The headless horseman is a very ancient tale of Ireland, stretching back to the days before Christ came with St Patrick, when a dark king used to sacrifice people to old black one-eye, Crom Cruach, by decapitation. That very same Crom Dubh, the worm
Read more…It was the year 1280 in Kyteler's House in Kilkenny that Dame Alice Kyteler was born to a family of good prospects, a family of Flemish merchants who had settled in Kilke
Read more…The old house in Coonen is much spoken of even today, its dark legend stretching back into the mists of time. Some say it is a ghost living there, others say a devil, but rumours go back further into the darkness of elder years, to the old gods of I
Read more…High on a windswept slope in the Wicklow mountains near the summit of Mount Pelier, with a commanding view overlooking Dublin city, lies the burnt and blackened shell of a sinister old hunting lodge, now called the Hellfire Club, and well named it w
Read more…If Dublin is the capital city of Ireland, County Clare is its dark reflection on the other side of the country, a place where many of the shadowy tales and unsolved mysteries of bygone years eventually seem t
Read more…The old tales call Carman or Carmun as the Celtic goddess of evil magic.
She prowls around with her three equally evil sons Dub (“darkness” in Irish), Dother (“evil”), and Dain (“violence”), and their mission is always to cause destruction and devas
Read more…The Leanan sidhe was well-known among the people of Ireland as a beautiful, yet dangerous, “Fairy Woman”. The appearance of the Leanan sidhe caused fear in towns and villages because the young men who were chosen as the lovers of the unearthly tempt
Read more…Common across Europe and not just Ireland, these are fairy babies that have taken the place of a human baby. But sometimes, changelings can take the place of adults, too. The most notorious Irish changeling story happened in 1895, when a man named Mi
The Pooka, or in Irish Puca, (goblin) is a phantom fairy creature that features in Celtic folklore and fairytales of Ireland.
A similar fairy entity appears in the mythology of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Channel Islands, and Brittany. Often thought
Read more…Of all the Irish fairies, the evil leprechaun, with his hot-temper and spiteful trickery, is probably the best-known internationally, closely followed by the Banshee.
Unlike the screamer, who no one in their right mind wants to encounter, 'the litt
Pictured typically as an old witch, a banshee was considered to be a harbinger of death and doom.
She is known in Ireland by many names: Hag of the Mist, Little Washerwoman and Hag of the Black Head among others.
She was a fairy woman, a spirit link
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