Dunluce Castle

87 Dunluce Road, Bushmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland BT57 8UY

Sea-sprayed and lichen-coated, the seaside ruins of this 14thC., round-tower fortress rests dauntingly atop the Antrim Coast cliffs. Dunluce claims as residents, a winsome White Lady, ghostly tower dwellers and mischievous spirits who, reportedly, play in the gift shop overnight, rearranging books and turning on radios for the morning staff's arrival.

The White Lady hails from Dunluce's origins, the foundations and two round towers built by the MacQuillan sept in the 1300s. A daughter of the family, the now-known White Lady was forbidden by her father to marry the man she loved. As sad, beautiful, medieval nobles were wont to do, she died of a broken heart soon thereafter. Now, she roams the stones, forever young, beauteous and melancholy: the very best look for sporting a long, flowing, white gown as one aimlessly roams castle ruins, atop a jagged cliff overlooking a stormy sea, in an Irish mist, for all eternity.  

By the 16thC., inter-family usurpations, kidnap and murder plagued the MacDonnell sept, notably Sorely Boy MacDonnell. After his inheritance of the estate in 1556, his brother-in-law Shane O'Neill captured and imprisoned Sorely Boy during the Battle of Glentaisle. Only after Sorely Boy's posse retaliated and murdered O'Neill during a festive banquet, was Sorely Boy installed again as the rightful occupant and heir to Dunluce. 

In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir John Perrot, attacked Dunluce sans provocation and garrisoned an army there. Once more, Sorely Boy was ousted from the premises and, in this place, Perrot positioned Peter Carey as castle constable. Queen Elizabeth, however, seems to have known nothing of the attack and, upon learning of it, granted Dunluce back to Sorely Boy. Resurrected, again, Sorely Boy celebrated at Dunluce with a lively banquet and a hanging, of Peter Carey. 

As the 17thC. dawned, Dunluce had earned a reputation for desolation and doom. In 1635, Sorely Boy's grandson, Randall MacDonnell, brought his new bride, Catherine Manners, to the castle. Catherine was a widow of the Duke of Buckingham and a dyed-in-the-silk Lady of London. From the moment she stepped onto the Western Isle, Catherine loathed the countryside. The farther north she travelled the deeper her loathing burrowed. The isolation, the placid landscapes and the quiet life set in a madness for the city girl. Most of all, Catherine claimed "the constant boom of the sea drove her to distraction". 

On an exceptionally stormy night in 1639, as the family sat to yet another boring dinner in the banquet hall, the north wall of Dunluce's kitchen court crumbled suddenly into the sea, far below. Several of the kitchen staff fell to their terrifying, rocky, briny deaths. From that night, understandably so, Catherine refused "to live on that rock" ever again. As her husband commissioned a new home to be built on the mainland, Dunluce saw fewer inhabitants, less activity, sliding maintenance schedules and, as the years passed, slowly became the spooky, salty ruin it is today. 

Most notably, Dunluce Castle features in the origins of the fictitious O'Connor family, as it relates to Miss Erin Tara O'Connor, a prominent, supporting character in author Jennifer Susannah Devore's Savannah of Williamsburg: The Trials of Blackbeard and His Pirates, Virginia 1718 (Book II in the Savannah of Williamsburg Series of Books)   

 

*Dunluce Castle is currently closed, due to Covid, but is usually open for admission and self-guided strolls. For updates, visit their website or phone directly at +44 (0) 28 2073 1938   

 

Carrickfergus Castle

Marine Highway, Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, BT38 7BG

The house that self-fulfilling prophecy built: In the 12thC., Anglo-Normans roamed the Ulster countryside, oot 'n' aboot, king for land they fancied. When they found just the right bit, they took it. In 1185, a Norman Lord, John deCourcy, heard a prophecy that "a white knight from a foreign land, riding a white horse, with birds of prey upon his shield" would, one day, conquer all of Ulster. "Hey!" deCourcy he thought to himself, "I'm a blond knight from France and could totally get a white horse and make a shield with birds on it!" Because audiences were way easier to convince back then, he assembled an army and led a twenty-five year conquest over Ulster. On every chunk of land he conquered, he built a castle. Carrickfergus is one of those monuments to victory and unfathomable confidence. Today, it is one of the oldest, in-tact, stone castles in Ireland. However his conquest was short-lived. In 1210, England's King John claimed it for himself and it served as a government building for nearly 800 years. 

