Laura Wright 
Haunted Destinations
Some haunted places acquire their reputations from a single murder, tragedy, or unexplained death.
Leap Castle doesn’t have that problem.
Standing in County Offaly, Ireland, the ancient stronghold has survived centuries of warfare, family feuds, murder, fire, political upheaval, and changing ownership. Human remains have reportedly been discovered within its walls and beneath its floors. One chapel is associated with the murder of a priest by his own brother. An oubliette concealed within the structure became part of stories involving the disposal of enemies and mercenaries.
Then there are the ghosts.
Visitors and residents have reported voices, footsteps, lights, whispering women, children, an old man, a governess, and a mysterious Red Lady. Most famous of all is a strange presence that became known simply as the Elemental.
Today, Leap Castle is frequently described as one of Ireland’s most haunted castles.
Considering its history, perhaps the greater surprise would be if nobody had ever reported seeing anything there.
The Origins of Leap Castle
Even the origins of Leap Castle are surrounded by uncertainty.
The castle has appeared under several names, including Castle Leap, Leap Castle, Leim Ni Bhanain, Leamyvannan, and O’Bannon Leap.
The existing tower house is medieval, although accounts have disagreed considerably about precisely when the earliest castle was constructed. Dates ranging from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth century have been proposed, while the history of occupation at the site itself appears considerably older.
Archaeological discoveries indicate that another stone structure existed beneath the castle.
The surrounding area may have been inhabited since at least the Iron Age, possibly even earlier.
That distinction is important.
The present castle does not have to be thousands of years old for the site to have a very ancient history.
The O’Bannon’s Leap
One of the most dramatic legends concerns the origin of the castle’s name.
According to tradition, two O’Bannon brothers both wanted control of the land.
Rather than settle their disagreement peacefully, they devised a characteristically brutal contest.
The brothers would leap from a nearby rocky height.
The survivor would become lord of the estate.
Thus the place became associated with O’Bannon’s Leap.
Whether this actually explains the name is uncertain, but the legend fits remarkably well with the violent history that followed.
At Leap, even the naming story begins with the possibility of someone falling to his death.
The O’Carrolls
Leap became particularly associated with the powerful O’Carroll clan.
The O’Bannons served as secondary chieftains connected with the O’Carrolls, and the surrounding territory became the subject of repeated struggles involving the O’Carrolls and rival families.
The castle itself evolved considerably during these centuries.
The tower house formed the core of the structure, while later owners added wings and carried out substantial renovations. Ironically, the oldest portion survived better than some of the additions that came centuries afterward.
Leap endured sieges, fire, political upheaval, and eventually cannon fire.
Its walls witnessed more than enough genuine violence to generate centuries of folklore.
Plague Comes to the Region
The fifteenth century brought a different kind of death.
Plague swept through the region.
John O’Carroll died in 1489, with some accounts placing his death at Leap. So many people reportedly died in the surrounding area that bodies were left unburied because there were no longer enough people available to bury them.
Then the fighting resumed.
In 1513, Gerald Fitzgerald, 8th Earl of Kildare and Lord Deputy of Ireland, laid siege to Leap in an attempt to suppress an O’Carroll uprising.
He failed.
Fitzgerald returned several years later, but the politics of the region were extraordinarily complicated. Rivalries extended far beyond a simple struggle between two families.
The castle sat in a landscape where alliances could change and old grievances could become deadly.
Murder Within the O’Carroll Clan
The death of Mulroony O’Carroll in 1532 helped destroy what remained of unity within the family.
Relatives began fighting for control.
His son Fergainainm, sometimes called Ferg, assumed leadership, but his claim was disputed.
Violence followed.
Ferg sought assistance from his father-in-law, the Earl of Kildare, and fighting left several men dead and many others wounded.
Ferg himself was murdered in 1541 by the O’Mulloys.
Then came one of Leap Castle’s most infamous figures.
One-Eyed Teige O’Carroll.
One-Eyed Teige
Teige’s reputation was brutal even by the standards of the period.
