Carnegie Library on Donegall Rd, Belfast

Until recent years the Carnegie building was a branch of the Belfast Public Library.

Now inhabited by upmarket creative designers and architects, it is said that at one time it was home to a ghost. Locals speak of lights coming on in the building late in the night and sometimes the big internal doors could be heard banging. Is this true or myth?

Do you know anything about the Carnegie ghost? Do you know anyone who worked there through the years who might know more? Please let us know. Just reply to this article...

Did you know?

Pittsburgh - http://www.clpgh.org

Marion, Illinois - http://www.sirin.lib.il.us/docs/mrn/docs/lib/

Albany, Missouri - http://carnegie.lib.mo.us/

Howell, Michigan - http://hcdl.howell-carnegie.lib.mi.us/

Paulding County, Ohio - http://pauldingcountylibrary.org/

Union County, SC - http://www.unionlibrary.org/

Washington DC - http://www.hswdc.org/City_Museum/Carnegie_Library/Carnegie_Library.asp

Boulder, Colorado - http://www.boulder.lib.co.us/branch/carnegie.html

Homestead, Munhall - http://www.einetwork.net/ein/homested/

Paxton - Illinois - http://www.ltls.org/pnn.html

Beaver County, PA - http://www.co.beaver.pa.us/Library/midland.html

Your Responses

Stephen George Henry Miller - Apr '07
My back garden faces the Carnegie Library and i purchased my house for the splendid view it creates from my kitchen window. In the year i have lived beside the old library, i have indeed noticed a few strange goings on... In particular one night nearing halloween. I stepped outside at around midnight and heard what sounded like a ghost wandering the halls of the building, wailing and moaning. The noise was very audible and certainly not a result of an overactive imagination. Being of a nervous disposition, I instructed my girlfriend to go outside to the carnegie and see if she could see any spirits, ghouls or ghosts. After a few minutes she returned, pale and in shock with a look of horror in her eyes. Eventually she came round and informed me of what she had witnessed. She had walked up to the library, following the sounds of the wailing and looked in the window... As she stood, motionless, peering inside to catch a glimpse of the ghost she suddenly saw it!! It was not ins!
ide but outside the library. The ghost it turns out was a local drunk who'd been rolling around moaning on the street, desperate for some money to buy 'a coffee'. So there you go, if you do hear the ghost, indulge him with a can of strong cider and he'll leave you alone.

Marie Toner Moore
I think the public library on the Falls Road is also a 'Carnegie' building. I have reason to be grateful to Andrew Carnegie as I 'haunted' the aforesaid building as a child avid for books but without the wherewith all to acquire any other than by borrowing them. I remember the liberian at the 'Falls' used to chase me when I tried to borrow two books on the same day! I'm glad to say those days are gone and my grandchildren are welcomed, not to say enticed, into their local library and given every encouragement to enjoy their visit. No amount of discouragement worked with me however and today I came out of Oxfam's Dublin Road bookshop with two bags of lovely 'preread' books same as I do most weekends.