During that time, in the 18thC., consistent military installation oversaw centuries of not only bloodshed but heartache. In 1760, a case worthy of Project Innocence played out at the castle. Infuriated by a duplicitous fiancée, one Betsey Baird, a Carrickfergus soldier known as Robert Rainey rooted out Betsey's illicit paramour, one Col. Jennings and ran him through with his sword. Undaunted and self-satisfied, Rainey returned to his barracks, wiped clean his sword of Jennings' blood, changed shirts and went about his day. Unfortunately, also stationed at Carrickfergus was a soldier named Timothy Lavery. Lavery was a fine fellow who went by the nickname of Buttoncap, for the large, non-issue button he'd attached to his cap. Liked by all, Lavery really had only one fault: he bore a striking resemblance to Rainey. As Jennings lay on his death bed, dying from his sword-wound, he mistakenly identified Lavery, instead of Rainey, as his assailant. Lavery was arrested and sent t the gallows. Claiming innocence to the end, as the noose was pulled over his head and tightened around his neck, he vowed revenge and to haunt the castle forevermore. Today, his sad, vengeful spirit is seen on occasion at a castle well he was known to frequent. It is called Buttoncap's Well. 

*Carrickfergus Castle is currently closed, due to Covid of course - stupid virus - but is usually open for admission and self-guided strolls. Call or visit site updates. Phone: +44 (0) 28 9335 1273. 

 

Killakee House (a.k.a. Dower House)

Below Hellfire Club ruins, 12 Killakee Rd. Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, Dublin D16FT51

 

Ask Stephen King: some pets are just scary, no matter how much you try to love them. If you've ever had a cat that stalked you, and not playfully, Killakee House Restaurant may not be the dining experience you wish to book. Though the main house - a large, gracious, Regency-era, country home built in 1806 by prominent bookseller Luke White - fell into ill-repair over the last two-hundred years, what does remain today is The Steward's House (a.k.a. Dower House), built circa 1750 -1770. Since the early-2000s, it has stood as a casual dining establishment in the dark and moody hills of County Dublin, overlooking the bustling hub of Dublin Town. 

Dower House has been long-reported as haunted. Just above it, up Montpelier Hill lie the wicked ruins of Richard Parsons' Hell-Fire Club. In the 1700s, Satanic and myriad evil events occurred at not only the Hell-Fire, but also inside Dower House. The vile deeds are believed to have included, but are certainly not limited to, devil worship, animal sacrifice and torture (primarily black cats), witch burning, prostitute murders and the deathly beating of a dwarf, as amusement. Evidence of this final "amusement" is the long-forgotten skeleton of a badly deformed dwarf which was found by Dower House renovation workers, in the bell tower, in 1970.

Reported hauntings include sightings of, at least, two ghostly nuns, the spirits of two murdered men, extreme Poltergeist activity, black clouds moving about indoors and various, unsettling, unexplained noises. However, Killakee is best-known for The Killakee Cat. In 1968, Margaret and Nicholas O'Brien purchased the dilapidated Dower House with the intention of refurbishing it into a grand, Fine Arts center and intellectual retreat for writers, dancers and artists of all sorts. In paranormal terms, words like "construction", "renovation" and "refurbishment" are synonymous with "stirring up the spirits". As Dower House underwent renovations, it seems spirits indeed were stirred. Work crews reported, in addition to "general Poltergeist activity", seeing a large, black cat in the gardens. Later that year, Dublin artist and interior decorator Tom McAassey, claimed to see a black cat, "large as a Dalmatian dog" outside the front door.

According to McAssey's personal account in Frank Smyth's Ghosts and Poltergeists, after closing up for the night, one of two workmen on-site with him noted aloud that the heavy, front door was open, even after having locked it. Noticing a dark figure outside the door, McAssey thought it the other workman: the two of them pranking him. He told the figure, thinking it the second workman, "It won’t work, I can see you, so get in". McAssey claimed he then heard a "low voice" reply, "You cannot see me, leave the door open". McAssey turned aroud to see the two workmen standing behind him, well away from the door. In a flash, the two workmen fled the scene in a great fright. Not one to turn tail, McAssey investigated what must be clearly another worker or neighbourhood teen playing a joke. He walked toward the door and, there, now sitting in the foyer, was a black cat, "large as a Dalmatian dog with amber colored eyes" and ears flattened in attack-mode. Thinking the workmen had the right idea after all, McAssey fled out the back door of Dower House, never to see the cat again. Later, as artists do, he painted that which haunted him.

