By Georgina Brennan

Hundreds of Irish Americans traveled to Montreal in Canada over the weekend to find the head of an ancient Irish ghost.

Mary Gallagher, who came to Montreal and Gross Ile, Montreal’s Ellis Island, after the famine of 1847, made her living on the streets of Montreal as a prostitute. She was beheaded by a jealous sister prostitute, Susan Kennedy, in 1879, and buried in an unmarked grave at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery.

The head of the 38-year-old prostitute, the story goes, was hacked off with an axe and dumped in a slop bucket, her severed right hand left lying on the floor nearby.

Every seven years, Gallagher is supposed to reappear searching for her head on the anniversary of her death on June 27. On Monday hundreds of Irish Americans traveled to the site to catch a glimpse of the famous ghost.

Montreal has two Irish celebrations each year, St. Patrick’s Day and Mary Gallagher’s Day. But the ghost watch only happens on the seventh year anniversary.

Reverend Thomas McEntee began this tradition in 1991 and hosted a Mass before the ghost watch.

Denis Delaney remembers his mother calling him for his dinner with, “Come in or the headless lady will get you!” A Navy veteran, Delaney, 71, claims to have seen Gallagher before.

She has mousy-brown hair, he said, and in 1998, he saw her wearing a red dress with a green silk band, black ankle boots, a white petticoat, earrings, and a gold Claddagh ring.

“Every time I come down here it’s almost like being transported back in time,” he said.

Though the ghost made no appearance, McKibbin’s Pub, which is near the scene of her beheading, served Bloody Mary’s all night.