by Bob Curran
The Darbys remained at Leap right up until 1922. They had made many additions to the original O’Carroll fortress, building on Gothic wings and additional rooms. However, with the Irish Civil War raging around them, they moved out and returned to England becoming absentee landlords. The newer Darby additions to the castle were mostly burned by the I.R.A. during the conflict, and today it is partly a ruin. Although the family still retained a connection to the castle, they had gradually sold off the lands in order to meet their bills and became less and less involved in the area. In 1935, Jonathan C. Darby sold his last remaining portion (a little more than 1 acre—it had been 4,367 acres in 1880) to the Irish Land Commission, and ushered in a number of other owners of the burnt-out shell.
Leap Castle has passed through many hands, but is currently owned by the musician Sean Ryan and his wife Anne, who are in the process of rebuilding and restoring the burnt-out wings. The ghosts, however, haven’t gone away, and the couple tell many stories of the place. They draw attention to an article written by Mildred Darby, then mistress of the castle, for The Occult Review in 1909 in which she talks about encountering the elemental in a gallery between the staircase and one of the bedrooms. The thing touched her and she described it as being a roughly human shape, like a rotting cadaver with a stench like that of rotting carrion.
And in the Bloody Chapel where Thaddeus O’Carroll was murdered, the ghost of his brother and killer Tadhg still prowls. He is now a vampire that attacks all those who enter the burned and ruined chapel to suck their blood. On dark nights between the hours of midnight and one o’clock, an eerie light is said to glow from the glassless window of the chapel to signal his presence there. It is a brave or foolhardy person who will venture there.
And Sean recounts a number of ghost stories as well. The largest bedroom in Leap—known as the State Bedroom—is haunted by the ghost of an O’Carroll princess who has wakened both him and his wife and some of their guests who have slept there. And, when much younger, his daughter Ciara had played with the ghosts of two children who haunt the upper rooms. In fact, a former resident of the gate lodge frequently spoke of two small girls dressed in Victorian clothes who played in front of the castle in the moonlight. One appeared to be lame and it is thought that she had fallen from the tower in some former time. Other guests have seen a man-like figure with what looked like the skull of a sheep as its head, a shaggy black-furred body and great paw-like hands. Sean has seen the ghost of the priest passing through the great hall when he has been working there. The castle is now regarded as one of the most haunted in Western Europe and psychics from as far away as Mexico and Japan have been there to test the eerie atmosphere.
In June 2002, I made one of my visits to Leap to take part in a program for the RTE Townlands series. With a TV crew, I sat by the fire in the castle’s great hall, while Sean regaled us with stories of the place’s macabre history. Just before midnight, I climbed the stone stairs to the Bloody Chapel to see if I could discern the vampiric ghost of Tadhg O’Carroll. Alas, I found nothing there except a great white owl, which had been nesting in the ruin.
The following day, however, we tried to explore some of the underground dungeons that extended for miles around the Castle. Many of the passages were impassable, and many of the cells had been blocked since the 16th century. Rats, some as big as hedgehogs, were everywhere. Even with lights, we couldn’t progress very far, but as we were turning back, there was a distinct sound, like a cry from way back in the darkness. It may have been the wind, but it certainly sounded like a scream, and I thought of the remnants of Edmund Fahy’s troops who had been sealed up in this fearsome underworld by Tadhg O’Carroll and left to go mad.
Back in the Bloody Chapel, I was standing in front of the oubliette, doing a piece to camera, when I suddenly felt a touch, like that of an incredibly cold hand on the base of my spine. In a moment, the sensation had vanished but there was no doubt that I’d experienced it. Of course, it might have been a chilling gust of air through the glassless windows, but there was no wind that day. As I went to look out over the high window of the chapel, I felt the momentary urge to throw myself from the height into the ruins below, and I wondered if the child who was supposed to have “fallen” from an upper window had experienced the same impulse.
There were other things as we worked—electrical equipment inexplicably failing and restarting, a number of small items going missing, and the sound engineer picking up odd noises—voices, as if people were talking when there was nobody there, and the unmistakable sound of something being dragged across the floor, when there was nothing to be seen. All in all, I was glad to leave Leap Castle behind me, especially when I heard that the night after we’d gone, the eerie light occasionally seen in the Bloody Chapel was said to be burning as brightly as ever.
