Is the city of Montreal haunted?
If we always think of old haunted European castles—in Transylvania among the vampires, in France where aristocrats were beheaded, in England where queens fought over the crown—Canada isn’t very scary. But, with the colonial atrocities perpetrated on the soil of a plundered territory, it is a country rich in strange, violent, and tragic history.
Is the city of Montreal haunted?
If we always think of old haunted European castles—in Transylvania among the vampires, in France where aristocrats were beheaded, in England where queens fought over the crown—Canada isn’t very scary. But, with the colonial atrocities committed on the soil of a plundered territory, it is a country rich in strange, violent, and tragic history.
Montreal’s most famous ghost is Mary Gallagher. Or, as she’s known, Headless Mary.
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HEADLESS MARY, MARY WITHOUT A HEAD, AND GRIFFINTOWN
Before it became a steel-and-glass neighborhood populated by finance guys and overpriced cafés, the Griffintown neighborhood was an Irish industrial district.
Griffintown stretches from southwest Montreal, along the Lachine Canal and bounded by the Bonaventure Expressway and Notre-Dame Street. The neighborhood borders Petite-Bourgogne and the Cité du Multimédia.
In the 19th century, Griffintown was a neighborhood inhabited mainly by Irish immigrants, who worked on the Victoria Bridge, the Lachine Canal, the railroads, and at the Port of Montreal.
The name,Griffintown, is derived from Mary Griffin, who illegally obtained the lease for the neighborhood from an associate of Thomas McCord in 1799. She was the one who commissioned the neighborhood plan in 1804.
It’s not that Mary who now haunts its streets. That Mary died a violent death in 1879. And the story is grim—and truly very sad.
Mary Gallagher and her friend Susan Kennedy were roommates in Griffintown, at the corner of Murray and William Streets. After an evening with a man named Michael Flanagan, Susan Kennedy decapitated her friend with an axe. Apparently, plaster rained down from the ceiling onto the floor below.
Susan Kennedy was sentenced to death but spent her life in Kingston Penitentiary and, 16 years after the brutal murder, was released.
Ever since then, Montrealers have sometimes seen the (headless) ghost of Mary Gallagher wandering about, desperately searching for her head…
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AND TODAY?
And today, at the corner of William and Murray Streets, there are buildings belonging to the École de Technologie Supérieure and a parking lot. If there are student apartments nearby, we obviously recommend being very careful about who you accept as a roommate…
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