One story claims he invited members of a rival branch of his own family to dinner under the pretense of reconciliation.
Once they had gathered, he massacred them.
But the murder most closely associated with Leap Castle supposedly occurred inside the chapel.
And the victim was Teige’s own brother.
The Bloody Chapel
The ruined chapel at Leap Castle became known as the Bloody Chapel.
According to the traditional story, Teige’s brother was a priest.
During Mass, while members of the family were gathered in the chapel, Teige entered.
He attacked his brother at the altar.
The priest was mortally wounded and collapsed across it.
The murder supposedly resulted from the struggle for leadership within the clan.
The chapel was thereafter regarded as desecrated.
Unsurprisingly, ghost stories followed.
The murdered priest’s apparition has reportedly been seen in and around the chapel, making him one of the oldest spirits associated with Leap Castle.
But something even more disturbing was concealed nearby.
The Oubliette
An oubliette is a dungeon designed for imprisonment with little or no possibility of escape.
The name comes from the French oublier, meaning to forget.
A prisoner could be thrown inside and quite literally forgotten.
Leap’s oubliette was reportedly accessible through a concealed opening or trapdoor in the Bloody Chapel.
When the chamber was opened around the turn of the twentieth century, workers reportedly removed cartloads of human bones from the pit. Watches and other objects were also said to have been recovered.
The discovery inevitably strengthened the castle’s already terrible reputation.
The Mercenaries of Leap Castle
One legend offered a particularly grim explanation for some of those remains.
The O’Carrolls employed mercenaries when fighting rival clans.
Once the hired men had completed their work, paying them presented an inconvenience.
According to the story, the O’Carrolls discovered a cheaper solution.
They invited the mercenaries to Leap Castle for dinner.
The men were poisoned or had their throats cut.
Their bodies were then thrown into the oubliette.
One tradition claims that nearly forty members of the McMahon clan were killed and disposed of in this manner.
Whether every detail of these stories can be historically verified is another question.
But human remains really did become an important part of the castle’s later lore.
The Castle Changes Hands
Continuous conflict eventually weakened O’Carroll control.
Leap passed through several hands amid the political turmoil of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ireland.
By the seventeenth century, the Darby family became closely associated with the castle.
Exactly how the Darbys originally obtained Leap varies according to the source. Some traditions involve marriage to an O’Carroll woman. Others connect the transfer to the political upheavals surrounding Cromwell.
Either way, the Darbys would remain associated with Leap for centuries.
And one of the earliest Darbys became the subject of another bloody legend.
Wild Captain Darby
Captain Jonathan Darby became known in some accounts as Wild Captain Darby.
According to one version of the story, Darby learned that Cromwell’s forces intended to take the castle.
Before leaving, he decided to conceal his wealth.
Two servants helped him hide the treasure somewhere within Leap.
That created a problem.
The servants knew where the money was.
Darby supposedly pushed one from the battlements and killed the other with his sword. He also murdered the messenger who had brought him the warning.
The reasoning attributed to Darby was brutally practical.
Dead men could not reveal where the treasure had been hidden.
“My Money”
Darby’s own fate was miserable.
He was arrested for high treason and imprisoned.
Although he was eventually pardoned, years of confinement had destroyed his health.
His legs had become gangrenous.
According to the story, his mental condition had deteriorated as well.
By then he was unable to tell anyone where the treasure had been hidden.
The only words he could repeatedly utter were:
“My money.”
If the treasure really existed, it became another secret buried somewhere within Leap Castle.
Hidden Rooms and Human Bones
Major renovations during the nineteenth century produced some extraordinary discoveries.
In 1898, workers reportedly uncovered a long stone spiral staircase that had been concealed behind a brick wall.
It extended approximately 100 feet from the lower portion of the structure toward the top of the tower.
Another supposedly solid wall concealed an entrance into an unknown guardroom and dungeon area.
Human bones were found within these spaces.
Coins dating from the period of Edward the Confessor, along with flints and spearheads, were also reportedly discovered during work around the castle.
