The Old Town Hall, also known as the Merchant House, was built around 1770 as a private townhouse for a wealthy merchant. Over the years it was a family home, a boarding house and then council offices. It stood vacant and derelict for decades after the 1970s and was restored in 2021 as five private apartments. The lane beside it is officially Town Hall Lane, but older locals have called it Murder Lane, a name that goes back to a Down Recorder report of 22 May 1852 about the suspicious death of a Mrs McCready in the lane.
In 2016 a paranormal group, Ghost Searchers Ireland, held a series of investigations. In an EVP session they said they recorded a child's voice giving his name as Matthew. In the basement members heard a loud bang, saw something move from one room to another and had a stone thrown at them. The team came to believe that Matthew may have been a disabled child kept out of sight at a time when such children were often hidden or institutionalised, and a later session picked up a male voice calling himself the Key Keeper, whom they took to be his minder. They also reported a thermal image of a small figure.
A public investigation in 2017 sold out for charity. Attendees reported a recorded name, Thomas, a torch dimming and brightening on request and table movement. None of this has independent corroboration, and the story of a hidden child is an interpretation by the investigators.
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