another Irish Halloween tale from George of the Irish Heritage Newsletter.... Tullamore, Wexford, Co Wexford In the 1880's Lord Dufferin, who was later to become British Ambassador to Paris, was on holiday at Tullamore when he saw an apparition that was later to save his life. One night, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, he woke up suddenly after being startled from a deep sleep. Getting out of bed and going to the window he saw, in the moonlight, a hunchbacked figure on the lawn staggering with the weight of a coffin-shaped object. Lord Dufferin raced downstairs, out onto the lawn, and asked the figure what he was doing, what he was carrying and what he wanted. As the man lifted his head Lord Dufferin saw that he had an extremely ugly-looking face that utterly repelled him. The figure then disappeared before his eyes. The following morning he told his host of his experience but his friend was at a complete loss to explain the strange man. Certainly there had been no reports of a ghost at Tullamore. A few years later, Lord Dufferin, by this time British Ambassador, was to attend a diplomatic function at the Grand Hotel in Paris. He waited at the lift with his secretary and the hotel manager. Just as they were about to enter the lift Lord Dufferin drew back in horror and flatly refused to enter the cage. The lift operator was the same man he had seen carrying the coffin on the lawn at his friend's house in Wexford several years previously. The lift doors closed and the cage moved up to the fifth floor. At this point the cable snapped and the cage crashed to the bottom of the shaft, killing all it's occupants. The accident was fully investigated but there was nobody who knew who the strange lift operator was.