Irish Ghost Tales (4 page)

Remember Robert Porter, the young man who helped Kate Walker carry the box down to the bridge? Well, he was also an avid reader of gruesome murder stories in the newspapers. He mentioned to his father, Henry Porter, that the box described in the ‘Barnes Mystery' was the same box that he had helped Kate Webster with, the one he heard drop into the Thames. At the same time the general dealer that had bought the contents of No. 2 Vine Cottages was looking through its contents and came across a dress that had in one of the pockets a letter addressed to a Mr Menhennick, an acquaintance of the real Mrs Thomas. The dealer became suspicious and so he and Mr Porter paid Mr Menhennick a visit. After discussing the various coincidences they came to the conclusion that the body in the box may well be Mrs Thomas.

They went to the police and, after explaining their suspicions, the police were sufficiently convinced to carry out a search of No. 2 Vine Cottages. They found an axe and a large copper tub containing fatty acids, which suggested that Mrs Thomas had been battered to death, chopped into pieces and then boiled down. Anything that was left went into the box and the Gladstone bag. An arrest warrant was issued and before long Kate Webster was apprehended, taken to Richmond police station and charged with murder. Of course she denied it. She even went as far as to accuse Henry Porter and the general dealer (Mr John Church) of the crime, but her accusations were ignored.

She was tried at the Old Bailey on 8 July 1879. The police officer in charge of the case, Detective Inspector David Bolton, outlined the events as he found them to the coroner. ‘Realising she had injured her,' he said, ‘she proceeded to strangle her to stop her from screaming and getting her in trouble. Webster decided to do away with the body and used a razor to chop off the head. Having decapitated her, she used a razor, a meat saw and a carving knife to cut the body up. The dismembered body was put into a copper laundry vessel and she proceeded to boil up the body parts of Thomas.'

Kate Walker was found guilty of the murder of Julia Martha Thomas. She was hanged by William Marwood on 29 July 1879 at Wandsworth Prison. She was the only woman to ever be hanged there. It is reported that her last words were, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me.'

There is one last twist to the story. After the execution the Victorian commentator Mr Henry Mayhew met a boy who knew Kate Webster. A few days after she had murdered Mrs Thomas she had offered the boy and some of his friends a free meal with these words: ‘'Ere you lot, I've some lovely pig's lard 'ere. You kids can have it free of charge. Don't go saying that Kate Webster never gives you nothing.'

He said she then gave them two big bowls of lard and hunks of bread.

‘Eat it all up now, me dears. It's awful good for you. And when you've finished lick the bowls and sell them. You'll get a copper or two for them.'

More than a century after the murder the West London Coroner Alison Thompson formally acknowledged the skull found as that of Julia Martha Thomas. Police were able to provide conclusive evidence proving that the skull was that of the victim. Julia Martha Thomas and the ‘Barnes Mystery' case can now be laid to rest.

S
tanding on an enormous throne of solid rock, Leap Castle was once the stronghold of the warlike O'Carrolls and its eventful history is mostly written in their blood. In the sixteenth century, O'Carroll of the Leap held a lavish banquet at his family fortress and invited a rural branch of his own clan to partake of his hospitality. No sooner had the unfortunate guests sat down to dinner than he massacred every one of them. Inter-clan bloodshed was a common occurrence and members of the tribe attended family get-togethers or reunions at their peril! Following the death of Mulrooney O'Carroll in 1532, a bitter dispute over succession arose. As siblings battled each other for leadership of the clan, ‘one-eyed' Teige O'Carroll is said to have slain his own brother, who was a priest, as he celebrated Mass in ‘The Bloody Chapel' of the castle.

However, the days of O'Carroll occupancy were drawing to a close and they were about to lose possession of the castle in a suitably bloodthirsty manner. In the seventeenth century, a daughter of the clan fell in love with an English soldier named Captain Darby, who was being held prisoner in the castle dungeons. She smuggled food to him and eventually engineered his escape. As they were making their way down the staircase, her brother suddenly confronted them. The captain silenced him with a single sword thrust. Since his lover then became the heiress to Leap Castle, it passed into the ownership of the captain's family when the two were married.

The last of the family to own Leap Castle was Jonathan Charles Darby, who arrived here on 16 July 1880. In 1909, his wife Mildred wrote an article for the
Occult Review
describing how she had held several séances at the castle, during which she had attracted the unwelcome attentions of an elemental – a primitive and malevolent force that attaches itself to a particular place. This is Mildred Darby's account: ‘I was standing in the gallery looking down at the main floor, when I felt somebody put a hand on my shoulder. The thing was the size of a sheep. Thin, gaunt and shadowy, its eyes, which seemed half decomposed in black cavities, stared into mine. The horrible smell gave me a deadly nausea. It was the smell of a decomposing corpse.' Mildred's occult dabbling also appears to have awoken other malevolent forces within the walls of Leap Castle and it was at this time that its fearsome reputation became firmly established. Elementals, such as the one Mildred Darby claims to have seen, are thought to be terrifying and unpredictable.

The Darbys remained at Leap until 1922. Being the home of an English family, it became the target of those struggling for Irish independence. Destroyed by bombs and completely looted, nothing but a burnt-out shell remained. The Darbys were driven out.

