Chris Fleming Says His 'Mind Was Blown' By Activity While Filming 'Spooked Ireland'

'Spooked Ireland', currently airing on the Really channel, follows a team of experts as they explore various haunted locations across Ireland. This series follows last year's 'Spooked Scotland', offering viewers a fresh set of spine-tingling investigations every Friday at 9pm, and also available on Discovery+.

Psychic medium Chris Fleming, who is best known for his work on TV shows like 'Dead Famous' and 'Help! My House is Haunted', is one of the series' main investigators. Chris spoke to us about the new season, the differences between Scottish and Irish hauntings, and what sets 'Spooked Ireland' apart from other programmes in this niche genre.

"There's definitely a difference of feel to it. You know, I can't really pinpoint exactly what it is," said Chris when talking about the difference between investigating in Scotland and Ireland. "Obviously, we have some different history involved with the country, different locations that we went to, but the one thing is we still get stuff happening which speaks for itself, especially when the crew gets affected."

The transition to Ireland was particularly meaningful for Chris, who is of Irish descent. "I'm 50% Irish. Mom's 100% Irish, right? So it was nice to go to Ireland." And it seems Chris was destine to investigate there. He said, "My mom actually visited back when I was in high school. She was a flight attendant, and she invited me to go. I said, 'no, one day I'll go back there, mom, and I'm going to investigate.' And we had this conversation last year, I said 'mom, can you believe it? You know, I told you this in high school, here I am I'm actually going out there to investigate.'"

The dynamics among the team members also play an important role, but admits that they had a few setbacks with the first series in Scotland, including an accident involving the series one host, Gail Porter. Chris explains, "Gail had an incident where she fell, there were problems getting me out there, and Evelyn unfortunately had some personal issues, so there was a lot of chaos during the first season. This season, having everybody there, from start to finish was great because it gave us a chance to really work together more effectively."

With the move to Ireland, new host and native of Ireland Vogue Williams takes the reigns. Chris says that he clicked with Vogue almost instantaneously, "I had worked with Gail before and then we got to get reunited and we always had that chemistry. So there was a curiosity like, how is this gonna work? But from day one, Vogue is a very warm, open person, and we hit it off. We had some jokes here and there and we had some wonderful conversations. So it's like I didn't really skip a beat."

Chris said, "You see us getting right to the point, sharing the evidence, discussing it along the way and moving forward to try to get resolution. I wanted to make sure that all got to talk more about it during the middle of the investigation. The biggest thing is having that plan, what's our next step? Who we trying to come in contact with? And that's important because you want to walk away from a location knowing that you fully investigated the best that you could. I want to know who's there and why they're there, and if there's anything they can tell us or anything we can do for them. Simple."

He added, "You're also gonna see some dynamic shift to where even Ryan and Vogue have that kind of chemistry that Gail and I had in the first season." Ryan, as the show's resident tech expert, brings a series of unique experiments to the show, such as the ghostly photofit.

Singing Ryan's praises, Chris said, "this season he came with all these ideas that he wanted to do, and various different experiments that he wanted to bring to the table. I was blown away by the stuff that he did." He added, "As an investigator when you're totally passionate about this, and you see your teammates, continuing capturing the evidence of the whole story of the spirit, were coming in contact with getting those further details to witness that, to me is awesome."

Chris believes that the technology they use for investigation, commonly known as ITC or Instrumental TransCommunication, is pivotal in lending credibility to their work, a belief that stretches back to his childhood. "When I was eight years old, I begged my dad to get a cassette recorders, a couple weeks later comes home with one and I captured my first EVP," Chris said. "So for me it's always been important to have proof, not only if I'm sensing a spirit of seeing the spirit, but getting the audible." Chris added, "When you hear bits and pieces of the conversation, the spirit actually responded to us, that to me is the most important credible thing."

Chris acknowledges the diversity in people’s beliefs when it comes to the paranormal. He wisely notes, "If we've experienced something numerous times, then we just know it exists. We don't believe anymore, we know. A lot of people don't know, and that's what it comes down to. So you have to be you have to be sensitive to the fact that some people don't know. When you get some of the negative criticism, you just need to realise they just haven't experienced it yet." Chris said that those who haven't had such experiences would probably "be very apologetic" once they gain a better understanding of the phenomena at play.

Some viewers may not be aware that Chris draws a lot of what he sees through his psychic visions, experiences, and investigations. Chris says that filming 'Spooked Ireland' inspired a lot of new artwork. He said, "What I did was I created artwork for every episode, I was creating some with AI some digitally and some by hand. And unfortunately, they didn't use any of it. It was something I was really upset about, but it just didn't get approved." Despite the disappointment of not having his art featured in the series, Chris continues to share his psychic visions through visuals on his Facebook page. Holding a degree in fine art, he believes that, "it's very important, whether they have artistic ability or not, to try to describe that visually so we get a better visual understanding of what they experienced."

The next logical step for the team's 'Spooked' journey would probably be Wales, but Chris revealed it was ultimately the network's decision. He personally expressed interest in going to Italy. Specifically, Rome intrigues him for its religious and cultural heritage, as well as its significant artwork. Moreover, Chris would "love to partake in an exorcism with one of the Roman Catholic priests," aligning his investigative pursuits with deeper spiritual experiences. He added, "Just tell me where to go. I just want to talk to spirits."

Chris concluded, "I hope people love the show. I know we've loved going to these places. And there's a lot more for people to see as the season goes on."