Owner tells of ghostly goings on at old Mackay pub

THE owner of the Mirani hotel, which is for sale, confirms the old, wooden pub is "definitely haunted".

GHOST STORIES: Several people have died at the Mirani Hotel

THE owner of the Mirani hotel, which is for sale, confirms the old, wooden pub is "definitely haunted".

Scott Cronin has spoken of two experiences while he was looking after the hotel, which has been in his family since the 1940s.

"First of all, it's not like the Amityville horror house where things fly round, and you feel an evil presence in the room, nothing like that," he said.

"In about 1997, myself and my girlfriend at the time were in my room upstairs, and my brother, who lived on the premises as well was there. There wasn't anybody else living there, it was just the two of us.

"That particular night my girlfriend and me were there by ourselves, my brother was away, and we heard footsteps go down the hall, and they went past the door to my room.

"When we went outside to see who it was, cause I thought 'I know my brother's out of town, so it won't be him', so I thought somebody had broken in, or it was a staff member there at midnight looking around, I didn't know what it was, because the pub had been closed since nine or 10 o'clock.

"So the footsteps went down the hallway, I went and had a good look and there was nobody there. The direction the footsteps went, they went down to the bathroom and the toilet, the amenities area, and there's no doorway or stairs that lead out of there, it was a dead end.

"Then probably two years later, with my now wife, same sort of thing. My brother and his girlfriend at the time weren't there, they were out of town on holidays.

"We actually heard the footsteps again, I went out of the bedroom and the bedroom door was left open about a foot and a half, I walked out and turned left towards the non-exit toilet area to have a look around.

"My wife then yelled out because she's seen somebody walk across the doorway behind me, like they were going to jump me from behind and grab me on the back.

"So she yelled out 'there's someone behind you', I turned around and found nobody there. So I'm yelling out 'what? what?', she says 'there's someone behind you'. By now I've turned around, so then I turned around again, so I'm doing 360s, looking for somebody behind me, but there was nobody.

"I'm not a ghost believer, I've never felt an evil menacing presence, it's just I've heard footsteps walk down the hall and there hasn't been anybody there.

"We had one occasion with one of our staff members.

"She had a tray of glasses fall off the lip of the dishwasher, they'd been there for three or four minutes, then out of the blue they fell off.

"You can't see the glasses fall, but on the security footage I had at the time from the other side of the bar, you could see the glasses land, once they'd landed and rolled away.

"She rang me and said 'are you at the pub?' and I said 'yeah, I'm upstairs'.

"She said 'can you come down?' So I went downstairs and here's four or five broken glasses and another three or four lying on the floor.

"She said 'They just fell out of the dishwasher. I'd been cleaning up, they'd been sitting there for five minutes, and they just all tipped out onto the floor'.

"So we went upstairs and looked at the security footage, you can see where the glasses roll out into the camera shot from behind the bar.

"And there could have been somebody hiding behind the bar that tipped them over.

"There's always been stories about the pub, because it creaks and groans, and there's been a couple of people died there.

"I can't remember the fellow's name, dad would know, he walked into the bar and had two beers at the intermission at the old movie theatre that used to be where the tyre shop is now near the school, back in the 60s. His wife and daughter were still at the movies, he had two beers, turned around to walk out, stood at the doorway, turned back around to my grandfather and said 'I don't feel well, Frank, can I get a port wine and brandy?'.

"So grandad turned to get the drink and when he turned back the bloke was on the ground dead."

"There's been a couple of people die on the grounds over the years, the old yardsman, he passed away while he was living in an old tin shed down the back."

The hotel has been for sale since earlier this year. It has had some interest but people have only been asking questions, nothing more. Mr Cronin said he's not selling it as the most haunted place in the world.

"We were there for 20 years and had two experiences. But they happened and I can't explain it."

Originally published as Owner tells of ghostly goings on at old Mackay pub