Work on Armagh Gaol began in 1780 and for more than two centuries it was one of Ulster's grimmest prisons. In the 19th century as many as five prisoners could be packed into one cell. Public executions ended in 1868 but hangings carried on behind closed doors until 1904, and a window at the front of the building is still said to mark where the condemned walked out to the scaffold. Passers-by have said they see faces looking down from it even though the gaol has stood empty since it closed in 1986.
The best-known figure is a sorrowful woman in plain prison clothes with her hair tied back, usually placed in the chapel of the female wing, silently watching from the balcony. One account describes an elderly woman on a heritage tour crying out that she was there and pointing at the gallery, and a second person agreeing before the figure vanished. Former inmates are also said to have spoken of a woman who watches from the chapel and who appears before a death, as a warning of trouble to come.
Armagh I reported in 2015 that a woman in white had been seen many times at the gaol and that a photographer had apparently caught her in a picture in 2010. Doors that slam, voices on the landings and footsteps are the usual background to these accounts. None of this has been checked by anyone independent of the ghost-hunting community.
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