In the year 1705, the small Irish town of Lurgan was shaken by a tragedy that would soon transform into legend. Margorie McCall, a young wife and mother, was struck by a sudden and violent fever. Despite the efforts of her family and neighbors, she passed quickly, leaving her husband John and their children in grief.
The customs of the time demanded that the dead be buried swiftly, especially when illness was involved. Within hours of her passing, Margorie was placed in her coffin and lowered into the ground. Her family wept as the earth covered her casket, never imagining that this would not be the end of her story.
But there was one detail they had overlooked.
Margorie had been buried wearing her wedding ring, a treasured possession she never parted with in life. To the poor but opportunistic grave robbers who haunted burial grounds, jewelry was worth far more than respect for the dead. That very night, as her family mourned at home, a pair of men crept through the shadows of Shankill graveyard with shovels in hand.
They unearthed her coffin, pried it open, and prepared to slip the ring from her finger. Yet no matter how hard they tugged, the ring refused to budge. Desperate not to leave empty-handed, one robber pulled a knife and prepared to sever the finger entirely.
That is when the unthinkable happened.
As the cold blade touched her skin, Margorie screamed.
The thieves fled in terror, abandoning their tools as the “corpse” sat upright in her coffin. In truth, Margorie had not died at all. She had fallen into a death-like coma, mistaken for dead by family and physicians alike. The shallow breathing and stillness of her body had fooled them all—until the shock of the knife awakened her.
Staggering out of the grave, dirt still clinging to her clothes, Margorie walked through the darkened streets of Lurgan toward her home. When she reached her door and knocked, her husband John opened it… only to collapse in fright. Some say the shock killed him instantly. Others claim he fainted and later recovered.
But one thing is certain—Margorie returned to life, and she lived many more years after her premature burial.
When she finally passed for real, her gravestone bore an inscription that visitors still whisper about:
“Lived once, buried twice.”
Her tale has since become one of Ireland’s most enduring legends, retold for generations in hushed tones around firesides and in history books alike. Was it a miracle of survival? A cautionary tale about the dangers of rushing a burial? Or perhaps just a story embellished over time, fueled by fear and fascination with death?
Regardless of where fact ends and folklore begins, the story of Margorie McCall remains unforgettable. More than 300 years later, she is still remembered as the woman who lived twice.