Do ghosts still frequent the gloomy corridors of Leap Castle? Or like many other great Irish houses, does it owe its sinister reputation to its troubled history? And can anything cleanse the place of the allegedly dark forces that have lurked there? Who truly knows?
Loftus Hall (Wexford, Ireland)
“I came on a great house in the middle of the night,
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome too,
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through.”
—W.B. Yeats, The Curse of Cromwell
Standing amidst a desolate landscape in the isolated Hook Peninsula of County Wexford, Loftus Hall is certainly reminiscent of the grandeur of a bygone age. A structure of ivy-covered, grey stone walls, a forest of chimneys, and seemingly endless rows of dark windows, it seems to suggest both a vanished opulence and a sinister, brooding menace. This ancient house is supposed to have once played host to the Devil, and perhaps some vestige of that unholy visitation still lingers in the crumbling stonework of the building.
The original house was built on the site sometime in the 13th century as a residence for the Redmond family. The lands did not prosper greatly under their domination, although they appear to have been reasonable masters. They eventually lost their lands under the Cromwellian redistribution of lands in Ireland—it was claimed that Alexander Redmond had led detachments of troops against Crowell’s forces in 1649. They appealed the sequestration of their properties and were given lands in North Wexford in 1684. In 1666, under lands given in the Restoration of the English King Charles II, the Loftus family acquired it and placed their name upon it to reflect their ownership of the estate. The present hall dates from the 1870s, and although it is still privately owned and is not open to the public, it is clearly visible from the twisting road that winds through the Hook Peninsula. However, a plaque on one of the gateposts provides information regarding a strange and terrifying event that happened in its more recent history. It simply details “the ghost story—strange events which happened here in the early 18th century” and this refers to the “visitation of the Devil” to torment the inhabitants of the house.
These were Charles Tottenham and his family, descendants of the Marquis of Ely, who came to live there in the middle of the 18th century. Tottenham’s first wife had been the Honourable Anne Loftus and the house was her ancestral seat, which he had inherited. He now came here with his second wife and Anne, his daughter by the earlier marriage. There are two versions of the story, both leading to the same ending and the listener can take whatever one he or she wishes. One is that while they were staying there, a ferocious storm swept across the Hook Peninsula and the seas all around became quite dangerous. The storm lasted for several days, and one night, a mysterious ship of no known origin, was wrecked on the rocks below the Hall. Only one person survived: an elegant young man dressed in expensive clothes. According to some versions of the story, he introduced himself as Joseph Woodley, an English merchant on his way home after being in America. However, he seemed very evasive about the nature of his business or what exactly he had been doing abroad. He stayed at Loftu
s Hall for a few days, and, as he was a particularly handsome young man, Anne soon took an interest in him.
One night as the wind rattled about the old house and howled like a banshee down the chimney, Charles Tottenham suggested that they should have a game of cards with their new guest in order to pass the time. They drew up a table in front of the roaring fire and Charles began to deal the cards.
In the second version of the story, the wreck does not occur and no young man is saved from it. However, as the storm lashed the building, the wind tugging at the blaze in the hearth, there was a fierce hammering at the door of the Hall. When the servants opened it, they found a stranger in a heavy traveling cloak with his hat pulled down across his face, standing there in the thunderous rain. He explained that his horse had thrown a shoe on the road and under the ancient Irish laws of hospitality, he asked for shelter. This could not be refused, and he was brought in to the fire. He suggested that he might go on as soon as he had warmed himself at the fire and seek out a local blacksmith who might reshoe his horse that night. Charles Tottenham kindly said that this was unlikely, as the blacksmith would be abed; that this was no night for man or beast to be out, and that he was welcome to stay the night at Loftus Hall. Gratefully, the stranger accepted and removed his hat, showing a handsome face that perked Anne’s interest. He was given a mug of ale and some dry clothes and settled down by the fire.
