LEAP CASTLE, COUNTY OFFALY

Leap castle has become known as Ireland’s most haunted castle.

Leap Castle was once the strong hold of the O’Caroll’s, who were a brutal family. A lot of the history of the castle under the O’Carroll’s reign holds a lot of bloodshed. In the 16^th Century O’Caroll of the Leap held a lavish banquette his family’s fortress and invited a rural branch of his own sept to his home. No sooner had they sat down he massacred every one of them.

 Following the death of Mulrooney O’Caroll in 1532 there was a bitter dispute over who should succeed him as the head of the clan. As the siblings battled 1 eye Teige O’Carroll is said to have killed his own brother who was also a priest, as he celebrated mass in the Bloody Chapel.

 During the 17^th Century a daughter of the clan fell in love with a British soldier named Captain Darby, who was being held prisoner in the dungeons. After a few months she engineered his escape. As they started to make their way down the staircase they were confronted by her brother. The captain killed him there on the stairs. After that his lover became the heiress to the Castle, so after the married and her father had died the ownership of the castle passed to the Captain’s family.

 The last of the Darby family to own the castle was Jonathan Charles Darby who moved in on 16^th July 1880. In 1909 his wife Margaret wrote an article for the Occult Review, which said how she had held a few séances at the castle and that she felt that there were ‘unwanted elements’ within it. she  described once standing in the gallery looking down on the main floor, when she felt someone put a hand on her shoulder when she turned she saw that it was about the size of a sheep but was thin gaunt and very shadowy, it had eyes which seemed half decomposed in black cavities stared at her. She also said that the air was filled with the smell of decomposed flesh. Mildred awoke many bad spirits and forces during her time in the Castle.

 There was a fire in 1922 that destroyed part of the castle, and when restoration work started they discovered an oubliette (for definition see Dean Castle) behind the wall of the Bloody Chapel. It was crammed with the remains of the victims of Leap Castle’s past. There were cartloads of human bones taken away.

 Over the next 70 years the property remained a shell, its fearsome reputation made sure that the local people avoided it, especially at night when lots of ghostly activity occurred. Across the field people would see a light shining through the window of the Bloody Chapel, as if there were a lot of candles blazing within. Some people who did walk through saw a full manifestation of a lady walking through in a red gown.

 In 1991 the castle was bought by Sean and Anne Ryan, who then started to make it their home.  The restoration work did come to a sudden halt when the ladder Sean was working on was pushed away from the wall forcing him to jump several stories and fracture his knee. When he restarted work another freak accident caused him to break his ankle.

 The spirits have come to accept Sean and Anne and live alongside them. They may at times make nuisances of themselves but they are no longer malevolent.