Today, McAssey's famed and spooky Killakee Cat painting hangs in the foyer of Killakee House, greeting guests and workers every day. Some have tried to toy with the painting (or the Cat, one in the same, some say), hanging it upside-down in jest. Yet, each time the painting is vexed, power outages and drained batteries immediately ensue. In a Ghost Adventures episode "Leap Castle & Hell-Fire Club" (S9e4), host Zak Bagans and Killakee House owner (2000 - present) Shay Murphy see a black cat, although domestic-size, dash past the house as they areon-camera discussing the Killakee Cat.

"Now, there's a black cat right there," points out Zak Bagans.

"There is a black cat. Really! Look, look! No way, no way!," Shay Murphy exclaims in true surprise. "No. Genuine. I have never seen that cat before. On my child's life, I have never seen a black cat in Killakee in fourteen years. And yous guys turn up. That is eerie."

"And we're talking about the Killakee black cat. Is it a weird coincidence?" Bagans ponders. "Yes, but we've learned that coincidences also mean something."

Indeed, they do.

*Killakee House appears to be open for lunch and brunch, Thursday - Sunday 11am - 4pm. Dress is casual and restaurant is dog-friendly and offers vegan/vegetarian options for diners. Call to be sure they are open, due to fluctuating Covid-restrictions: IRL country code (353) 14947087.  

 

 

Leap Castle

Coolderry, Co. Offaly, Ireland (north of Roscrea on the R421)

 

Easily boasting the title of Ireland's Most Haunted Castle, Leap (pron. leh-p) is a spirit world in its own league. Archeological evidence suggests Leap's earliest foundations may have been laid for a 12thC. fort. The castle, as it stands today, has its origins in the late-15thC., built under the supervision of John O'Carroll, Prince of Ely. Starting with John's death by plague in 1532, Leap Castle would bear witness to centuries of insidious turmoil, heart-wrenching despair, conniving ambition, unfathomable torture and veritable cartloads of heinous demise. Of course, if we've learned anything from Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist, (1982), building a home on ancient burial/sacrificial/pagan ground is never a good idea.

Legend recounts that centuries before Leap was constructed, sometime after the missionary work of St. Patrick and Palladius, but well before the arrival of John O'Carroll, the land where Leap's main tower stands today, was sacred ground for Druidic worship. Further, it is believed a sect of the High Kings summoned from the Earth during a sacrificial ritual, an elemental: a primitive, malevolent, supernatural being, neither spirit of a passed human, nor minion of the devil, but a powerful, insidious creature comprised of natural elements and which attaches itself to the place of its "birth". Therein lies the basic trope/origin story for any good, supernatural horror film. 

From 1541 to the 1660s, there occurred a slew of intra-family O'Carroll slayings at Leap. Of those slayings, the murder of an O'Carroll priest, mid-mass, by his own brother, Tyne O'Carroll, seems to be of the most lasting consequence. Slain in what is today known as The Bloody Chapel, the priest's murder was just one of many betrayals in an epic, ongoing power struggle amnogst the O'Carroll sept to secure Chieftainship, after the death of Mulroony O'Carroll in 1532. 

Blood begets blood and, in an ill-fated yet unsurprising act of violence, the last-reigning O'Carroll was slain by an Englishman called Darby: the next family to rule Leap all the way through to the 20thC. The Darbys had owned Leap briefly during the English Civil War: the seized property being awarded to Jonathon Darby I in 1649 for his service to Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentarian army. However, after the Restoration of England's Stuart monarchy in 1660, Leap was returned to the O'Carrolls, in 1664, by King Charles II, for their service and support of his father, the previously ousted King Charles I.

Never a family to be subdued or shamed, the O'Carrolls were nothing if not cunning and vengeful to all whom opposed them, or were simply perceived to be oppositional. The notorious Oubliette in the Bloody Chapel is proof of their mad vengeance and inhumanity. In the northwest corner of the chapel nests a small chamber with a dropped floor. Embedded in that floor is a series of nauseatingly large, iron spikes. Derived from the French verb oublier (pron. oo-blee-ay and meaning "to forget"), it is where the O'Carrolls dumped the dead, dying, living, guilty, innocent and unsuspecting, forever to be forgotten. The lucky ones fell properly on a spike and died instantly. If one was unlucky enough to miss a spike in fatal fashion, one lingered there in pain and obsolescence until infection or madness mercifully ended their suffering. Those who missed the spikes altogether festered away until hunger, thirst or death by shock took them away from their hell. To add some twisted psychology to the torture, the Oubliette had an arrow-slit window, just large enough for the trapped to view all the lively cavorting in a lovely landscape they could never experience again. There were also vents so that tasty food smells wafted up from the dining hall into the dungeon. What a bunch of bastards. Few made it out alive.

