Folklore & legend

Marjorie McCall, the Lady with the Ring

Shankill graveyard, Lurgan

Said to be 1695 or 1705; stone erected in the 19th century

Armagh I tells it this way. Marjorie McCall, in a coma, was taken for dead and buried. Grave robbers dug her up and tried to cut off her finger to get her wedding ring, which brought her round. The terrified robbers fled and she walked out of the graveyard and home. When she reached the house, her grieving husband answered the door and fainted from fright, and in one report died of a heart attack. Phantom crying is said to be heard in the graveyard, though whether that is connected to the story is unclear.

She is placed in or around Church Place, Lurgan, married to a local doctor named John. Different accounts give 1695 or 1705.

The Wikipedia article on the Lady with the Ring places the Lurgan version in a European tradition of the same story, found across Europe. It notes that the Public Record Office lists the deaths of nine Marjorie McCalls in Lurgan, three of them married to a John, but that the parish has no record of this particular one. It also says a local monumental sculptor was allowed to erect the stone in Shankill cemetery in the 19th century as a tourist attraction, and that it is the only undated stone in the graveyard.

Evidence
Dubious
Access
Open ground
Location
54.465, -6.332 (Sited to the village)

Sources: Wikipedia, "Marjorie McCall" [other]; Armagh I, "Seven ghostly tales of county Armagh hauntings" [other]

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