Think of the beauty of Ireland and a veritable treasure trove of images are called instantly to mind upon the easels of our imaginations. One can almost see the rolling green hills of this ancient land; its scenic swaths of golden barley and purple heather and ever here and there dotting this timeless, pastoral landscape one can easily envision the towering medieval castles for which the Emerald Isle is so oft renown. But, if you’re anything like me, when you think of these majestic old castles, you can’t help but think of one thing and one thing only - ghosts. For indeed, many a keep and castle throughout the faerie-kissed land of my forefathers is considered an abode for the spirits and chief among them is the beautiful yet infamous Leap Castle, an edifice considered by many to be the most haunted place in all of Ireland. Some even contend that it may be the most haunted place in all of Europe itself.

Leap castle has a long and bloody history, one whose torrid strains make it ripe for haunting. Originally built in 1250 by the O’Bannon family, the castles inaugural name was “Leim ui Bhanain” or “Leap of the O’Bannons.” The castle was erected upon a pedestal of high rock overlooking a winding pass through the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the County Offaly in central Ireland. This land was for centuries under the rule of the fierce O’Carroll family, under whose rule the O’Bannons were but secondary chieftains. As such, the O’Carrolls would eventually take possession of Leap castle, and that’s when all the fun began.

The sixteenth century in particular was marked by internecine struggles for power within the O’Carroll family itself. One legend tells of how an O’Carroll chieftain residing at Leap Castle invited a rural branch of the clan to dinner, only to have them all slaughtered as they sat down to feast. After the death of clan leader Mulrooney O’Carroll in 1532, a power vacuum and a question of succession lead to the incident behind what is now perhaps the most active haunting at Leap today. Tiege O’Carroll stabbed his brother to death in the castle’s chapel. Now that, in and of itself, was hardly surprising given the circumstances but his brother also just so happened to be a Catholic priest who just so happened to be conducting mass at the time. The priest bled out over the altar as he slowly died earning the chamber its thereafter appellation of “The Bloody Chapel.” The spirit of the murdered priest still haunts the room today, and becomes agitated with visitors who stay in the area too long. On a recent episode of the Sci-Fi Channel program Ghosthunters, a member of the investigation team was physically assaulted by an unseen force in the chapel. This occurred shortly after he and another team member had observed the glowing head of the priest’s apparition in the room.

In the seventeenth century an O’Carroll daughter fell in love with an English prisoner, one Captain Darby, being held in the dungeon at Leap Castle. She brought him food and eventually helped him to escape. Darby killed the young girl’s brother during his escape but apparently she didn’t hold it against her lover as they were later married. The girl was the heir to Leap Castle at the time and so the castle was bequeathed to the couple upon their marriage in 1659. Thus keeping Leap Castle for generations to come in the hands of the Darby Family.

The last of the Darby family to hold title to the castle were Jonathan Charles Darby and his wife Mildred Darby who took possession of the building in 1880. Mildred Darby was a dabbler in the black arts. Séances that she held at Leap Castle succeeded in summoning up a dark presence that remains within the castle walls today. The presence is known as “The Elemental” or just simply “It”. It is believed to be an ancient ghost or spirit that was given new power through Mildred Darby’s excursions into black magic. Those who have encountered the presence claim that it is extremely malevolent and it appears to have “opened the door” for other negative entities as well. In an article written for a publication known as the Occult Review in 1909, Mildred wrote, “I was standing in the Gallery looking down at the main floor, when I felt something put a hand on my shoulder. The thing was about the size of a sheep. Thin guanting shadowy…, its face was human, to be more accurate inhuman. Its lust in its eyes which seemed half decomposed in black cavities stared into mine. The horrible smell one hundred times intensified came up into my face, giving me a deadly nausea. It was the smell of a decomposing corpse.”

Leap Castle was set fire by the IRA during the Irish Civil War in 1922. The Darbys had ties to the English Crown, and had sold some people’s land out from under them to boot, making them a prime target for my freedom-fighting ancestors (sorry, a little swelling of nationalistic pride there). Afterwards, Leap castle was gutted by the fire and in desperate need of clean up. A team of workers doing just that made a gruesome discovery. The work crew found an oubliette, a secret dungeon with a single drop hole as its only entrance, attached to the “Bloody Chapel”. The name ‘oubliette’ comes from the French oublier, meaning to forget. This is essentially what would happen; a victim would be thrown down the shaft onto the bed of spikes below and then forgotten. The lucky ones died instantly. Those who did not died slowly from their wounds or from starvation, perhaps listening to the sounds of mass from the chapel above. The team of workers found the bottom of the oubliette littered with human bones. All and all, they removed three full cartloads of bones from the erstwhile dungeon. They also found a pocket watch dated to 1840! It makes one wonder if the oubliette was still in use at that time. Paranormal investigators who have gone down into the oubliette (the spikes have long since been covered with packed earth) report that the air is heavy with fear and a feeling of nausea has overtaken many of them. The numerous deaths that transpired in that pit of doom no doubt only add fuel to the fire with regards to the hauntings at Leap.

During the seventies, a previous owner of Leap actually brought in a white witch from Mexico to assist him in exorcising the evil forces from the castle. The witch entered the “Bloody Chapel” and remained inside for several hours. When she came out at last, she informed the owner that the spirits would no longer be malevolent but that they wished to remain. It does not appear, however, that the spirits have kept up their side of the bargain.

At last estimate there were around twenty active spirits at Leap Castle today, and on the grounds there have been reports of the apparition of a woman in a flowing red dress for many years. Skeletons have been found walled up in the masonry, and there is really no telling how many people have met their ends within the castle walls. It is also believed that Leap Castle rests on a powerful ley line in the earth and that it forms a magical triangle with Kinnitty Castle and Charleville Castle (both extremely haunted places as well). In addition, pre-Christian bronze-age artifacts have been found around the site, lending credence to the notion that the plot of land upon which Leap Castle stands was once used by pagan peoples for some purpose or another, most likely a spiritual one. Of course the ancient Celtic spirituality often involved human sacrifice. All of this history and bloodshed has culminated into making Leap Castle one powerful and scary place, one that many locals will not approach even in broad daylight.

This doesn’t seem to bother Leap Castle’s current owners, Sean Ryan, his wife Anne and their daughter, who purchased the castle in 1991. Although, Sean did go through his share of troubles with the spirits when he began restoring the castle. A freak “accident” involving a ladder that seemed to push away from the wall by itself left Sean with a broken kneecap. No sooner had he recovered from that injury than yet another ladder “fell” backwards from the wall, this time forcing Sean to jump several stories and to break his ankle in the process. Now that the restoration is complete and the Ryans have moved in, however, the spirits seem to have found a way to co-exist fairly peacefully with the Ryan family, although they continue to make their presence known quite frequently. Sean attributes this marked improvement in their demeanour to the fact that he and his family are traditional Irish musicians and continuously fill the ancient castle with the music of harp and panpipe, soothing the throng of restless spirits it would seem.

Nevertheless, Leap Castle remains one of the most frightening and haunted locales in the world. I can’t wait to visit!