Whatever their precise interpretation, the discoveries reinforced something already apparent about Leap.
The building people could see represented only part of its history.
Rooms, staircases, passages, and chambers had been sealed and forgotten for generations.
The Murdered O’Bannon Princess
Another haunting became associated with one of the castle’s bedrooms.
Tradition held that an O’Bannon princess had been murdered there centuries earlier by her own father.
Her blood supposedly soaked into the oak floorboards.
No amount of cleaning could completely remove the stain.
Servants became so disturbed by activity in the room that women reportedly refused to sleep there.
Whether the murdered woman ever existed as described remains uncertain.
But she may have contributed to another apparition associated with Leap.
The Red Lady.
The Red Lady
A mysterious woman dressed in red has reportedly appeared around the castle.
Her identity varies according to the telling.
She may be the murdered O’Bannon princess.
Other versions portray her as another victim of the violence committed within Leap’s walls.
As with many old hauntings, the apparition seems to have acquired different biographies over generations.
The ghost came first.
The explanations followed.
Children in the Castle
Not all of Leap’s reported spirits appear threatening.
Children have reportedly been seen playing around the castle and grounds.
A female spirit described as a governess or nanny has also appeared, sometimes seemingly watching over the children.
An older gentleman is another recurring apparition.
Human-shaped ghosts, however, represent only part of the activity associated with the castle.
Many reports describe something much less visible.
Voices, Footsteps and Unseen Struggles
By the nineteenth century, stories about unexplained activity at Leap were already circulating.
People reported voices in empty rooms.
Doors opened or slammed without assistance.
Locks moved.
Bells rang.
Lights appeared unexpectedly.
Books opened and pages seemed to turn by themselves.
Some witnesses heard women whispering or sobbing.
Others described cruel laughter.
More disturbing were sounds resembling violent events.
Witnesses reported hearing struggles.
Something seemed to be dragged across floors.
There were noises resembling a body being thrown into a pit.
Then came screams.
If those stories are taken as traditional haunting accounts, they resemble what would later be called residual hauntings, repeated impressions of violent events without an apparently conscious apparition behind them.
The Phantom Sheep
One of Leap Castle’s stranger legends concerns ownership itself.
According to tradition, no direct heir successfully inherits the castle.
Misfortune eventually strikes the family in possession.
Then a phantom sheep appears.
The animal scratches at the door.
Its arrival supposedly means tragedy is approaching and ownership of Leap will soon pass to someone else.
Considering the O’Carrolls’ old reputation for stealing sheep, the choice of animal is almost suspiciously appropriate.
But the castle’s most famous supernatural resident is considerably less ordinary.
Mildred Darby
Much of Leap Castle’s modern paranormal reputation can be traced to Mildred Darby, who lived there around the turn of the twentieth century.
Mildred was deeply interested in supernatural subjects.
She practiced automatic writing and participated in séances.
She also reported numerous strange experiences within Leap.
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, she described encountering a horrifying presence.
It was unlike the castle’s other ghosts.
Eventually, it became known as the Elemental.
The Elemental
Descriptions of the creature vary, but Mildred’s account was grotesque.
The entity was approximately the size of a sheep.
Its face appeared partly human.
Its eyes were dark.
Most memorably, witnesses associated it with an overpowering, sickening odor.
The creature was sometimes simply called “It.”
Later storytellers attempted to explain what It actually was.
Some called it an elemental spirit.
Others associated it with druids.
Some described it as a guardian of the land.
Others transformed it into something demonic.
Another tradition connected it with the ancient fairy landscape surrounding the castle. Nearby Knockshigowna was itself known as the “hill of the fairies.”
The difficulty is that almost every explanation appears to have developed after the apparition was reported.
What Is an Elemental?
The word elemental has a much broader occult history than the Leap Castle story.
Traditionally, elemental beings became associated with the classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water.
Over time, paranormal literature used the word much more loosely.
Fairies have been called elementals.
Nature spirits have been called elementals.
Malevolent entities have been called elementals.
Guardians of particular places have been called elementals.
