The Ghost of Doarlish Cashen

1/23/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In the 1930s the Irving family lived in the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man. The household consisted of James, Margaret and their 14-year-old daughter, Voirrey. The unassuming family would soon garner the attention of eminent parapsychologists like Nandor Fodor, Harry Price and Hereward Carrington, based on their claims of communication with a talking mongoose.

Doarlish Cashen with owners James and Margaret Irving standing outside c.1930s

The family had lived at their farmhouse Doarlish Cashen since 1916, and their daughter was born there. It was an isolated place at the summit of a lonely upland above the village of Glen Maye. It was a difficult 45 minute climb up a slippery, precipitous path to reach the farmstead. Close by was a 700-foot drop to the sea.

In September, 1931 the family started to hear persistent scratching behind the walls of their farmhouse. The family initially believed the sounds were made by a rat, or some other small animal. The sounds escalated to rustling or vocal noises that by turns resembled a dog, ferret or human baby.

In October, 1931 Voirrey Irving caught sight of the beast. According to her it was a little animal resembling a stoat or weasel, with yellow fur and a body about nine inches long. It had a long bushy tail speckled in places.

The first six months, the family were terrified by thumps and bangs behind the boarding. Pictures swung on the wall and chairs were thrown down. The target was Mr. Irving, where he would have things thrown at him when he was in bed.

Mr. Irving described where one night they moved Voirrey into their bedroom, and the creature proclaimed, "I'll follow her wherever you move her."

They barricaded the bedroom door and they soon saw the top of the door bulging in as though some terrific force were thrusting against it.

Voirrey Clucas Irving (1918-2005) c.1930s

It was in November when they first heard a strange, high voice from behind the woodwork that would alternately sing hymns, and parts of a song. Mr. Irving engaged the creature claiming he managed to get it to repeat sentences in English, French, German, Yiddish, Spanish, Flemish and Hebrew. It also barked like a dog, mewed like a cat and also made noises like a threshing mill. It spoke intelligently, and was knowledgeable about happenings in the district. Mr. Irving first believed it was a live animal and attempted to catch it. They named it "Jack". Eventually the creature said it did not like the name Jack, and insisted it be called "Gef" and spelled it out.

According to the Irvings, the creature introduced itself and said it was a mongoose born in an area where New Delhi would eventually be established. It said it was 83 years old, and he was one of several mongooses introduced by a Manx farmer 30 years previously in order to rid the island of rabbits.

When asked what it ate, it said "air", however when they mentioned rabbits it would make a sound of smacking lips.

Harry Price (1881-1976)

Gef at times described himself quite differently. It said, that he was "an extra extra clever mongoose", an "earthbound spirit" and "a ghost in the form of a mongoose". Once it said, "I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you'd faint, you'd be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!"

Before long the newspapers carried stories of the creature. Some claimed to have heard it and seen glimpses of the elusive creature, however no physical proof was ever furnished. Many suspected that whatever proof was presented belonged to the family's sheepdog, Mona

The Irvings claimed Gef guarded their home, told them when guests were about to arrive and if there was a dog wandering about on the property. If the fire was left lit he would stop the stove, and wake any of the members who had overslept.

Like a pet, they fed it by leaving chocolates, bananas and biscuits in a saucer suspended from the ceiling. It only took the food when no one was watching. Gef accompanied them to the market, but stayed out of sight on the other side of the hedges. During their tenure there Gef had strangled more than a hundred rabbits and left them in convenient places for the Irvings to find.

In 1935, Richard S. Lambert and his friend Harry Price investigated the case and wrote the book The Haunting of Cashen's Gap (1936).

Price observed the farmhouse had double walls of wooden paneling covering the interior rooms, which acted like a great speaking tube.

Harry Price was a British psychic researcher and author who gained prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena, and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for his investigation into the purportedly haunted Borley Rectory in Essex, England. He lived at the rectory for one year starting in May, 1937. He documented a series of alleged hauntings and wrote a book about it in 1940.

Location where Gef would leave strangled rabbit for the family

Nandor Fodor, Research Officer for the International Institute for Psychical Research, stayed at the farm for a week without hearing or seeing the phenomena. He concluded there was no deliberate attempt at deception, and Gef was based on a "split off part" of Jim Irving's personality.

A spiritualist visited the farmhouse and stated that Gef could not be an animal, but was an earthbound spirit who had been attracted to Mrs. Irving because she was a medium without knowing it.

Many people, including residents of the island thought the family had colluded in making up the hoax. Voirrey was believed to have perfected ventriloquism as a way to make the noises, and conversations associated with Gef. Others believed it was a poltergeist, and was connected to the presence of Voirrey, an adolescent girl which was a common denominator in many poltergeist cases.

The Irvings denied any belief in spiritualism, and reporters and investigators who came to the farm described James Irving as a one-time Liverpool businessman who was widely traveled, and bought the property in order raise sheep. His wife and daughter were described as intelligent. James Irving kept diaries on all these activities from 1932 till 1935.

Supposed belief in Gef the Mongoose created a lawsuit for slander that created more interest than ever in the story

In the wake of Price and Lambert's visit to the Irving farmstead, a suit for slander was filed which raised the interest of Gef the Mongoose to new heights among the public. There was one person who doubted that Lambert was as skeptical as he might have been of the reported existence of the mongoose. That person was Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Cecil Bingham Levita.

