by Hans Holzer
“Then one night he was aroused by the sound of many voices outside the castle gates. Jumping up, he was left under no illusions that a raid was in progress. About fifty or sixty men with blackened faces stormed the gates, and attacked the tower. Lady Margaret then arrived and flung herself in front of the captain, saying he would be killed if he ventured outside. Meanwhile, the sentry on the door to the cellar rushed, bleeding from stab wounds, up to his comrades on the first floor of the tower. He told them that his two fellow sentries lay dead outside, and that the mob had disarmed him. As the other Danes had only one musket between them and little ammunition—another bone of contention between Heitman and Lady Margaret—they retreated to the top room of the tower and were spectators to the scene of the twelve chests of silver being loaded on farm carts. Then the shouting stopped and the carts vanished into the night.
“However, within three days, Sir Edward Denny, the governor of Tralee, had nine men in Tralee gaol. One of the Danes had spotted a nephew of Lady Margaret’s in the mob, and it soon became apparent that the whole robbery was planned by friends of the Crosbies. In the dispositions taken before the several trials, a number of the accused stated that four chests of the silver had been laid aside for Lady Margaret. These were never recovered. Lady Margaret denied knowing anything about the affair and the Danes recovered only £5,000 out of a total of £20,000 in silver. Some of the raiders fled across the Shannon to Clare, others left for France in a fishing boat loaded with silver, while the majority simply went to earth and said nothing.
“Two Crosbies, relatives of Lady Margaret, were tried in Dublin and acquitted, but a third man, named Cantillon, a tenant of the castle Crosbies, was found guilty. One man hanged himself in Tralee gaol and another, who turned state’s evidence, was found dead in his lodgings in Dublin. It was said he was poisoned, although the castle put it out that he died of typhoid and drinking too much. And the local tradition handed down the story that most of the gentry of north Kerry were involved. The castle at Ballyheigue was owned by the Cantillons, ancestors of the man found guilty, before the Crosbies arrived in Kerry. They were originally de Cantillons, who came to Ireland with the Norman invaders.
“Pieces of Danish china still exist locally, and in the cellars of Ballyheigue Castle lie some bottles with Danish crests, but of the missing silver there is still no trace. Some of the accused said it was buried in the orchard there, others that it was buried in an orchard three miles away near Banna Strand, and still others that it was buried behind Ballysheen House. If you enquire today in Ballyheigue, you will surely find someone who will tell you that he knows where it is buried, that he and his forefathers were afraid to dig it up, and maybe he might let you into the secret!
“The Danes are naturally still interested. It would make great copy if the ‘ghost’ photo was of one of the Danish sailors, and besides there is the lost treasure in silver. Long ago in the time of King Brian Boru, Viking ships of Norsemen and Danes raided Ireland, established the cities of Dublin, Wexford and Waterford, and brought loot back to Scandinavia. It was probably a simple matter for those envious of the Danish silver to persuade the local farmers that the presence of Danish silver in Ballyheigue Castle was a chance to reverse the flow of loot, and besides there was the landlord’s wife, who lost her husband saving the shipwrecked Danes. However, the affair of the ghost picture has a more interesting history.
“All these historical details were new to me, and I found it highly interesting to read that swordsmen did indeed flash their swords in the castle. What was almost fantastic, however, was a little detail that almost escaped my notice. Remember, I said I had come on vacation to Ballyheigue in June. I arrived on June 1st. The second week was wild and rainy and it was not possible to take any color pictures in that week. The first week, however, was heat wave weather, with sunshine for 15 hours every day. It was after the weekend of 1st/2nd of June that I began to take the second roll of color film, and I am reasonably certain that the ‘ghost’ picture was taken on the 4th or 5th of June. Now, the record states that the Danish Silver Raid took place at midnight on June 4, 1731! Coincidence? Or do swords flash in Ballyheigue Castle on every June 4th when three Danish sailors died?
“You may bet I will be there next June 4th, with camera at the ready. Do I believe in this ghost? Well, it’s a good excuse for visiting that charming spot again. Will I be afraid, while waiting there till midnight? Not on your life. I won’t be alone, but somehow I don’t believe we will see anything at night. The ‘ghost’ photo was taken in mid-afternoon with the sun slanting through the window from the west. Possibly, what I photographed was an imprint on the wall. But then again, the Danes were there, they were probably wearing seaboots, and there was swordplay there on the 4th of June.”
* * *
So much for Captain O’Donnell’s experience. The irony of losing his negative can be appreciated—for I too guard my psychic photographs, such as those of the ghostly monks at Winchester Cathedral, England, as if they were treasures, which in a way they are.
I made inquiries about the author of the article and was assured his integrity was the highest. As an officer he was not given to imagining things.
We had been visiting Listowel and decided to continue on to Ballyheigue. On the map it seemed an easy hour’s ride, but it was almost sundown by the time we rounded the last hill and saw the sparkling sea before us.