It’s here that the stories converge for both speak of the game progressing with the handsome visitor winning a number of card games. During the course of the game, Anne accidentally dropped one of her cards on the stone in front of the fire and bent down from her seat to retrieve it. As she did so, she happened to glance at their visitor’s feet. Instead of the top boots which he had been wearing, she saw a cloven hoof like that of a beast! And as she looked at it, she suddenly realized just who their guest actually was—the Devil himself come from Hell! The same story—the handsome stranger, the fallen card or some other dropped possession, which reveals the fiend through the glimpse of a cloven hoof—is common in other parts of Ireland from Kerry to Donegal, but the particular version referring to Loftus Hall has a special resonance to it. Rising with a scream, the girl revealed what she’d seen and all heads turned toward their visitor. He rose and his face was like that of a feral animal. Charles Tottenham stood up and made the sign of the cross in the air, calling on the name of Jesus to banish the demon. As if in response, the wind roared around the aged walls of the hall with an even greater ferocity and pulled at the flames of the fire from the chimney. The visitor stood for a moment as though transfixed and then with a growl, he suddenly disappeared in a flash of stinking, sulphurous smoke, which, in turn, vanished into the ceiling.
The family breathed a sigh of relief, but their ordeal wasn’t over yet—in fact, it was only beginning. From then on there were a number of very strange and eerie occurrences throughout the hall, which were suggestive of diabolic activity. Live coals leapt from the fire of their own accord; water that had been stored in the pantry turned black like ink, pictures fell from the walls, but didn’t break; voices were heard calling softly along certain of the corridors, and some of the rooms became exceptionally cold. It was clear that the Devil, or whatever evil spirit it was, hadn’t exactly left the hall. The maids and some of the guests began to complain about being physically pinched and nipped and about having bedclothes pulled off them as they slept. Charles Tottenham decided that things were getting out of control and that he would have to have the place exorcised in order to drive the spirit out. And he knew just the man to do it.
The majority of exorcisms in Ireland have gone unrecorded. In fact, it was not until after the William Friedkin film of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist in 1973 that Ireland, like the rest of the world, began to take a serious interest in the demonic. Since then, a number of books have appeared detailing various exorcisms in parts of the country, but dating mainly from the 1970s right up to the 1990s. This is not to say, however, that there weren’t exorcisms and exorcists before then. In fact, the first reference that we have to an Irish exorcist is to St. Ambrose O’Coffey, who was a noted fighter against demon kind, and who died at St. Columcille’s Seat in Magilligan, North Derry in 1187. He was supposed to have left behind several parchments of exorcisms—known as the Druid Library—which were retained at the monastery until its destruction in 1203. The place where the monastery stood in Duncrun, Magilligan is now overgrown and covered in thick brambles, but is an incredibly sinister place—perhaps an abode of spirits drawn by the now-lost ancient scrolls—and worthy of an article in its own right. Another exorcism was carried out by a retired priest named Father Judge near the village of Blacklion in County Cavan at the end of the 1800s and a celebrated exorcism in Coneen, County Fermanagh and the beginning of the 1900s. There were, however, a number of mainly unrecorded local exorcisms (particularly of allegedly haunted houses) in various locations. Whether or not a local priest had been trained as an exorcist, he was frequently called in to deal with unquiet spirits as a representative of the church.
The man that Charles Tottenham had in mind to perform the exorcism was Father Thomas Broaders, who not only was a local clergyman, but was also one of his tenants. Broaders was supposed to be a very holy man and, although it is not clear if this is true, may have had previous experience in “cleansing houses” in the locality. The priest came readily to the Hall. Setting up in one of the rooms where paranormal activity had gone on, he conducted a mass and began to pray for those who had died in Loftus Hall in the past. As he did so, a great wind arose making the windows in the old building shake and rattle. Burning coals leapt out of the fire and the priest was pelted with potatoes from a bin in the kitchen. Nevertheless, he kept up his prayers. A spirit appeared in the form of a small, ragged boy who spat iron nails from his mouth. Father Broaders, however, refused to be distracted and kept praying, asking for Divine help. The wind shrieked around the hall like a host of demons, and the sweat stood on Thomas Broaders forehead, but he still kept praying and offering up the Holy Sacrament. It was a real battle of wills between the priest and the demonic force. In the end, it was the clergyman who won, because suddenly there was a mighty clap of thunder and a flash of lightning directly above Loftus Hall, and the strange phenomenon suddenly ceased while the feeling of oppression that had latterly characterized the house, lifted. The Devil, it seemed, was gone. There seem to have been few supernatural incidents afterward, although the ghost of a young lady, thought to be Anne Tottenham, was said to appear in the Tapestry Room of the Hall until it was pulled down in 1871 and the new Hall was built.