One such fortunate soul to escape was the Englishman, Captain Jonathon Darby III (a.k.a. the Wild Captain). In Romeo and Juliet style, but with a happy ending, an O'Carroll daughter fell in love with the Captain, and he with her. Free of any spike-damage, the captain subsisted breifly on food smuggled to him by his love. When it was deemed safe, she would bust him out of there. When she finally did free him, she and her captain headed down the chapel stairwell to ground-floor freedom; yet, on the way down, they happened upon her brother, on his way up the stairs. In a heartbeat, the Wild Captain Darby fatally slew the O'Carroll brother. As the last male heir of Leap, the dead brother's property passed to his sister ... and to Captain Darby and the whole Darby line. Hey, look at that, Karma works sometimes.

Hauntings kicked up at the turn of the 20thC., when Mildred Darby - wife of Charles, last of the Darbys - delved deeply into the Victorian fad of séances, holding several at the castle and dabbling in various occult practices. It is believed she unintentionally invited, amongst a host of other malevolent spirits, the elemental begat by the Druids so many centuries ago.

" ... standing in the gallery looking down at the main floor, when I felt somebody put a hand on my shoulder. The thing was the size of a sheep. Thin, gaunt and shadowy ... its eyes, which seemed half-decomposed in black cavities, stared into mine. The horrible smell ... gave me a deadly nausea. It was the smell of a decomposing corpse ... ," claimed Mildred in an article she penned for Occult Review  in 1909.

After a fire gutted Leap in 1922, reconstruction crews discovered the O'Carroll Oubleitte. Workers removed three horse-carts flush with human bones from the Bloody Chapel's hidden dungeon. For decades, as Leap stood uninhabited - by the living, at any rate - locals claimed to see the Bloody Chapel's window brief cast a bright glow of amber candlelight in the night, seen across the fields. Witnesses described the sudden glow, "as if someone lit a great number of candles, walked through the chapel's upper room, then blew out all the candles and left". Others who dared to explore the ruins at night during this period reported a wandering woman in a long, red, billowing gown. Funny how they're always in a beautiful gown. One never hears of a ghostly lady in yoga pants or bell-bottoms.

Today, a few broken bones and some unsettling "accidents" later, owners Sean and Anne Ryan seem to have earned their keep. Whilst the spirits "may make nuisances of themselves occasionally", they are largely non-malevolent, but very much still present. Perhaps it's Sean's music (he being a professional musician), the friendly, personal tours or the festive gatherings and feasts that have calmed the spirits. Or, perchance, most important of all, it is the atmosphere of a loving and cheerful home, free of fratricide, torture, deceit and violence that has set the Leap spirits most at peace. For,, when you take all the rough history out of it, the Irish countryside is nothing, if not peaceful.

*Leap Castle is generally open for guided tours; although due to Ireland's changing covid-restrictions, please, contact Mr. Sean Ryan for availability. Phone: +353868690547 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

     

Thoor Ballylee

Nr. Gort, south Co. Galway, Ireland

Sprouting from idyllic, pastoral fields, like the distant focal point of a Turner landscape, stands proudly the 14thC. Hiberno-Norman tower which Irish writer William Butler Yeats called his Summer home. Essentially a ruin by 1917, Yeats shrewdly purchased Islandmore Castle, as it was hitherto known, for a mere £35. Yeats renamed it Thoor Ballylee, Gaelic for "Tower Homestead". As writers love to do, he played with words and the sounds they create, choosing the Gaelic Thoor specifically because, I think the harsh sound of Thoor amends the softness of the rest. One might assume "the softness" Yeats meant, was the tranquil land on which Thoor stands. 

