Nation has real spirit...
QUESTION With Halloween almost upon us, I was wondering have there been many highprofile hauntings in Ireland, like that of Amityville, if any? IRELAND is so overrun with haunted spots that, in proportion to our size, we have more haunted places than almost any other country on earth. Amityville-style hauntings in Ireland are commonplace, really coming into their own at this time of year.
The whole of Ireland has close to 50 castles, big houses and other locations that are seriously haunted, all ideal for ghost hunters. Some of the most notorious places are Charleville Castle in Tullamore, Co. Offaly; Leap Castle, also in Co. Offaly; Duckett’s Grove castle in Co. Carlow; and Loftus Hall on the Hook Peninsula in Co. Wexford.
Charleville Castle, just outside Tullamore, is so haunted that it has often been featured on international TV shows, such as Fox’s Scariest Places on Earth.
It was built comparatively recently, in 1798, and was owned by the Bury family until 1963, when the then head of the family, Colonel Charles Howard Bury, suddenly dropped dead. In recent years, the castle has been restored and people working in it say that this work reawakened many dormant spirits.
Strange whispering voices and classical music can be heard throughout the castle, especially at night-time, while many people have also heard the sounds of children playing in a room that was once a nursery. In the early 19th century, a young girl called Harriet died whilst playing in a stairwell, and even today, her spirit can be heard in rooms around the castle. The castle was built on land that was once sacred to druids, and ghostly hooded figures are often seen stalking the grounds.
Yet another castle, Leap Castle, also has a very disturbed history. No-one is sure when it was built – possibly in the 12th century, or the 15th – but the original owners were the O’Bannon clan from Co. Tipperary. Soon after, it was captured by the local O’Carroll clan, who massacred most of the inhabitants.
The O’Carrolls were a particularly brutal lot, often dropping unsuspecting guests through a trapdoor so that they fell three metres onto spears.
In the 17th century, the castle was taken over by a Captain Darby, one of whose descendents was Mildred Darby. Not only was she was a Gothic novelist, but she held numerous seances in the castle. These had the effect of awakening dark supernatural forces that lurked within its walls. The Darby family abandoned the castle in 1922.
Duckett’s Grove castle in Co. Carlow was built in 1830, and even though this is comparatively recent, it has long been in ruins, after it was destroyed in a fire in 1930. Sometimes, organ music can be heard in the ruins, while a banshee has often reportedly been seen there. In the grounds, a ghostly fox hunt is seen from time to time, led by a ghostly member of the Duckett family, blowing his spectral hunting horn.
Loftus Hall on the Hook Peninsula in Co. Wexford is one of Ireland’s most haunted places, being visited by the devil himself. In the late 18th century, the then owner, Sir Charles Tottenham, was taking part in a card game at the big house when he heard a rap on the front door. He let in a rain- soaked stranger. A short while later, one of the women who was taking part in the game dropped her cards on the floor.
When she looked down, she saw that the stranger had bloodsoaked cloven hooves instead of feet. As soon as the devil realised he had been busted, he shot through the upper floors and out through the roof. Ever since, the hole he made in the roof has been impossible to repair and the house has remained seriously haunted.
In the Dublin area, one seriously haunted place is the Hellfire Club in the Dublin mountains, where in the late 18th century, sadistic, drunken orgies were held; the devil was supposed to have made frequent appearances.
The ruins of Leamaneh Castle in Co. Clare are haunted by the ghost of a red-haired woman, who was said to have married 25 times. She pushed most of her husbands out of a third-floor window.
All kinds of other places in Ireland are said to be haunted. Former jails, such as Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, and the old Crumlin Road prison in Belfast, are considered to be full of ghosts of inmates past. The list of seriously haunted houses and castles throughout Ireland, North and South, is so lengthy that, come Halloween, people won’t have to go far to do some serious ghost busting! Jonathan Mooney,
Co. Roscommon. QUESTION Were Cliff Richard and The Shadows the first British band to tour the US? CLIFF Richard and The Shadows were not the first band from the UK to tour the US. This honour fell to Ted Heath And His Orchestra, the UK’s great post-war big band.
Before 1956, there was an embargo on American bands playing in the UK other than at US forces bases. After an agreement was brokered between the British Musicians’ Union and the American Federation of Musicians, Ted Heath was contracted to tour the US, with Stan Kenton And His Orchestra touring Britain.
Heath’s band was part of a tour that included Nat King Cole, June Christy and The Four Freshmen, performing 43 concerts in 30 cities, across 31 days.
The climactic performance was at Carnegie Hall, New York, on May 1, 1956, and there were so many encore calls that Nat King Cole had to come on stage to ask the audience to leave. Bill Ridley, Fareham, Hants. THE first British rock ’n’ roll band to tour the US was Cliff Richard and The Shadows. Unfortunately, they did not make much of an impression. In October 1962, they appeared on TV in the popular The Ed Sullivan Show.
However, instead of singing one of their rock ’n’ roll hits, such as Living Doll or Move It, the band were persuaded to sing What D’You Know, We’ve Got A Show, a vaudeville tune from The Young Ones film. It failed to excite the US public. Cliff later acknowledged the mistake, saying: ‘If I had been a bigger star at the time, I would have said: “Look, I need to sing my new single.”’
In February 1964, 73million people tuned in to see The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, making it one of the seminal TV moments and marking the start of the British invasion, when UK pop and rock bands dominated the US charts in the mid-1960s. Dave McGann, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs.
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