After the terrible exorcism at the Hall, Thomas Broaders continued as a priest in the locality. Indeed he became the parish priest of the Hook and Ramsgrange areas and continued in that role for the next 50 years. He was much loved and well-respected and when he died in 1773, he was laid to rest in Horetown Cemetery where his epitaph reads:
“Here lies the body of Thomas Broaders,
Who did good and prayed for all
And banished the Devil from Loftus Hall”
In 2008, with the Tottenham family now living in Canada, Loftus Hall was sold. Although there has been much curiosity and speculation, the identity of the buyer has never been revealed. Loftus Hall remains locked, and while it is in severe need of refurbishment, its new owner has never made any attempt to make even the slightest of repairs. A new film named Loftus Hall starring Samantha Mumba (of The Time Machine fame) has, however, been announced, although no release date has been specified for it—possibly late 2011. This will be a modern horror film based on the events at the hall.
And of course there are those who say that Thomas Broaders exorcism wasn’t completely successful, and that some residue of the diabolic visitation still lingers in the house. Voices, they say, are still heard along the corridors, and strange shadows come and go among the empty rooms. As I stood on the road and looked out toward the grim pile across the desolate landscape, I wondered if some
thing was looking back at me from beyond the distant, dark windows of the place, and although the evening was quite warm, I couldn’t suppress a shudder.
Recently, it would appear that Loftus Hall is once again up for sale with an asking price starting at 1,000,000 Euros. Knowing its history, might you be interested?
Montpelier House (Dublin, Ireland)
“A place of wicked reputation… the very stones ooze evil.”
—Fitzjames O’Brien describing Montpelier House
The house stands on Montpelier Hill, a remote place on the very outskirts of Dublin City. Raised high above the Liffey, it looks north over the city ands away toward the plains of Meath and Kildare. The building is now no more than a grey stone ruin, little more than a shell, its walls covered in lichen, slime, and diseased-looking ivy. It seems to ooze malevolence from its very stones, filling anyone who ventures close with a distinct sense of unease.
The house was built in 1725 by the Right Honourable William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons who was rumored to be the wealthiest man in Ireland at the time of his death in 1729. He took a great liking to the bleak hillside with its panoramic views and decided to build a retreat there for himself, even though the area was already the focus of much local superstition. The hill, according to the Irish historian and writer Patrick Healy, is referred to as Suide Ui Ceallaig, a fortress of the O’Kellys in the Crede Mihi, the 12th-century diocesan register of the Bishops of Dublin, and contained an ancient earthworks and stone circle that was said to date from prehistoric times. There was a passage grave with a large cairn there too, and traces of these are still visible behind the house. All these ancient remains had a very sinister reputation in the local community. It had been, historians said, a place of Druid worship and a site where ancient pagan gods might still be called down. This was a place where fairies and the spirits of the dead would gather on certain nights of the year and such things were not to be touched, or so local tradition held. Conolly, of course, had no time for “such nonsense” and began to clear away all the megalithic monuments from the hilltop. Shortly afterward, a terrible storm erupted over Dublin and an entire slate roof of the new lodge was blown off. For a number of days afterward, several people spoke of strange appearances within the vicinity of the hill—appearances that vanished as soon as they were seen. Some said that it was the work of the Devil, others that it was the old gods taking vengeance on men for their impropriety, others still that it was the spirits of the dead—those who had raised those monuments—giving voice to their anger. Such stories, of course, made no impression on Conolly, and undeterred, he ordered the construction of a new arched roof—its stone keyed together like a bridge. It was a tremendous feat, the like of which had never been seen in Ireland. In fact, according to Weston St. Joyce, writing in his The Neighbourhood of Dublin, published in 1912, it was: “… of such impregnable strength that it has effectually withstood the efforts of wind or devil from that day to this.” Building of the lodge continued apace, with Conolly actually using the stones from the cairn and the megaliths to complete it. However, it was noted that, after the lodge was constructed, he did not use it much as a residence—he had other properties in Celbridge, County Kildare, County Meath, and County Londonderry—and even though he was a great skeptic, he always claimed to feel “uncomfortable” when staying in Montpelier (as he named the place). There was something “not quite right about the place,” he sometimes confided.
