Ireland’s Most Haunted Roads – What’s the Safest Car to Survive the Drive? | Season 5 – Episode 87
Wheels Oct 31, 2025
It is Halloween, and with ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night on the move, some of us still have to brave Ireland’s darker roads after nightfall. Here at Ireland Made – Stories of Irish Transport, we are asking a practical question: if you had to drive along Ireland’s most haunted roads, what car would you choose to get you safely through the night?
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CARS TO CONSIDER
Would you feel safe inside the Irish Army’s historic Sliabh na mBan, the 920 Pattern Rolls Royce armoured car forever linked with Michael Collins? Powered by a Rolls Royce 40/50 HP six-cylinder 7434 cc engine, it is slower than the Shamrock, with a top speed of 60 mph (96 km/h), but far more imposing. Inside, you are surrounded by 0.335 inches of steel armour and you have a Vickers .303 machine gun. And while the gun might fend off earthly enemies, it is unlikely to stop ghosts or ghouls. Still, there is comfort in its steel doors, until you hear a knock outside when no one is there.
Or would you risk a haunted road in the Irish-built Shamrock car? Huge, slow and famously underpowered, the Shamrock was a bold but ill-fated attempt to create an Irish luxury car in the 1960s. With only 53 hp from a BMC 1489cc B Series engine, it had to haul a 17-foot (5180 mm) fibreglass body. Performance figures tell the story: 0 to 97 km/h in 19.7 seconds, and handling that could best be described as leisurely. The Shamrock is not the car for a rapid getaway from any ghosts, ghouls, or spooks you might encounter.
HAUNTED ROADS
Recent research by DiscoverCars.com and Easirent Ireland, based on customer feedback, has identified Ireland’s most haunted roads, places where drivers have reported strange shapes, lights, and ghostly figures that vanish into the night.
Among them is the N9 between Carlow and Kilkenny, a lonely stretch said to be haunted by a phantom hitchhiker who appears in headlights before disappearing without a trace, some say as a warning, others as a restless traveller still looking for a lift home. In Connemara, locals speak of a ghostly horse-drawn coach that thunders down the roads on stormy nights, more often heard than seen. The N71 between Bantry and Killarney, known as the “Haunted Road to Killarney,” is said to be home to a woman in white who materialises in the mist and vanishes when approached, startling many a driver. In the Dublin Mountains, the twisting road leading to the infamous Hell Fire Club on Montpelier Hill is known for strange lights, shadowy figures, and eerie laughter echoing through the trees. And along the R675 from Waterford to Dungarvan, another woman in white is said to appear on a sharp bend near Dungarvan, forever seeking a lift she will never receive.
THE RIGHT CAR
When we asked asked Brian and Alan Kennedy of Glenview Folk Museum what car they would trust on a haunted drive, they chose their open-topped electric eRoadster, a handcrafted prototype of what was planned as Ireland’s first production-built electric car, the Spika.
Their reasoning was simple: courage.
Driving through the night in an open car is an act of defiance against fear itself. With the quiet hum of an electric motor, you would hear every whisper from the hedgerow, every creak of the trees, and perhaps footsteps that are not your own. The eRoadster leaves you exposed to the night and the mist, shadows, strange lights, and spooks that linger by the roadside, a flicker of movement, a face glimpsed in the mirror that vanishes when you turn to look.
Yet it offers one clear advantage. The electric motor delivers instant acceleration — 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in under five seconds to get you well away from haunted ground before dawn breaks.
So this Halloween, if you find yourself on the N9, the N71, or the Hell Fire Club Road, remember that while you might feel safely cosseted from the spooks in a steel armoured car, only the bravest driver would face a haunted road in an open-topped electric car. Are you one of the bravest souls?
Both the eRoadster and its development prototype, the Spika, can be seen at Glenview Folk Museum in County Leitrim. Open seasonally, with details at www.glenviewfolkmuseum.ie
If you have an idea for a story, please email Kevin Reid at [email protected]
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