Spirited Isle describes a bar on the corner of Bridge Street and John Street in Derry that had been the Canadian Hotel in the 1950s, then the Star Bar in the 1960s, and was later renamed the Cutty Sark. Before and after the Second World War it was popular with sailors from the many navies that docked in the city. The page notes that it had at one point been a funeral parlour, which locals saw as a possible source of the stories.
Staff who lived and worked there during the Star Bar years reported lights switching on in empty rooms, heavy footsteps through the building and figures at the foot of beds at night. Furniture was heard being dragged or struck in rooms upstairs, and the owner's inspections found nothing. Passers-by claimed to see a light from one upstairs window late at night. Suspecting a hoax, the owner had a staff member stand outside and signal when it appeared. When the signal came he ran upstairs and found the room locked, and when he opened it, it was empty.
The account is anonymous and undated beyond the decades, and it is the owner's tale as passed on.
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