Quickly passing through the village, we drove up to the gate of the castle. There was an old gatekeeper in a tiny house nearby and we had no trouble convincing her that we meant the castle no harm. We opened the old gate ourselves and then the car drove up the winding driveway towards the gray castle, the ruins of which loomed large over the landscape. The gentle slopes reaching from its ramparts to the sandy shore were covered by meadowland, which was moist, as so much of Ireland is. On the land were perhaps two dozen cows and many more mementos of their presence.
We avoided the cows and parked the car close to the castle walls. Then I started to film the scene, while our driver ate a belated luncheon. The cows did not seem to bother him.
The castle looked eerie even in the daytime, with its windows staring out into the country like the eyes of a blind man. Inside, the walking was hazardous, for wet soil had long filled in the rooms. The fire that had devoured the castle in 1921 had left nothing of the interior standing, and the totally gutted heart of the once proud house now looked like an ancient Roman ruin. We walked about the many rooms, and Sybil tried to pick up impressions. Naturally, she knew nothing whatever about the place.
Ultimately, we followed her into one of the first-floor rooms looking out to the sea—a room whence one could have easily observed the ships and all that came and went. Here she stopped and listened, as if from within. Her psychic voice was giving her directions and we waited quietly for her words.
“Sybil, what do you think happened here?” I decided to break the silence.
“Whatever happened here,” she replied hesitatingly, “certainly happened at a much lower level than the one we’re on. I have a feeling that there is an underground passage connected with the sea.”
She did not, of course, know about the Danish sailors and how the silver was hidden.
“I don’t think I’m going back more than 150 years,” she added, “although I know there are influences here going back three hundred years.”
I urged her on, as she hesitated.
“This passage leading to the sea, Sybil—who came through it?” I asked.
“The name I have in mind is Donald,” she replied. “I have a feeling of three young men, possibly sons, connected with the house, but Donald was not. The house was a large family house, but the people who came through the passage were travellers...seafaring folk.”
Again I thought, how would Sybil know, consciously, of the Danish sailors coming here for refuge? She could not know this.
“Were they of local origin?” I asked.
“Foreign,” she shot back, “probably
coming from France. Lots of coming and going here.”
“Why had these men come to the house?”
“Some connection with food,” Sybil replied, not at all sure of her impression now, “food or something for the table.”
“Any tragedy here?”
“Not those coming from France but the people living in the house.”
“What happened?”
“There is the influence of a woman, the name is, I think, Emily, but the woman is connected with the house. The tragedy is through the woman. At first I had only the feeling of a man here, but now the woman is very strong.”
“A man?”
“Men,” Sybil corrected herself, and added: “The name Glen comes to me. The man’s fate in the house...something to do with the food. Could it be poison? He was eating, when something happened.”
One should realize at this point that Sybil had said several things that were pretty close to the true facts. Sir Thomas Crosbie, owner of the castle, was poisoned shortly after the Danish wreck had been salvaged. Was Lady Margaret as guilty of this sudden death as of the “raid” on the Danish silver staged later on?
Also, the raiders eventually fled to France by boat. Had Sybil felt this event somehow? But I wanted to hear more of what my psychic friend had to say here in the ruined drawing roofs of Ballyheigue Castle.
“I have a feeling of a man going down the passage. I think he was drowned because he disappears in the sea.”
“Any fighting here?” I asked.
“I don’t feel it now,” Sybil said. “The woman is not constant to this house; she comes or goes away. The conflict is between the sea and the house. I think it could be a family feud. There is something else but I am not getting it as clearly as I am getting a foreign influence here.”
“Other than French?”
“Also, there is a Northern influence. Many foreign visitors. Beyond Scotland, Sweden. Fair men, Nordic influence. Two periods.”
Sybil, of course, knew nothing about the Danish sailors.
Who was Emily? Who was Donald?
Did Captain O’Donnell indeed photograph the Danish silver raid, when the Danish sailors died defending their property in Ballyheigue castle?
Not having examined the photograph, I cannot attest to its genuineness, but I have taken similar pictures elsewhere and know it can be done. Thus I have no reason to doubt the story so movingly told by the Captain.
The silver may still lie somewhere underneath the crumbled walls of the castle. The Danes, as we know, only managed to get a fourth of their treasure out of there in the long run. And there may well be an eighteenth-century swordsman defending it now as of yore.
It really does not matter. When you stand at the empty windows of Ballyheigue Castle and look out into the bay towards Kerry Head as the sun slowly settles behind the water line, you can well believe that the place is haunted.
As we rode back towards County Clare, it became chilly and the moisture in the air came down as light rain.
Nobody spoke much.
At one point, we almost took a wrong turn in the road, perhaps due to the darkness now settling around us, or perhaps we were all a bit tired.
Ballyheigue Castle had disappeared into the night by now and the Danish silver was safe once more.
* 82
Haunted Kilkea Castle, Kildare
FROM A DISTANCE, Kilkea Castle looks the very image of an Irish castle. Turreted, gray, proud, sticking up from the landscape with narrow and tall windows which give it a massive and fortified appearance, Kilkea Castle is nevertheless one of the most comfortable tourist hotels in present-day Ireland. Anyone may go there simply by making a reservation with the genial host, Dr. William Cade.
