Old Irish Myths #56: A Working Lift At An Irish Train Station

LAST WEEK in WWN’s ‘Old Irish Myths’ series we learned all about leprechauns and this week is the turn of something slightly different.

A mythical contraption that legend has it can elevate and lower multiple people to and from railway station platforms with the press of a button.

“Several Irish Rail employees were burned at the stake for alleged witch craft as far back as 2019 over the claim of something called a ‘working lift’ which is tragic really because anyone with a bit of sense would have known no such thing exists,” confirmed lecturer in folklore Dr Jennifer Alwin.

“The working lift is my least favourite Irish myth if I’m being honest. You see with the banshee or leprechaun you at least have some eye witnesses who come forward every now and again with tall tales of seeing such things with their own eyes, but it’s extremely rare with lifts,” added Dr Alwin.

The best myths require poets, singers, writers and folklorists to share and keep alive a legend, however, the working myth lift is at risk of dying out.

“I’m the last one alive to have seen one, they do exist,” an old hag we met at a crossroads at midnight told us, her hand clutching a dimly lit candle, her gaze fixed on us suspiciously.

“It made this almighty clunking sound, roared like a mechanical beast, jittering and bucking like a bull in heat. By God I thought I’d die inside it,” the hag continued. “It was terrifying but I got a strange kick out of it so I went back the next to try it again and that’s when I saw the sign ‘closed for essential maintenance’. Who put the sign there no one knows, but it’s been there for near on 20 years”.

Those sharing their stories of a working lift at Irish rail stations have not been helped in recent years by the fact even staunch UFO believers dismiss such claims as ‘wacko conspiracy stuff’.