Leap Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Leap Castle, near Coolderry and Roscrea in County Offaly, is a late medieval tower house built by the O'Carrolls of Ely, for whom it was the principal seat. Its Irish name, Léim Uí Bhánáin, refers to the "Leap of the O'Bannons". The sixteenth century was marked by the bloody feuds of the lineage: in 1541, Fearganainm O'Carroll was killed, and in 1558 the family set fire to the tower itself so that it would not fall into the hands of Elizabethan troops. Acquired by the Darbys in the seventeenth century, the castle received neo-Gothic wings in the eighteenth century. Gutted by fire in 1922, it remained an empty shell before being taken over by Peter Bartlett and then, from 1991, by the traditional musician Seán Ryan, who is continuing its restoration. Its reputation as the most haunted castle in Ireland rests on tradition and on spiritualist accounts from the early twentieth century.