When Bianconi's family and servants investigated, there were no horses near the house. The gates leading into the yard were closed, and none of the family's horses had broken loose .Just as the foxes had emerged from their coverts to keep vigil in the closing moments of the lives of the Viscounts Gormanston, it was singularly fitting that Bianconi's death should be associated with the horse, the animal he had loved and employed so usefully in Ireland.

Charles Bianconi arrived from Italy in 1802, when he was sixteen, and four years later opened his own shop, working as a carver and gilder. From his early travels around the countryside he realised that Ireland badly needed some form of public transport, and with the idea of filling this need, began to save money. When he had sufficient, he bought a humble 'side car', drawn by one horse and capable only of carrying four passengers. It made the first journey of a regular service between Clonmel and Cahir on 5 July 1815.

The venture was a success, and presently other towns were linked, Limerick and Thurles being the first. Bianconi's cars, 'the Bians', as they came to be called, soon spread in a network all over the country. To cope with increasing demand, larger vehicles were built, culminating in the huge 'Finn McCools'. By 1825 they were covering one thousand miles per day.

An important factor in Bianconi's spectacular success was the attention and care he gave to his horses. Most of the animals which had been specially bred for the army, and were no longer needed because of the ending of the Napoleonic Wars. He always saw to it that they were well fed and well groomed, and at one time owned no fewer than nine hundred hundred horses. The strange manifestation at the hour of his death is, therefore, all the more acceptable.

Charles Bianconi is buried beside the Catholic church at Boherlahan, near his old home, where a Romanesque chapel marks his family vault.

From Irish Ghosts by John J. Dunne.Click here for more information on the book.