and rapidly rising costs meant we traded less than we did during 2021’s numerous restrictions. We had hoped to ride out the storm, but it’s not possible to continue operating at a loss.”