The Hauntings of Leap Castle | Episode 79
Leap Castle is in Offaly county and has been around for centuries. It was even burnt down in 1922 due to the tension of loyalties between Britain and Ireland.
However, there are many that say ghosts, and other spirits, have deep roots in Leap Castle, like The Priest in the bloody chapel, or Emily and Charlotte who play in the main entrance, or the slaughtered Red Lady who died a tragic death. Others say there is a far more sinister entity that stalks the castle, known as an elemental.
But, do we find it believable? Listen now!
Sponsor: Check out Liquid Death and get free shipping when you order two cases of water OR sell your soul and get a free shirt here: https://liquiddeath.com/bizarre
What’s up Bizarros? This week we dive into the tale of Leap Castle.
Leaps Castle in County Offaly was constructed in the 16th century.
The Lord responsible for the building was John O’Carroll.
The castle was passed down through families and clans with a history that only rivals Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
In the mid-1600s the castle was passed to the Darby clan, and then eventually to the Ryan family.
The families in the castle were a sensitive subject to the people of Ireland because they were loyal subjects to the British crown.
Because of their loyalty to the Crown, this lead to the castle being burned down in 1922.
Soldiers, families, and employees have all lost their lives to the stronghold and the skeleton of the Castle still stands forlornly against the grey Irish sky.
Haunted Locations in Leap Castle
The bloody chapel is said to be the most haunted location in the castle.
When the O’carrolls ruled there was a terrible murder on the now burnt-out chapel.
After the brutal succession from the Mulrooney clan. Teige O’Carroll ran into the chapel during mass and stabbed the priest who was his older brother in the back. He died on the altar in front of his entire family.
Thaddeus’s ghost is one of leap Castle’s earliest ghosts. For centuries there have been reports of his figure in the chapel and the stairwell, along with lights streaming through the windows at night.
C.Lee McKenzie shares her personal experience in the bloody chapel.
“When I climbed the narrow winding stairs into the Bloody Chapel, nothing unusual happened. Once in the Chapel, I took pictures and sat at the dusty table to have a good look into the shadowy corners. Sunlight filtered through gothic windows without panes but with swags of spidery filaments. Beauty outside. Ghosts inside?”
Mckenzie continued to say, “it wasn’t until I had returned to the lower rooms of the castle that I noticed my backpack was missing its metal pull. I found that pull in the bottom of my bag (kind of mysterious, since the bag was still zipped closed) and reattached it. It was hard to do, and I needed to pry open the clasp with a knife edge to slip it back into place. That pull never came off again. It’s still on my bag, but in the Bloody Tower it came off.”
The priests’ house
Ever since the burning of the castle, these structures have been left untouched. But long before the fire ravaged it, the residents of the castle reported seeing strangeness there.
Mildred Darby said
“There is something heavy that lies on people’s beds, and snores and they feel the weight of a great body pressing against them, in a room in the Priest’s House.”
More Ghosts
Emily and Charlotte are two young girls that have been seen playing at the main entrance of the castle.
Emily is said to have died at age 11 from falling from the battlements and Charlotte’s death is unknown but she is seen with a deformed left leg.
The owner, Sean Ryan, has claimed to have seen 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.”
The Elemental
There also seems to be a creature that is a non-human spirit, or perhaps something much older than anything else has been seen too.
Many think the spirit was summoned by Druidic magic or dark evil sorcery. Some think that is a thought-form or that it came when all the evil started to happen in the dungeons
Others think it’s the decaying ghost of the first O’Carroll owner.
Millies shares her first-hand account of her experience with the creature.
“I was standing in the Gallery looking down at the main floor when I felt somebody put a hand on my shoulder,” she later recalled.
“The thing was about the size of a sheep. Thin, gaunt, shadowy … its face was human, to be more accurate, inhuman. There was lust in its eyes, which seemed half decomposed in black cavities, as it stared into mine. The horrible smell one hundred times intensified came up into my face, giving me deadly nausea. It was the smell of a decomposing corpse.”
Another encounter Milly wrote to a friend in a letter goes
“On the 25th November 1915, two of our servants knowing the ‘master’ would be late and that I was driving that afternoon had invited ‘friends’ over. They came rather late and my husband came home early so the visitors had to be kept out of his sight in the lower regions of one of the wings (the Priests House) and were unable to be shown the center tower – the very lofty hall. At 7:15 my husband and I went up to dress for dinner, my room in the extremity of the house from kitchens, his dressing room next door to me.
Whilst dressing I was startled by a loud yell of terror-stricken male and female voices coming apparently from the hall — and ran out to see the cause. My husband was out ahead of me at his heels. I passed through a corridor of the wing and onto the gallery …. On the gallery leaning with ‘hands’ resting on its rail, I saw the Thing – the Elemental and smelt it only too well. At the same moment my husband pulled up sharply about ten feet from the Thing, and half turning let fly a volley of abuse at me ending up ‘Dressing up a thing like that to try and make a fool of me. And now you’ll say I’ve seen something and I have not seen anything and there is nothing to see, or ever was.’ This last speech without a pause, begun waving one hand at the Thing end up stalking back to his dressing room still abusing me for trying to frighten him. As he was speaking the Elemental grew fainter and fainter in its outlines until it disappeared. He never made any inquiry as to the yell that called us both out, and from that day to this has not mentioned the incident to me.
I heard from our servants that when we went to dress for dinner they had brought their friends just to show them the hall when all four had suddenly seen and smelt the Elemental looking down at them from the gallery. They all got such a turn, they couldn’t help letting out a bawl then fled to servants quarters where all four were very sick.”
The next day the two maids presented Milly with letters claiming it was necessary for them to immediately pay visits to their homes. They never returned to Leap.
The red lady.
The poor soul is seen walking the keep with a bloody knife.
The legend of the red lady is that she was captured by the O’Carroll’s.
During her time at the castle, she was mistreated and ultimately raped. She became pregnant from the incident. After the baby was born it was taken and killed. She was devastated and with the same knife, she killed herself.
As she walks the castle grounds she is seen still holding the knife.
The Oubliette
Dungeons are no joke. They are dark damp evil places where many people died slow and painful deaths. The dungeons of leap castle were no exception.
When the Ryan’s were renovating the castle they found around 150 human remains. It took three cartloads to remove them.
Sean Ryan had his encounters at the castle Sean said when renovating the castle He felt as though someone or something wasn’t happy with him restoring the building.
He broke his kneecap when he was carrying out renovations, he said that the ladder was pushed and he had to jump from the ladder, he incurred an injury which led to his kneecap having to be removed and replaced and then had a further injury where he broke his ankle. He hasn’t had any more injuries to date.
So what do you think Bizarros? Is Leap Castle destined to be haunted forever? Are the grounds so saturated with dark memories and events that ghosts are destined to walk the castle forever?