Eventually, the word could mean almost anything unusual that wasn’t easily classified as a human ghost.
That makes declaring Leap’s creature an “Elemental” considerably easier than explaining what that actually means.
Did Mildred Darby Create the Elemental?
There is another possibility.
Mildred Darby’s enthusiasm for spiritualism may have helped shape the story.
She held séances and practiced automatic writing during an era when spiritualism was enormously popular.
A friend interested in occult matters apparently suggested that the strange presence she experienced might be an elemental.
Mildred accepted the explanation.
From there, the label became attached permanently to Leap Castle.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Mildred invented what she experienced.
It means the interpretation may have come afterward.
She encountered something.
Someone supplied a name for it.
The name became folklore.
The Murder Hole Room
Mildred also referred to a haunted chamber known as the Murder Hole Room, or Muckle Hole.
Unfortunately, identifying exactly where this room was located has proven difficult.
It may have been another name for an area associated with the Bloody Chapel.
Or it may have referred to a chamber altered or lost during later destruction of the castle.
Much of the evidence for the room comes from Mildred herself.
Leap has changed so extensively over the centuries that rooms mentioned in old accounts do not always correspond neatly with what survives today.
And in 1922, the castle suffered one of the greatest disasters in its history.
Leap Castle Burns
During the turmoil of the Irish Civil War, Leap Castle was attacked.
Shortly before dawn on July 30, 1922, a group of arsonists set the building ablaze.
The fire devastated the castle.
The large north wing and its contents were destroyed.
One of Ireland’s most historic private residences became a burned-out ruin.
The Darby family’s long association with Leap eventually ended.
For decades, portions of the castle remained ruined.
Yet the old tower survived.
Leap Castle Today
The castle passed through several owners during the twentieth century.
In 1991, it was purchased by the Ryan family.
Musician Seán Ryan and his family undertook the enormous task of restoring the structure while living within it.
The castle remains a private residence rather than simply a preserved museum.
That makes Leap particularly unusual among famous haunted castles.
It isn’t merely an abandoned ruin where stories are told about people who lived centuries ago.
People still live there.
And the restoration continues.
Is Leap Castle Really Haunted?
That question depends upon what one accepts as evidence.
Leap Castle unquestionably possesses the kind of history from which ghost stories grow.
People fought over it.
People died there.
Family members murdered one another.
Human remains were reportedly discovered within hidden chambers.
Parts of the castle were destroyed by fire.
Generations of occupants and visitors have reported unexplained sounds, lights, movements, and apparitions.
Some stories are clearly legends.
Others are difficult to verify historically.
And the Elemental owes much of its fame to the experiences and interpretations of one particularly enthusiastic spiritualist.
But Leap’s paranormal reputation isn’t a recent invention created for television.
Accounts of unusual experiences were circulating long before modern ghost-hunting programs existed. By the early twentieth century, the castle already possessed a formidable supernatural reputation.
The Ghosts of Leim Ni Bhanain
Perhaps Leap Castle’s reputation doesn’t depend upon whether every murder legend is literally true.
The building has survived centuries in one of the most historically turbulent parts of Ireland.
Its walls have been rebuilt.
Rooms have disappeared.
Passages were sealed.
Human remains were discovered.
Families rose and fell.
The castle burned and was abandoned.
Then people returned.
Through all of it, stories remained attached to the stones.
A murdered priest still walks the Bloody Chapel.
Children play where no children can be found.
A woman in red appears and disappears.
Voices whisper in empty rooms.
Something unseen is dragged across the floor.
And somewhere in the oldest stories of Leap Castle lurks a foul-smelling creature that nobody has ever satisfactorily identified.
Ghost, fairy, guardian, Elemental, or imagination, it has become as much a part of Leap as the tower itself.
Perhaps that’s appropriate for a castle whose history has always existed somewhere between documented violence and folklore.
After centuries of bloodshed, fire, hidden chambers, family betrayal, and death, Leap Castle doesn’t really need anyone to invent a ghost story for it.
It has been writing its own for hundreds of years.
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