NI medium Angela Dunlop says her mission is to comfort and reassure people

But despite this voracious appetite for psychic phenomena, I have never been inclined to visit a medium, and could never really understand other people’s docile acceptance of them.

Surely it was all just hocus pocus, a combination of guesswork and sly conversational tricks. Weren’t they just charlatans, exploiting the bereaved for money? Or deluded people helping delude others?

And yet, here I was, my mouth dry, my stomach doing somersaults as I waited to hear if Angela Dunlop, the acclaimed medium from Belfast, would be able to commune with the spirits and deliver a message to me from beyond the grave.

It was a telephone reading and she explained that nothing might happen.

"If your loved ones want to make a connection today, well and good…. if not, well and good. There’s periods where the connection is stronger, but I’m always upfront and honest with people about where I’m at with it.”

Then, the line goes quiet as Angela tunes in to the spirit world…

After a few moments she said my father was the first person who "wanted to be remembered”. How did she know he was dead?

"I felt you were very close with your father when he was alive, it wasn’t a strained relationship,” she said. We were.

“He didn’t have an argumentative side. He was a nice gentle, quiet, very easy-going man.” He was.

"I feel like he had a short illness and it was quick. It feels like it was a period of weeks.” It was.

“I feel like he is bringing back memories of the country….they were country people….and farmers.” Yes.

“Your father’s father was a farmer too,” she says with absolute conviction. He was.

"Your father was a good gardener?”. He wasn’t.

“Was there a Margaret on that side of the family?” There wasn’t….(that I’m aware).

"Was there someone on your mum’s side called Maggie, or Margaret?” I don’t think so.

"Was your mum’s side of the family very religious family?” Yes.

"They would not have been well pleased with what I’m doing because they might have thought I’m dipping my toes into divilment,” she laughs. Absolutely, yes!

"I think your mum may be having a wee giggle about that.”

The reading lasts about 30 mins and at times the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. At other times I’m not sure about the information she imparts.

She talks about the relationships I had with my parents and how proud they are of me. I swallow a lump in my throat. And there’s still that niggling question – who is Margaret?

Angela, 45, is a likeable lady, tall, glamorous and immaculately groomed.

“I take care of myself. I rarely drink alcohol, I don’t smoke, I go to the gym, I walk the dog, I do yoga, I do meditation.

A social media sensation, she is much in demand for her live events, which sell out quickly, and take place across Ireland, the UK and Europe, even America and Australia.

She also does one-to-one readings, either in person or on the phone/internet and, during the pandemic, wrote a book – The Miracle of Mediumship: True life stories of Mediumship and the Afterlife (available on her website and Amazon).

Despite coming from a “mediumistic family” (her mother does readings, her granny read the tea leaves and a relative could see the spirit world) she initially didn’t want to get involved; her interests lay in DJ-ing.

But, she did experience prophetic dreams, that is seeing events, images or symbols, that predict the future.

"When I was 20, the night before my driving test, I could see the driving instructor and in the dream he rang and he said ‘We are going to have to change cars’ and he described the colour of the car and said ‘but don’t worry everything is going to work out’.

"The next morning the phone rang – it was the driving instructor and he said ‘Angela, we’re going to have to change cars’ – everything was just playing out as it was in the dream.”

A friend introduced her to the Belfast Spiritualist Church and her destiny was fixed.

“I had no notion what this church was, I had never heard of it.

"We sat down for the service, which was completely different from a normal church service because half way through there’s a medium on the platform who connects people with the spiritual world.

"I kept going back every Sunday and a lady announced there was awareness classes for people who had an interest in wanting to develop their gift.

"At that stage I didn’t think that I had any gift, I was 24 and my aspiration was to be a club DJ.”

But Angela decided to attend the classes.

“Within a few weeks there was a visiting medium who came over from England to the church.

“She asked us all to pair up with someone.

"She said ‘I want you to make a connection to someone in the spirit world who belongs to them – so just close your eyes and relax and just give what you get’.

“I did as instructed. I was working with another girl who I didn’t know.

“Immediately as I closed my eyes I felt the presence of a man standing next to me, it was indescribable, and then I felt like I was having a heart attack, but at the same time I felt that this man was a father.

“I said to the girl, ‘would you understand your dad in spirit who had a heart attack?’. And she said ‘yes’ – I said ‘I felt like he was around his 50s’ and she said he was 54.

"Then the next image that came was that he was the cook of the house. And she said that her father always cooked the dinner.

"And then all this stream of information started flowing through my mind. I kept saying everything I was getting, but it was all 100 per cent correct."

Angela said the experience left her feeling “lifted and peaceful”.

“I felt really good. It wasn’t scary or bad. It felt amazing that I was able to give the girl this message. She was crying and I was emotional too.

“When I walked out that night I thought this is what I want to do.”

Angela went on to do training and would eventually set up a centre with her mum called the House of Healing in Belfast, which they ran for 15 years, but closed in 2020.

She did one-to-one readings and word soon started to spread.

"I think people have a much more open mind to the spirit world – TV has probably had a good impact in that way.

“Back when I was only beginning, nobody was out doing events, nobody was renting out theatres or hotel spaces to do this work.

“In my initial days, I may only have had eight people at an event, but I still loved it.

"For me it was never about numbers, I just really enjoyed the connection and passing on the love of what I was feeling for the individuals to give them hope and faith. That is what mediumship is all about – healing.

“People who come to me are just really seeking peace of mind – they just want to know if their loved one is ok, are they with me still, do they still watch me, are they still around.

“I do get sceptics who think you are full of nonsense, that you are a con artist but I also get people who have a great faith in it, because they may have had their own personal experiences.

"My mission, I believe, is to comfort and reassure people in times of grief, stress or loss.

”All I want is the joy of passing on the messages.”

*For more information on shows, readings or her book visit: www.angelaangeladunlop.co.uk

Psychics face sceptics

A range of critics reject the idea that mediums have super-natural powers, ranging from Christians who say clairvoyance is unbiblical and trickery, to humanists who say it is unscientific.

Among the latter group in Northern Ireland is Terry Moseley, who describes himself as a “rationalist and sceptic”.

He says that “anecdotes are notoriously unreliable - I could claim to have had a premonition a year ago that a green comet would appear in our skies early in 2023, but unless I put it publicly in writing at the time, nobody knows if I did.

“Also, it’s very easy to seem to ‘remember’ anticipating things after the event - genuinely, rather than fraudulently: memory is very unreliable.”

Mr Moseley adds: “With a world population of 8 billion, statistically there are bound to be cases where dreams or forecasts do seem to come true, or nearly so. But nobody predicted 9/11, nor Covid, nor the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, nor the 2011 Japanese earthquake/nuclear meltdown, nor eruption of Mt St Helens, etc. There may have been vague predictions of things like the attack on the Twin Towers, but nothing specific.”

Mr Moseley says psychics often make warm and general observations about, for example, the personality of a dead loved one that have a very high chance of being true.