Ghost Stories

The story of a spectacular castellated Gothic castle complete with gardens, towers, thirty rooms and statues expanding over 12,000 acres beings with a man named Thomas Duckett. While not the first Duckett to arrive in Ireland, he purchased a 500 acre small town on the northern edge of the Lake District known as Kneestown from Thomas Crosthwaite of Cockermouth in 1695. Crosthwaite had obtained extensive land property in Ireland under the Acts of Settlement of 1666 to 1684 during the reign of Charles II. Thomas married Judith de la Poer, heiress to her father’s estates in County Waterford. However, it was his grandson William's marriage that turned things around for the Duckett family. William married Elisabeth Dawson-Coates, co-heiress of wealthy Dublin banker John Dawson-Coate in 1790. The couple had four sons. On November 19, 1895, William remarried at the age of 73 to Maria Georgina Thompson. He died on June 22, 1908 and was the last family member to be buried in the family bu...

Leprechaun may have been a horror flick starring a young Jennifer Aniston, but these fairies' presence are deep in Irish mythology. There are many theories as to its name origins. A couple examples include leath bhrogan or shoemaker or luacharma'n, Irish for pygmy. These creatures have also been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann or pre-Christian deities of Ireland. Typically we know these sprites as small old men dressed in a green suit. Originally, his appearance differed depending on what part of Ireland he was located in. He wore red not green. In 1831, Samuel Lover wrote: "...quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, and inexpressible of the same, cocked hat, shoes and buckles." Yeats described him as "The leprechaun's jacket has seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row. On the western coast the red jacket is covered by a frieze one, and in Ulster the creature wears a cocked hat, ...

Banshees are creatures from Irish mythology. It is said that when a citizen from an Irish village died, a woman, also referred to as "keeners", would sing a traditional lament or modern Irish caoineadh (pronounced kweenyah) at their funeral. However, they can only cry for five great Gaelic families: the O'Gradys, the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, and the Kavanaghs (this list has extended with intermarriages). Tales recount a fairy woman was associated with them and would make an appearance after a death in the family, making an appearance or sound to intimation of the death. When these narratives were first translated into English, a distinction between the "banshee" and other fairy folk was introduced. However, this distinction did not exist in the original stories in their Gaelic forms. The funeral lament became a mournful cry or wail. A death in the family or one's own death was predicted upon hearing this wail or seeing the banshe...

The O'Carrolls of Ely once was the principal seat of the Original Tower House of Leap Castle. It once stood near the Slieve Bloom Mountains. In 1553, family rivalry broke out when The Chief of the Clan passed away. The Bloody Chapel is where "One-eyed Tadhg O'Carroll" killed his brother who was a priest. He was holding mass at the altar at the time of his death. A hidden room with a drop door was found near this chamber. Prisoners were hurled into this spiked oubliette and forgotten. The last use of the murder hole was in the seventeenth century. In 1599, Charles O' Carroll hired a force of MacMahons of Monaghan as mercenaries against the Earl of Tyrone. When their work was finished he got them drunk and had them all massacred in their sleep. In 1695, Jonathan Darby married Charles O'Carroll's daughter therefore acquiring Leap Castle. It is said that he hid vast amounts of treasure on the grounds but after serving many years in prison for treason, he for...