As Halloween looms, Eileen Battersby visits Leap Castle, which is known as the most haunted building in Europe.
They say strange things reside at Leap Castle, the ancient tower house between Roscrea and Clareen, on the midlands border of counties Tipperary and Offaly. Once home to the princes of Ely O'Carroll who built it, English settlers were later granted it and so began a lengthy association.
They say gentle folk won't walk past the front entrance any day throughout the dark, haunting month of November. They say a black stain, made by blood, seems to seep through the plaster and no soap will wash it, no paint will cover it. They say a floor bears another stain where a princess died some 600 years ago after her husband beat her to death for a wrong no one remembers.
They say the Elemental - a thing neither beast nor man - stalks the place, festering in the shadows. They say a distressed young woman, grieving for her beloved - or was she racing towards him? - once threw herself off the battlements and has continued to do so, nightly, throughout the lonely centuries. Far more peaceful, though not yet at rest, is a small girl named Charlotte, and her older sister, Emily, who make regular appearances.
Many bones are buried within its thick walls: skeletons have been found.
Lives were ended most violently here. WB Yeats wrote about the Elemental; he saw the Leap Ghost as evidence of a soul's slow passage towards reincarnation. "Perhaps there is no house in the world," wrote the British writer Sacheverell Sitwell in the 1930s, "that holds so many suggestions of the supernatural. Leap has to be seen to be believed."
During the mid-15th century, in the small private church, later to be known as the Bloody Chapel, a man surprised his brother while at prayer, and killed him.
Fear and fascination draw the susceptible to such places. No wonder Leap Castle, not Hampton Court in England where the ghosts of three dead queens walk, is known as the most haunted building in Europe and remains among Ireland's elite core of scary castles.
Leap Castle, parts of which date back to the early 15th century, with traces of even earlier building work, was constructed on the site of an O'Carroll fortification that might never have served as a formal dwelling.
Within the thick stone walls that have defied time were secret passages, some of which have been located. Rivals fought for possession of this castle and it experienced several fires, none as devastating as that of the summer of 1922, which caused such destruction that the Yorkshire Post published an article that read more like a respectful obituary than a news report: "The passing of an historic mansion is always a matter for regret, but the burning of Leap Castle, a famous link with the past, dear alike to archaeologists and antiquarians as well as to students of psychical research, has provoked widespread condemnation and sorrow."
THE CASTLE HAD by then long since been the property of an English settlement family, the Darbys. Politics, not sentiment, prompted the opinionated report, which continued: "When, with unprovoked malice, the Republicans set fire to it, the owners were away, but efforts were made by the servants to rescue some of the priceless furniture from the flames. The 'saviours of Ireland', however, were determined to do their work thoroughly. They came back from Roscrea the next morning, accompanied by their colleagues, the looters; the latter seized everything portable they could lay their hands on, and then the castle was fired again. Only the burnt out walls remain."
Only the walls. As Yeats and all spirit-watchers would have been aware, nothing is as effective as fire for banishing spirits; and yet the ghosts at Leap Castle stayed.
A network of country roads and lanes lead to Leap. To its east is the Fuaraun River, and further beyond lie the Slieve Bloom mountains. Despite its stormy history, its present-day appearance is deceptively calm; a medieval tower-house with mid-18th-century extensions and a forecourt dominated by a tidy, rounded lawn. To the right is an incongruous glimpse of what appears to be a construction site.
All self-respecting ghost hunters, veterans of ancient churchyards or seekers familiar with Glinsk Castle in Connemara, Co Galway, and Dunamase Castle in Co Laois would want to explore this famous castle. Some years ago I set out to explore Leap, pronounced "Lepp". Fortunately, having managed to get lost several times en route, my eventual arrival time was perfect, dusk on a damp October evening. The faint sound of hounds baying across the fields added to the atmosphere.
Overhead, menacingly bloated clouds raced across the sky. A weird face at the window glowed, the eye sockets appeared to drip. Lurking in the shadows, I began to feel sick. Suddenly the heavy front door was opened. The owner greeted his invited guests. The illusion of terror collapsed as the "face" in the upstairs window became a candle distorted by its reflection against the glass pane and I left, intent on making an official visit.
WHEN THAT RETURN visit was made, it was not at the witching hour. The afternoon proved brighter than expected. Just as a threatening shape by night becomes an innocent tree by day, Leap Castle appeared almost ordinary. It has been owned since 1991 by Tipperary-born Seán Ryan, the traditional musician who has made the castle his home and has no difficulties with the ghostly residents. He knows they are there and is content to share his castle - which is most emphatically a home and not a sterile OPW pastiche restoration - with them.
His daughter Ciara speaks cheerfully about often being gently prodded in the back. She never sees anyone. Those sensations of being touched simply happen, then pass, and she is well used it. But she is aware of the girls, Charlotte and Emily, who she often sees. It is as if she knows them.
Seán Ryan also sees the girls: "Sometimes we see them quite clearly, ourselves and others as well. Some days, it's fainter. Only an aura. They wear long white dresses, it looks like cotton, and they, the children, seem happy."
As for the Elemental, Ryan has never seen it, and as far as he knows there has been no recent sighting. Perhaps Halloween may draw it out? Inside the wide ground-floor hall, candles flicker and a fire burns in the grate. A long table divides the room, ideal for the banquets Ryan, a responsible protector of lore and heritage, hosts for occasional US tour parties.
Furnished in a mix of old pieces, carvings and curios reflecting the many countries in which Ryan has performed, Leap is living anew through this man's singular imagination and artist's eye for the atmospheric and the unusual.
Within minutes of arriving here, a visitor would feel sufficiently relaxed to be able to meet any number of ghostly presences, with the possible exception of the Elemental, who could prove a more demanding challenge.
Ryan has opened up the hall's ceiling to incorporate the room overhead as a gallery-style extension, referred to as the upper hall. Even the most discerning ghost would rejoice in the wonderland of the singular bathroom, a place that celebrates fancy with a flourish.
Music is part of the life. At the very top of the tower is a large room. At present, it is empty, with a straw spear on the ground. It is a fine space, ideal for a recital, or a seance. It turns out to be the Bloody Chapel. As light fades and the night approaches, the moon rises in an eerily clear sky. A strange creaking sound begins - or is it a low moaning? Has the Elemental enticed by the music and the voices at last decided to join us?
The house is open to the public, but closed Sundays. Advisable to telephone in advance: 0509 31115