A Mysterious Tapping from a Crate
In October 1941, a porter at Dublin’s North Wall Docks was surprised to hear tapping from a large crate that had been unloaded from a ship from Liverpool, the Slieve Bawn. At first he thought he was imagining this, but he decided to tap back and was immediately answered with another tap from inside.
Upon opening it, he found a 40-year-old French artist, Maurice Carcassus de Laboujac, semi-conscious and encased in a plaster cast.
The exhausted de Laboujac explained he had shipped himself to Dublin in the crate because he couldn’t obtain a visa into Ireland for his art exhibition. He spent four days in transit from London, having carefully organised someone to wrap him in a custom-made plaster cast as a protection against knocks and bumps. However when the crate arrived in Dublin, a dockworker abandoned it on the quay upside down, leaving the artist helpless until his rescue.
He was rushed to Jervis Street Hospital, where he revealed his identity and the extraordinary reason for his journey. His paintings were in an exhibition at a gallery on Molesworth Street in Dublin.
September Competition
This story is from Foster’s Historical Irish Oddities. It’s a collection of miscellaneous anecdotes and stories from the past, and if you would like to win a copy,
click here to enter the free competition draw
There’s another amusing story about a bishop in the 1770s who worshipped God by day and was a highwayman by night. The author found them in old publications and claims they are true!