Following its destruction by fire in 1922, workmen who had commenced gutting the interior discovered an oubliette, a small dungeon whose name derives from the French
oublier,
meaning ‘forget', behind a wall of the bloody chapel. This room had a drop floor and prisoners were pushed into the room, whereupon they fell to their deaths – either impaled on a spike below or, if they were unfortunate enough to miss the spike and die a quick death, they slowly starved in the midst of rotting, putrid corpses. One theory is that some of the remains were those of Scots mercenaries hired by O'Carroll, who had them murdered when it came time for payment. Mysteriously, among the bones, workmen also found a pocket watch made in the 1840s. Could the dungeon still have been in use back then? No one will ever know.

Over the next seventy years, it remained an empty shell, its fearsome reputation ensuring that the locals shunned it, particularly at night when all manner of ghostly beings were known to stir within its moss-clad walls. From across the fields people would watch the window of the ‘Bloody Chapel' suddenly light up, as though hundreds of flickering candles were blazing within. Some who dared walk amongst the ruins experienced alarming encounters with a lustrous lady wearing a billowing red gown. The castle has since been restored to its former glory and is now a family home. Do the spirits still wander through the house? Well, you'll have to ask the present occupants.

H
owth Castle is located near the village of Howth in Fingal, Dublin. Built in the mid-fifteenth century, it has had a long and interesting history. There are a number of stories told about the castle that may or may not be true. However, they do make for interesting reading.

It is said that in the sixteenth century, when Grace O'Malley was returning from a visit to Queen Elizabeth I, she landed at Howth harbour. Grace headed to the castle, intending to dine with Lord Howth and re-stock her ship in preparation for her voyage back to County Mayo. However, when she arrived she found the gates locked, which was a clear breach of the rules of Irish hospitality. She was outraged.

The story goes that the young heir to Lord Howth was down at the seashore with his nurse, looking at her ship, and Grace was so angry at the insult dealt to her by his father that she ordered the child to be taken and put aboard her ship. The boy was taken to her castle in Clew Bay, County Mayo. Negotiations took place. Lord Howth insisted that no insult to her was intended. He told her that it was customary for the gates to be locked when the family were at dinner.

She refused to release the child back to his father until an agreement had been reached that in the future when the family went to dinner the castle gates would be left open and an extra place would be laid at the table, in accordance with the rules of Irish hospitality. Lord Howth agreed and the custom was strictly observed until his death. There is a painting of the abduction of the young heir of the House of St Laurence hanging in one of the state apartments of the castle.

There is a painting in the drawing room of the castle that is linked to another story. The painting is of a beautiful young woman. On the back of the frame there is an unsigned, undated note. It tells us that at one time there was a black ribbon around the wrist of the young woman that was accidently removed when the picture was being cleaned.

The woman in the portrait is Nicola Hamilton, who was born in 1667. As a young girl it is said that she made an agreement with John Le Poer, Earl of Tyrone, that whoever died first would return from the dead and appear to the other. Le Poer was the first to die and it is said that he appeared to her one night and told her about her future.

He told her that her husband, Sir Tristram Berisford, would soon die and that her son would grow up and eventually marry an heiress. He also told her the time of her own death. It would be in her forty-seventh year. All these predictions are said to have come to pass. To convince her that he had really appeared to her in the flesh, so to speak, he grabbed her wrist and his touch left a permanent scar. The black ribbon was worn to conceal this scar.

The White Rat of Howth appears when evil threatens the House of St Laurence or so the story goes. Folklore tells us that its first appearance was around the seventeenth century, when it appeared to Lord Howth.

One stormy winter night, a ship was seen to be in great difficulty in Howth Bay. The storm was so bad that the ship was dashed against the rocks. Those watching from the shore could do nothing to save her and she was smashed to pieces. It was thought that no one could possibly survive but early next morning a young woman was found washed up on the shore, still clinging to a piece of the ship's wreckage. She was brought to nearby Howth Castle but she was not expected to live.

When Lord Howth heard that a survivor of the wreck had been found, he went to the room where she was being cared for to see her himself. He was immediately struck by her beauty and ordered that she must get every assistance to help her recover. Once she had recovered from her terrible ordeal, he begged her to remain with him in the castle and to this she agreed. He became infatuated with her and believed he was madly in love. He pleaded with her to marry him over and over again but over and over again she refused. She begged him to find another, someone more suited to his position.

Eventually he became frustrated and, realising he would never get her to agree to marry him, he decided to find another to marry. His Bride was from a noble family and well suited to his position. The young woman told him that it was now time for her to leave. She gave him a ribbon that had strange symbols on it and asked him to wear it at all times on his wrist in memory of her and their time together. The following day she left Howth Castle, never to be seen again.

His new bride was extremely interested in the ribbon he wore all the time, especially when she found out it was a gift from someone she considered a rival. One night when he was fast asleep she carefully untied the ribbon and removed it from his wrist. Later she said that she had only taken it over to the fire to look at it but for some reason it was sucked into the flames and immediately burnt. Lord Howth was not amused and it is said that he predicted ill fortune would be the result.

A few nights later Lord Howth had invited a number of friends to a feast in the Great Hall when all of a sudden the castle hounds chased a large rat into the dining area. The rat leapt up onto the table right in front of Lord Howth. It looked at Lord Howth and seemed to be begging him to save its life. Lord Howth ordered the hounds away and rescued the rat, who accompanied him everywhere thereafter, much to everyone's amazement. Needless to say, his wife was not a happy lady. The rat followed them everywhere and would not even stay behind when they were visiting.