Spooky hoofs
But it’s an unfortunate servant girl who haunts it.
Spooky hoofs windows#
Some have seen an apparition staring from the mullioned windows of the ruined 19th century Tudor Revival house, known as Bruen’s Folly after Francis Bruen, who built it for his bride. Dún Laoghaire, then Kingstown, was a scene of carnage with bodies and wreckage everywhere, yet Boyd lashed himself to his crew and went to sea in a futile attempt to save lives and was drowned with his men.
In 1861, Captain Boyd, accompanied everywhere by his dog at his heels, became a hero when he organised the attempted rescue of more than 135 ships and their crews wrecked between Howth and Wicklow heads during a storm. The dog chose to starve to death at the grave rather than leave his master, after one of the largest funeral corteges ever seen in Dublin. The ghost of a black Newfoundland dog has often been seen sitting at the base of a life-sized marble statue of Captain John Boyd in the Cathedral, and laying on his master’s grave outside. Captain Boyd‘s grave, St Patrick‘s Cathedral, DublinĬaptain Boyd‘s grave, St Patrick‘s Cathedral, Dublin Rejected then by Clon, she smashed all her mirrors and to this day is seen wandering about the castle, a dark misty sphere around her shoulders, constantly rubbing at patches of the wall until they gleam like mirrors.Ĥ. After a year of this, the Hodnetts surrendered, but Lady Margaret had lost her beauty and was found surrounded by unburied corpses and skeletal beings. Tired of being kept dangling, one of her men, Clon de Courcy, decided to starve her and her family into submission. In the 17th century, Lady Margaret Hodnett was something of a Jezebel with quite a number of suitors and an extensive collection of mirrors. Those who have seen the apparition of poor vain Lady Margaret – one of several ghosts that haunt the tower house – disagree over whether she has a face. One point in the field where blood gathered in large pools is still known as The Bloody Hollow. In 1691, the cold-blooded Williamites' made Jacobean blood run down the hillside in thick oozing streams and the bodies of soldiers lay for more than a year until only their bones were left. The battlefield is a vast cemetery still haunted by the screams of the massacred Jacobite army, numbering thousands of bloody, mutilated bodies and immortalised in Thomas Moore's poem Forget Not the Field. Aughrim battlefield and its Jacobite ghosts, Co GalwayĪughrim battlefield and its Jacobite ghosts, Co Galway Today her screams are heard throughout the ruins.Ģ. Other reported ghosts include the Countess of Desmond who was buried alive in the Abbey, a mistake that came to light when her menacing ghostly figure prompted an investigation of her makeshift grave, where her finger bones were found to be worn out and ragged from clawing. The sacristy where she is buried is called Black Hag’s Cell after the blackness of her face when she died. Hidden in a secluded valley southeast of Shanagolden, are the remains of a medieval convent where the prioress, a lady of the FitzGeralds from Shanid Castle, terrified the local population with her use of the black arts and sexual practices. Tarquin Blake is an architectural explorer, photographer and author who has been collecting ghost stories for more than a decade and documenting our lost heritage. It’s not just a scary book – Blake’s delightful photographic story of the great houses, their battles and their embattled families is a must read for anyone interested in Irish architecture and history. She still haunts Strongbow’s Tree in Co Derry. It’s said that the people of Ossory, an ancient kingdom, could change themselves into wolves and were drawn by Cambrensis in the 12th century, while the original beautiful female vampire (dearg-diulai) rose from her grave to seduce living men and drain them of their blood. Irish legends were telling of vampires, banshees and werewolves centuries before Hollywood ever heard of them. It’s oiche shamhna – the Irish word for the night when the boundary between life and death vanishes. Haunted Ireland by Tarquin Blake (Collins Press, 2014) is an absorbing Halloween read and a guide to the spookiest places to visit in every hidden dark place in Ireland tonight.