Within two years, in 1919, after considerable refurbishment, Yeats not only inhabited Thoor in the Summer months, but Thoor Ballylee inhabited his spirit, always. A stolid believer in the supernatural and intrigued by the occult, Yeats found Thoor fed that intrigue. With certainty, Yeats was convinced an Anglo-Norman soldier haunted his home. This belief, or concern, depending on your viewpoint, was shared by later residents. This included a woman who reported a ghost frequenting the tower stairwell often enough, she refused to trod the stairs once night fell. Apparently, her dog shared her concerns, regularly cowering from an unseen presence in the downstairs areas of the tower. 

Photographic evidence in 1989 exposes the form of a young boy staring directly at the camera, as a guest took pictures in Yeats' sitting room. The guest, one David Blnkthorne was the only person in the room, as the tower had closed for the day, just as Blinkthorne and his family arrived a bit too late in the day, after a long carride. Blinkthorne entreated the curator to stay open just long enoough for hiis family to take a quick run-through and snap some photos. She allowed the family a few moments as she closed up shop. Blinkthorne's wife and children were in another part of the home; David explored the sitting room alone, or so he believed. The boy has been seen before; he is thought to be Yeats' young son.

 

Blessed be this place, more blessed still this tower. A bloody, arrogant power, rose out of the race. 

- from William Butler Yeats' "Blood and The Moon", reference to Thoor Ballylee and its haunted staircase

 

*Thoor Ballylee is generally open April - September for tours tea and hearty welcomes. Failte Thoor Ballylee! As with everything in Europe, the UK and the States, please, double-check for availability and hours.

Phone: +353 (0) 91 631436 (weekdays 10am-2pm, weekends 11am-5pm) or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

 

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Happy Irish-American Heritage Month and safe travel to all, when the time time comes again that we may. Sláinte, kittens!

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As San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) doth approach, Yours Truly is awash in all the final, frivolus tweaks and adjustments which inevitably occur three weeks out from the Granddaddy of Cons: cosplay details, SyFy-interviews schedule, social commitments (a.k.a. après-Con good times) and a plethora of so many things Geek & Fundry. Whilst I plan my best Con, to cover it all for you, dear reader, enjoy some puppies, via Warner Bros., highlighting their ~ahem~ doggone ~sorry~ inimitable slate of panels for SDCC 2017. Puppies!!!

Kids,  I don’t get too much mail here at The Del. Being dead and all, who’s going to send Moi anything? With the exception of occasional postcards you good pips send me here at the Hotel del Coronado -keep ‘em coming, babies!- mail call is pretty quiet around The Del for yours truly.

Still, along with the odd postcard, and some of them are quite odd, especially those from Texas, I do get unexpected packages once in a blue moon. Today, I received a small, padded envelope with a CD in it. There was no note with it, no greeting, merely a crude marking on the CD itself which read, “Consider yourself warned”.

Jeepers creepers! The return address read only “League of S.T.E.A.M.“!

“Supernatural & Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management, indeed! How rude! I have a right mind to send them a very sternly written letter. However, I am even more of the mind that my online blathering has finally called too much attention to not only myself, but my dear friend Dr. Lucy. It seems to me, we’ve got some ghost hunting types here in the hotel and, what with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, my guess is these steampunk monster hunters are gearing up for Samhain Scandals! Well, they’ll never catch me! Ha ha!

This, btw, is what those real monsters sent me. Pay close attention after the 3:00-mark.

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Damn it, Lucy! I know how much you enjoyed playing with that new EOS Canon Rebel. Still, didn’t I tell you that if we were going to go play at Comic-Con, that we had to lie low? Especially in the SyFy Press Room? As dear old dad, Dr. Harvey, would say, “Oi vey, Lucy!”.

Fortunately, I shall be out of town for the Holidays: home to good ol’ Beantown and spooky Salem, Mass for some Hallowe’en haunting about the Hawthorne Hotel; and, Lucy shall visit her dear Dr. Devorkian up in Napa this All Hallows’ Eve. Let’s see the League of S.T.E.A.M. find us now! (Oh. Wait. Damn it, Hannah!) Well, at least now the League shall have to dispatch their tiresome, hyper-weaponed gnats to New England and Northern California, as well as wherever else their ne’er-do-well activities take them here in Southern California.

Shame on them, nettling and tweaking the likes of Lucy and Moi! Funny enough, now those half-portions in Ghost Adventurers and Ghost Hunters International don’t seem so bad.

Monster hunters take note! Perchance, you are not aware of she with whom you dare to dance! I swing a mean cocktail bag, kittens!

 

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