I came face to face with early 19th century parenting techniques this week. It was useful because one of my issue (fruit of my loin, episode one) seems to have ascribed me spectral qualities. She no longer accepts I exist. She's come over all Dawkins with me. I am the Dad Delusion and can be ignored at will. The 'naughty step' holds no fear for her and as she's too young for my only real weapon – biting sarcasm – I really am at a loss.

They didn't have these issues back in the 1800s. Back then, when it came to childcare, they weren't afraid to 'think outside the box'. My guide to the period was very illuminating: "The ring, here," she explained, "was used to restrain the child's hands". I liked the sound of this. Restraint, I think, is a good thing. Like restraint from drawing on a plasma screen with a permanent marker, for instance, or restraint from putting coins in the Sat Nav.

I was all ears. "And once the child was restrained," I asked, "to this rather fetching wooden post, how long would they be left alone to reflect upon their naughtiness before being released, and asked what this had taught them about their wrongdoing?"

She seemed perplexed. "Well it wasn't so much about time," she told me, "it was more about the number and severity of the strokes."

"The Strokes," I wondered, momentarily picturing a very cool New York four-piece.

"Or lashes, if you prefer," she explained

"I was still confused. Lashes? You mean lashings, as in hundreds and thousands. They get dessert, do they?"

"No, lashes, Mr Dunne," she said, and I thought I saw her mouth the word "idiot".

"As in whipping, you can't have a whipping without lashes!"

"They whipped children!", I blurted somewhat flatly.

I think I can safely say that this was the exact point I realised that Cork City Gaol is evil beyond modern comprehension and the question 'how did our forefathers cope with such big families?' is best left unanswered and in fact unasked. The issue is not how they coped, it's how anyone survived?

I was in the gaol – a fetching 1824 construction with hot and cold running walls ? to once again attempt to confront the paranormal. And once again the only spirits were high ones.

One expert, though, did become quite animated with me. He told me I was a hard man to fathom. "You can't tell with you, Tom, where you begin or where you end."

"I start at ten and end at 12," I mumbled, but he'd moved on.

"You see, Tom," he told me, "I had an out of body experience once. I was on the couch one evening, when suddenly I was also floating above myself and a disembodied voice announced 'the soul views the body in repose'."

I was briefly agog. But then we got the only communication of the day that genuinely came from the 'other side'. It was a random text from someone called Johnny in Naas: "Ask him what hand the spliff was in, Tom."

A door closed in the underworld, possibly permanently, and with that, once again the ghost had left the building, probably in a sulk. Ghosts and children, neither of them can really handle sarcasm, can they?