Mystical places in Ireland
3 legends
By kind of place
All places
Leap Castle
A castle in County Offaly held by the O'Carroll clan, where in 1532 one brother stabbed another — a priest — at the altar during mass. The room has been called the Bloody Chapel since. During repairs in the early twentieth century an oubliette was opened beneath it, spikes at the bottom; the remains filled three cartloads. Separately there is the Elemental, an entity whose arrival is said to come with a smell of decay and sulphur.
The Hellfire Club on Montpelier Hill
A hunting lodge built above Dublin in 1725, using stone taken from a prehistoric cairn destroyed for the purpose — locals said at once it would end badly. The roof was taken off by a storm soon after. The Irish Hellfire Club later took the building over; accounts of what went on inside vary, and the best-known has a card game at which one of the guests was noticed to have a hoof instead of a foot.
Newgrange
An Irish passage tomb built around 3200 BC — older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. At the winter solstice a beam of rising sun passes through a narrow opening and lights the chamber deep inside.