The castle is about an hour and a half by car from Dublin, in the middle of fertile farmlands. There are beautiful walks all around it, and the grounds are filled with brooks, old trees, and meadows—the latter populated by a fairly large number of cows.
Kilkea was built in 1180 by an Anglo-Norman knight named Sir Walter de Riddleford, and it is said to be the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland, although I have seen this claim put forward in regard to several places. Let there be no mistake: the inside has been modified and very little of the original castle remains. But the haunting is still there.
The castle has four floors, not counting cellars and roof. The rooms are of varying sizes and kinds. The haunted area is actually what must have been the servants’ quarters at one time, and it is reached through a narrow passage in the northern section of the castle. The room itself is just large enough for one person, and if you should want to sleep in it, you had better make a reservation way ahead of time. All you need to do is ask Dr. Cade for the haunted room. He will understand.
The story of the haunting goes back to the early Middle Ages. Apparently one of the beautiful daughters of an early owner fell in love with a stableboy. Her proud father disapproved and threatened to kill them both if they continued their association. One night, the father found the young man in his daughter’s room. In the struggle that followed the man was killed, but we are not told whether the woman was killed or not. But it is the man’s ghost who apparently still roams the corridors, trying to get his sweetheart back.
In the course of rebuilding, this room became part of the servants’ quarters. A number of people have reported uncanny feelings in the area. The owner of Kilkea himself, though skeptical, has admitted to witnessing doors opening by themselves for no apparent reason.
Locally, the so-called Wizard Earl is blamed for the happenings at Kilkea Castle, and there is even a legend about him. Apparently to please his lady fair, the earl transformed himself into a bird and sat on her shoulder. But he had not counted on the presence of the castle cat, who jumped up and ate the bird. The legend continues that the earl and his companions still ride at night and will eventually return from the beyond to “put things right in Ireland”—if that is necessary. The legend does not say what happened to the cat.
Kilkea Castle has its own resident ghost.
* 83
The Ghosts at Skryne Castle
ONE FINE DAY we started out from Dublin aboard one of the Murray cars one rents in Ireland if one doesn’t have a car of one’s own, and as luck would have it, we had a most pleasant and intelligent driver by the name of Guy Crodder, who understood immediately what we were after.
Passing the airport, we started to look for Mara Castle, a ruin James Reynolds had briefly mentioned in his Irish ghost books as being suspect from the ghost-hunting point of view. The suburban town of Newton-Swords was interesting and charming, but nobody there knew of Mara Castle. Since our schedule for the day was heavy, I decided to go farther north. We took some of the quiet back roads, but our driver had a good sense of direction, and by high noon we had arrived at our first destination.
County Meath is much less forbidding than the West of Ireland we had recently left, and the nearness of the river Boyne gave the land an almost Southern charm. Before us rose majestically the high tower of a ruined church, built in the fourteenth century and dedicated to St. Colmcille, one of Ireland’s three most sacred saints. The tower, sixty feet high on a hill of about five hundred feet elevation, dominates the landscape. But it was not this once-magnificent church we were seeking out. The much smaller castle of Skryne or Screen, at the foot of the hill, was our goal.
What had brought me here was a brief story in James Reynolds’ More Ghosts in Irish Houses, published in 1956. He tells of this castle, smallish as castles go, set back of the river Boyne woodlands, not far from Tara, which he visited when it was owned by a relative of the Palmerston family which had long owned the house.
According to Reynolds, the tragedy that led to the haunting at Skryne happened in 1740. At that time the occupants of the house were one Sir Bromley Casway, and his ward, a beautiful young girl by the name of Lilith Palmerston. Lilith had led a sheltered life here and in Dublin, and had had little contact with the world of society or men. During her l
ong stay at Skryne, she met a country squire named Phelim Sellers whose house stood not far from Skryne and whose wife had died mysteriously, possibly as the result of a beating administered by the brutish man.
Lilith Palmerston instantly disliked the neighbor. He in turn became a frequent visitor at Skryne Castle, playing cards with her elderly guardian, but always having an eye for her. On one occasion, Reynolds tells us, Sellers attacked her but was thwarted in his design by the gardener. Now Lilith asked that they return to Dublin to escape the unwanted attentions of this man. Her guardian agreed and all was in readiness for their journey down to the city. The last night before their planned departure, Sellers got wind of Lilith’s plans, broke into her room and murdered her. Later caught, he was hanged at Galway City.
A number of persons living at the castle have heard shrieks in the night, and seen a woman in white clutching at her throat run out of the house.
Sellers had killed Lilith by forcing foxglove fronds down her throat, thus strangling her.
So much for Reynolds’ vivid account of the tragedy at Skryne Castle.
I had not announced our coming, but we were fortunate in that the castle was open. It so happened that the owners were tossing a wedding breakfast for someone in the area; thus the house was bustling with servants. It was even more fortunate that only the downstairs part of the old house was being used for the festivities, leaving us free to roam the upper stories at will.