Sir Cecil after talking with Lambert went home and told his wife, "My God, he believes in it." Lady Levita was a fellow member with Lambert on the council of the British Film Institute, a semi-official organization having to do with the distribution of educational motion pictures. About a year before, Lady Levita and Lambert had seriously disagreed on a question of policy.

In February, 1936, Sir Cecil had a talk with W. Gladstone Murray an official of the BBC, and spoke critically of Lambert. The conversation reached the ears of Lambert, and he sued Sir Cecil for slander, alleging his critic said he had expressed belief in the talking mongoose, and had moved his home because of fear of the "evil eye" and indicated he was a bit "cracked," implying he was unfit to hold his job. Lambert attributed this conversation with his failure to get an increase in his salary. Lambert demanded a retraction from Sir Cecil that never occurred.

The case went to trial in November, 1936, and the book written by Lambert and Price, The Haunting of Cashen's Gap was used as evidence in which Lambert demanded, "I wish you would show me anything in the book which suggests that the writer believed what he was writing."

The judge told the jury among other things, "If you pour poison into an employer's ears about a person you must justify it or take the consequences." There was also mention that Sir Cecil had hinted at getting Lambert fired if he didn't drop the suit.

Lambert was awarded £7500 and to pay court costs of £3000.

Voirrey with Mona the family sheepdog c.1930s

Prior to the occupancy by the Irvings, Doarlish Cashen belonged to a Frenchman named Pierre Henri Joseph Baume. He was a mysterious man who aspired to establishing education institutes with a communistic basis. He acquired several large estates, and it was believed he amassed his fortune as a foreign spy.

Baume came to the Isle of Man in 1857, and took up residence there. His quarters were lined with books and he slept in a hammock. Only those who knew a secret knock would be admitted to the room. He was known to wander at night with a pistol to frighten off unwelcome visitors. He lived only by eating peas, which he carried in his pocket. He justified this behavior because he wanted to leave as much as possible for charitable uses.

Baume died in 1875, and all his property were left in trust for philanthropic purposes on the Isle of Man. The property did not come to any attention until the Irvings bought the property from Pierre Baume's executors.

The land was then in fairly good condition, and part of it was leased by the Government for cultivation by a batch of a hundred German prisoners who were interned at Glen Maye. James Irving did not move in right away, and left the farm in charge of his son who was an adult. After two years he finally settled there, and one of the interned Germans — a carpenter helped to complete the paneling work, and also taught him various additions to his German vocabulary.

Doarlish Cashen (looking north) shows the cleared area where the farm used to be, with Corrin's Hill and tower in the distance. c.2005

Once the family moved there, Irving's son continued to work for them. Elsie their other daughter had been left a widow and did not accompany her parents to Doarlish Cashen, and stayed living in Liverpool. The son stayed on the farm until 1928, when he then moved to London.

It seemed that the origins of Gef might have predated the occupancy of the farmstead by the Irvings. A piece of local folklore described weird phenomena such as: "Some men digging here many years ago unearthed a flat stone covering a funerary urn which contained black ashes. They buried it in the hedge-bank. A long time afterwards, and not extremely long ago, a young man hunting rabbits with his dog Paddy thought he saw a rabbit bolting to the hedge. He began pulling away the stones and soil, and while doing so he felt something invisible pushing him back. When this happened a second time, a sudden fear took him and he ran down the hillside till he reached his home. A white stone in the hedge still marks the spot where the urn was buried."

Before the family moved in James Irving had two workmen, Callister and Kelly complete renovations and repairs. He was surprised to find the workmen were willing to work there during daylight hours, however they refused to spend the night at the house. He considered them sober men. One of them explained to him, "Look here, John, I cannot sleep in the room; I have heard strange noises, and there is something uncanny about the place."

A real yellow mongoose

Thirty years later, Charles Morrison a friend of James Irving, described where James suffered from pernicious anemia, and the Irvings' older daughter Elsie, who had been skeptical before, came to attend her father during the last year of his life when he was bed-ridden.

After his death, Margaret Irving and Elsie told Morrison the following: "they were both sitting before the fireplace and on the mantelpiece was a branch they used to sweep the fireplace, when lo! and behold, this very brush started to move backwards and forwards which amazed them! It stopped just as Irving died. They afterward tried to discover how it happened, but could not find anything. Elsie said there were strange noises in the beams whilst she stayed there for six months and when Voirrey came for a day or two from Douglas to stay, these sounds were accentuated but there was no talking; nor had there been for four years."

Eventually the farmhouse was demolished which seemed strange since many abandoned farm buildings seen elsewhere on the island, were left untouched. Also the spot where Doarlish Cashen was located would have required a costly demolition effort. Nothing was built on the site afterward.

James Irving's illness coincided roughly with the disappearance of Gef. He described where early on, when Gef appeared the entity would plead to him on more than one occasion, "Oh let me go Jim. Let me go." James Irving would ask where he wanted to go and the reply was: "I must go back to the underground."

Once when Margaret Irving asked Gef what he knew, it replied: "Of course I know what I am, and you are not going to get to know, and you are only grigged [a Manx word, meaning 'vexed' ] because I won't tell you. I might let you see me some time, but thou wilt never get to know what I am."

James Irving died in 1945, and Margaret and Voirrey had to sell the farm at a a loss due to the reputation it had gained for being haunted. Margaret Irving died in 1960. Leslie Graham, an ex-army man who bought the farm told the press he had shot and killed Gef in 1946, however the body he displayed was black and white, and larger than a mongoose.

Voirrey died in 2005, always maintaining that Gef was not her creation.