Leap Castle is purportedly the most haunted castle in Ireland. 

Here’s some of why. 

In the mid 1500’s, the O’Carroll’s squabbled non-stop about succession to the leadership of the clan. Squabbled is a bit light, considering they murdered each other and others with some regularity. The first ghost is said to be that of Thaddeus, Teige’s brother. Teige didn’t care much for the way Thaddeus held his mass in the Chapel, so he did him in with a knife in the back. People reported sudden flashes of light from those top windows, even when the castle was vacant and in ruin.

Thaddeus’ death was just a drop in the bloody bucket. During renovation in the 1920’s, workmen discovered truck loads of bones. The bodies had been dropped through what’s called the oubliette (the forgetting) onto spikes positioned to puncture the lungs. These deaths were not swift. There’s more, but you get the idea. 

If any castle has ghosts, Leap Castle does. And these ghosts deserve to be ticked off. I just didn’t want them to be ticked off at me. I’m only half Irish.

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? 

It wasn’t until I’d 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 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. Ghosts? Poppycock?

Next week: More of Leap’s Ghostly Tales

My first Campaign using MailChimp made me sweat as much as a submission does. Why is that? And why did it take me twenty minutes to figure out how to do it? I think it’s because my head’s not wired like a programmer’s. I need some re-wiring if I’m to tackle this social media seriously. I am not a savvy social media person. My bad. Beam me up, Scottie.

However, I did send my email with my first Special Offer to my subscribers, and several have already taken advantage of it. That’s very exciting to me because I had no idea what to expect. 

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Quote for the week:

“People who are trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off-why should I?” Bob Marley

Are you ready to tour a haunted castle? Want to be a part of my new mailing list? Did you like Bob Marley’s humor? I thought it fit the mood of today’s post.