The Gruagach is a large, bipedal ape that allegedly lives in Ireland. The creature appears in mythology around Ireland and is sighted only on rare occasions, but over the years has been seen all over Ireland. Despite this, it gets very little attention as Ireland is a small place and even though the majority is countryside, most people say there is not enough thick forest and food to support and hide a large ape. The creature is very similiar to other Bigfoot, the most well known example being the North American Sasquatch, though unlike Sasquatch, most sightings of the Gruagach [aswell as most UK Bigfoot] describe it to be more human like. It is normally depicted with a small, wide, high up nose, a mostly flat face, a portruding brow, and, strangely, with no sagital crest, though occaisonally the crest it there. It is more similiar to the Minnesota iceman than the traditional Bigfoot depiction. Sightings of the creature are all around Ireland, though are mostly centred around Slieveanorra and Ballyboley.
The Slieveanorra photo
Alleged Bigfoot in Slievenorra, Northern Ireland
In January of 2016, a mother was walking her dogs in Slieveanorra forest, a place believed by some to be haunted, when she claims her pets used their 'sixth sense' to seek out a strange creature that she had not noticed at the time. It was not until she got home and posted her pictures from the forest online that people noticed the strange figure in it, which appears similiar to a man in a ghillie suit. Ghost stories about Slieveanorra have been told since October 1942, when a US air force B17 flying fortress bomber crashed into a mountain in the area, killing eight of the ten people in the plane. The photo appear to be a Ghillie suit, though it's arm appears to be a branch.
A Ghillie suit, a possible explanation for the Slieveanorra Gruagach photo
Ballyboley forest sightings
In 1997, two men claim they were in the allegedly haunted Ballyboley forest when they heard what they called 'a loud flapping sound'. They thought nothing of it and continued walking, until they heard stranger noises such as a woman moaning in pain. They were horrified the find a group of trees thickly smeared with blood. As they ran off, one of the men claims he saw four dark humanoid figures standing behind them, but not chasing them, where only a few seconds earlier nothing had been there. Other reports from the area describe druid rituals where animals are burned to death, and camp fires and tipi shaped tree structures can be found in the forest, though the tree structures are more common. A year later, a 63 year old woman who was working as a pet sitter and her husband were walking some local dogs in Ballyboley. They approached a small patch of dead trees one day and claim they saw what they thought was a human crouched down in the bushes. Agitating the dogs, the creature raised it's head, showing it was not human. The woman says her husband approached the creature, who growled at him when he came too close. She told him to step back, he thought it was an escaped chimpanzee at the time, until he got within 15 foot of it and the tall figure stood up on it's hind legs. They noticed the large creature was carrying an also large stick. The creature smashed it's stick against the tree, then ran off at a high speed. The whole thing last all of four minutes. She described the creature as having a chimpanzee like face, but with a broader nose. It was covered in 'dark brown black fur' and was 8 foot tall. Later that year, a man claimed to have seen an ape-like creature using improvised eating utensils. The report came one week after a man claimed to have seen a similiar creature in Suffolk.
