Malahide Castle
Malahide Castle is located in Malahide, Ireland, and was the fortress of the Talbot family from 1185 to 1973. The town of Malahide is northeast of Dublin, and its translation literally means, “on the brow of the sea.” Lord Richard Talbot first came to the area around the year 1170 from Shrewsbury, England. The earliest section of the castle was constructed around 1185, and the structure was added onto by each of the generations of Lord Talbots that came into power. The castle served as the home for the Talbots and their servants for almost eight centuries, with the exception of a period in the 17th century when Miles Corbet was granted the property.
The most famous servant the Talbots ever had was named Puck. Puck was a four foot tall bearded man who served the Talbots in the first half of the 16th century. He lived in one of the castle’s turrets and kept watch for any attackers on the castle. Puck was very reclusive, but also a loyal worker to the Talbot family. His quarters were always said to be clean, and when the other servants left food for him outside his door, the next morning the empty plates would be there. There are two legends as to how Puck met his fate. One story is that he hung himself in the Minstrel’s Gallery for no reason.
The other story says that Puck was in love with a relative of Lady Lenora Fitzgerald. This fact angered some in the court of Lady Fitzgerald, and Puck was stabbed in the heart outside of the castle. Regardless of which way Puck died, we know that his ghost has been seen haunting the castle ever since his death. An apparition of a small man has been seen looking out from the old turret window, and walking outside and on the staircase. In 1976, a man saw the ghost of Puck in the Great Hall staring at him from the staircase as he was preparing for an auction.
The carved chimney piece in the Oak Room has also been shrouded in mystery. The sculpture displays the ascent of the Virgin Mary. According to this legend, the years that Corbet ruled the castle, the image of Mary had disappeared. When the Talbots returned to the castle, the image of Mary suddenly came back to its old form. Malahide Castle also has their own White Lady. This White Lady is believed to be the spirit of the anonymous woman depicted in the portrait that is hanging in the Great Hall. People believe that at times, she leaves the portrait and walks the grounds.
(Source: Belanger, Jeff. Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. 2005.)
On June 16, 2009, my family and I visited the castle and went on the last tour of the day. The guides were closing up behind us as we entered the last room on the tour, which is the dining room. After listening to the audio guide, we went into the attached library room. I was one of the first to walk back into the dining room and wondered to myself where the exit was. Just as I thought this, a door at the far end of the room opened slowly and seemingly of its own accord. A few of us looked at each other in surprise. We tried to go through only to find the room on the other side in complete darkness. At that point, the guide came back to direct us out another door. When we told her what we’d seen, she expressed some wariness and hurried us out the door. After doing some research, it seems that the door that opened was the one next to Puck’s room.
I went to Malahide with my wife in August of 2008. There were a small number of individuals in the group. We took a tour and my wife and I ventured into the upstairs rooms. In the Queen’s bedroom – we both felt a pleasant vibe, in the children’s bedroom, a sense of playfulness, and when we entered the King’s room, there was a total sense of something not wanting us to be in there. I’m not kidding. We both went from happy to kind of an erie sense. The funny thing is we didn’t know we both felt like that until we were talking later on.
We asked if we could have a cab called at the end of the tour and they said no problem. However, we stepped outside to look around the premesis. We realized the doors were shut. I walked up and began knocking loud using the brass door knob for a couple of minutes. Nobody answered but I had a strong sense of someone staring down at me. We got the heck out of there and walked through the woods as fast as we could.
I will never go back there again after seeing it once. It just seems that there’s a lot going on there that can’t be explained – spookey.