Ballymoney was a stronghold of the United Irishmen in the rising of 1798. According to the story recorded by Spirited Isle, George Hutchinson was one of the magistrates who punished those involved. Alexander Gamble was said to have been offered his life in return for naming fellow United Irishmen. When he refused he was tried and hanged at the clock tower on the main street, now the Masonic Hall.
Legend says Hutchinson's ghost is now paying for the rough justice he handed out. His spectre, with a large metal ball chained to his ankle, walks the street towards the clock tower at midnight each Friday the 13th, then turns and walks back. Some say the local graveyard is also haunted and the magistrate's grave is especially active.
The suffering of 1798 is real. The ghost is a later moral tale in the familiar mould of a punishment for injustice.
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