Since I was a wee lad, I've had a fascination with the paranormal and the occult. It's an absurdly fun hobby for an aspiring fiction writer and I encourage anyone capable of suspending disbelief to dive in. Yet, shows like Ghost Hunters and the like have poisoned the well for many. It's not just the pseudo-science and obnoxious editing, it's the arrogant claim of proof or no proof. Despite whatever you may read or hear, there is no way of proving something like a haunting. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that all the equipment isn't telling us much. With those techniques, it is far more about the way in which you spin your the data rather than what it actually indicates. With all those cameras, instruments, and wires it still far more compelling to hear an honest, personal account than to listen to scratchy white noise until you're sure you heard a woman say "hello." Also, fuck orbs. Seriously if one more person shows me a picture of an old place with transparent spheres around it I'll kick them in their own god-damn orbs. It's fucking dust, bugs, and particulates in the air. That's not just grasping at straws, that's picking up dirt and trying to convince everyone else it's straw. For the time being, we have only stories and our own perception to inform us on what the nature of a haunting really is. One of my favorites, since I was a kid, is Leap Castle in Coolderry, Ireland.
It could be ghosts or just about anythings else. It's probably ghosts.
I'm not sure if you've heard about Ireland, but it's mystical as fuck. Leap Castle is no exception. Built around 1250 by the O'Bannon clan, the castle was likely constructed on ancient ceremonial grounds that date back to at least the iron age and possibly even to Neolithic times. Anyone who has ever seen Poltergeist or The Shining knows that building things on old, sacred land is just, so fucking rude. Leap also saw it's fair share of bloodshed over the centuries as various groups vied for dominance. It was the primary seat of the O'Carrol clan who were known for their ruthlessness and tendency to kill just about everyone. This is best illustrated in 1532, when the O'Carrol chieftain died and his remaining family members competed for the position. Eventually, one brother, known as the "O'Carrol Priest," performed mass in the castle chapel with the purposeful exclusion of his brother. It was a terrible insult and, in a rage, the other O'Carrol burst into the mass and cut down his brother before the altar. Consequently, the room became known as the bloody chapel.
Just in case you've been watching too much Game of Thrones and can't be shocked anymore, please note that murdering your own brother in front of your family while he performs mass was pretty dang despicable by medieval standards. However, it seems to be just another day for the O'Carrols. A telling story from their time at Leap has them hosting forty members of another clan for a feast. The clan was hired by the O'Carrols as mercenaries and were celebrating a great victory over mutual rivals. The O'Carrols were happy with the win but not the bill and, to avoid paying, they poisoned them all and cut their throats. A similar event occurred with another clan in which they were murdered in their sleep. The bodies were disposed of in an oubliette (french for "to forget.") secretly located in the bloody chapel. An Oubliette is essentially a tiny, uninhabitable room with wooden spikes in the floor where you throw someone and simply forget their existence. It was a hole of pure agony in which to either starve or bleed out. Couple that with the fact that it was never cleaned out and thus filled with skeletons and rotting corpses, someone stuck in an oubliette would have been in utter darkness and misery while listening to life faintly move on without them in the bowels of the castle.
When the oubliette was discovered in the 19th century they managed to pull out three cartloads of skeletons, an estimated 150 bodies. Again, for those well versed in the do's and dont's of ghosts, disturbing mass graves of horror is once again just like, super rude. Around the same time, a woman named Mildred Darby (The Darbys inherited the castle in the 17th century) was getting into the occult in a big way. She began practicing seances and supposedly experimenting with black magic. It is said that the combination of releasing all the stored misery of the oubliette and Mildred's clumsy endeavors into the occult awakened something ancient.
At least this oubliette comes with a pretty bitchin' red chair
Whatever has been said about it over the years, most agree that it's certainly not human. One evening Mildred found herself in the gallery, looking down onto the main floor when, "I felt somebody put a hand on my shoulder. The thing was about the size of a sheep. Thin gaunting shadowy..., its face was human, to be more accurate inhuman. The lust in its eyes which seemed half decomposed in black cavities 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." The spirit was identified as an elemental, a primal ghost that some feel had been sleeping there since the druids were using the area. All seem to agree on its malevolence and its ability to completely overwhelm those who disturb it. It is always preceded by the stench of sulfur and rotting flesh. Encounters with it have been occurring since Mildred Darby's first sighting. Regardless of the specifics, each story is filled with the sensation of absolute dread and sickness. It seems to leave the current residents alone as it only appears when provoked, something they avoid. However, investigators, in all their poking and prodding, have similar experiences to that of Mildred and others.
As if having a primitive, nature demon wasn't enough, Leap is host to several ghosts who constantly reflect the castle's turbulent past. Shadows are reported wandering the burned out rooms of the priest's house. A man can be seen pushing a heavy barrel up the stairs but when he reaches the top the barrel slips and rolls down the stairs before both disappear. In the chapel, there is a stain of blood on the floor where the one brother murdered another. The priest has been sighted in the chapel by many as well as wandering the staircase below. There is also the ghost of a woman supposedly captured and raped by the O'Carrols. She got pregnant as a result and killed herself after the baby was murdered. She is called the Red Lady and has been observed lurking around with a dagger, often raising it as if to stab someone. Two young girls are also seen and heard playing around the castle. They are known as Charlotte and Emily. Emily was killed when she fell from the battlements of the castle. Sightings of her falling and disappearing before hitting the ground as well as her sister dragging her crippled legs behind her have been noted. Lastly, the murdered mercenaries of the Macmahon's and O'Neils seem to haunt the hall in which they were betrayed.
What I love about hauntings isn't just the possibility of ghosts or the supernatural. It's that places like Leap castle are brimming with history and real human drama. Ghost stories aren't told just to frighten and fascinate us, they keep the past and it's implications alive. The history of Leap castle is informed by its legends and vice versa. Shows like Ghost Hunters cheapen this with their faux-investigations. If the area around Leap really has been inhabited and used since the neolithic era, that is thousands of years of humanity stacked on top of one another. Along with that are the stories that show Leap to have witnessed some of the darkest aspects of the human experience. With this in mind, one doesn't need demonic apparitions and physical phenomena to know that Leap is haunted. When staring into the blackness of the oubliette, do you really need a ghost to appear in order to feel the chill up your spine?
