Hellfire Club Tour – Dublin, Ireland
* http://www.hiddendublinwalks.com/ghost-tour-dublin.php
I really wanted to experience this ghost tour – but unfortunately Hidden Dublin Walks cancelled the tour sometime between me waiting at the Brazenhead and the 20 minutes it took for a representative to show up to tell me it was cancelled. So its on my list of things to do for my next visit to Dublin in 2011. For €22 the Hidden Dublin Walks will bus you out to the infamous ruins of the Hellfire Club and tell you haunted tales. They do the tour every thursday at 7 pm meeting outside the Brazenhead tavern at 20 Lower Bridge Street in Dublin. However, best to book online or make reservations for if they don’t have enough attending, they won’t do the tour. The also offer private larger group excursions upon reservation request. On the dark road to the Hellfire Club they will tell more legends and lore, ghostly tales, and stories about St Patrick’s Cathedral, Rathfarnham Castle and Kilakee House as well as the dark Dublin Mountains range that you will be entering. A walking tour through the haunted hunting lodge that dates to 1725 C.E. that is a rumored location for Satanic rites, supernatural tales, and Occult practices. The storyteller tells the tale of its history, the destruction of ancient megalithic monuments on the site, the exhumation of the demonic statue and dwarf statue as well as the presumed evil rituals, events, and black masses, rumored human and animal sacrifices, and the infamous card game called “cloven-hoofed visitor”. Travel time and tour takes about 2 and a half hours.
The Legendary Hellfire Club a.k.a. Club Thine Ifrinn is a ruin located on Montpelier Hill that stands about 383 metres high in County Dublin, Ireland. The building is an Palladian architecture designed old hunting lodge built in 1725 by William Conolly, a Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. Conolly purchased Mountpelier Hill from Philip the Duke of Wharton, the founder of the first Hellfire Club in 1719. The upper floor consists of a hall and two reception rooms, on the east side was a third timber-floored level with sleeping quarters. The Ground floor hosts a kitchen, servant’s quarters, and the stairs to the upper floors. The house had a semi-circular courtyard enclosed by a low stone wall and entered by a gate. Originally on this summit was a cairn with a prehistoric passage grave that was desecrated and used to construct the hunting lodge formerly called “Mount Pelier Lodge”. A standing stone that was on the hill was used for the lintel over the fireplace. Shortly after its completion, a storm blew off the roof, which locals blamed was the work of the Devil as punishmen for destroying the cairn/passage tomb. Conolly rebuilt the roof which remains today. Connoly died in 1729. The Connolly Family let the lodge to the Hellfire Club. Members of the Irish Hell Fire Club, an elite social group of occultists, have been said to actively used the lodge as their meeting place from 1735-1741. Rumors and local imaginations ran amiss claiming wild parties, debauchery, occult practices, human/animal sacrifices, Satanic rites, and demon manifestations took place at the location. No accounts of how much the Hellfire club actually used the estate as it was pretty remote. Many publications such as Robert Chamber’s Book of Days (1864) and the Gentleman’s Magazines (1731-1922) states there was heavy use of the estate by the Club. The lodge was damaged by fire so the members of the Hellfire Club relocated down the hill to the nearby Steward’s House which is also rumored to be haunted by a massive black cat. Today Montpelier Hill and much of the surrounding lands are owned by the State forestry company Coillte and are open to the public.
The Hellfire Clubs internationally were the name for several exclusive clubs of high society rakes that were established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century. These were related to the “Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe”. Supposedly these clubs were the meeting places of “persons of quality” who wished to take part of immoral acts. Most of the members were politicians. The very first Hellfire club was founded in London in 1719 by Philip Duke of Wharton. The Club motto went with the philosophy of “Fais ce que tu voudras” (Do what thou wilt) – a philosophy of life associated with François Rabelais’ fictional abbey at Thélème and later used by Aleister Crowley. Practices were believed to be rigorously Pagan with Bacchus and Venus as the Deities of honor who were legendarily sacrificed to while nymphs and hogsheads were laid in against he festivals of the new church. The Irish Hellfire Club was founded in 1735 by Richard Parsons, the 1st Earl of Rosse and Colonel St. Leger. The president of the club was Richard Chappell Whaley, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell and was known as “Burn Chapel” Whaley since he had the thirst for setting fires to Catholic churches. Most of their meetings took place either at the Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill near Dublin Castle or at Daly’s Club on College Green. Legend has it that the members drank “saltheen” – a mixture of whiskey and hot butter and that they left a chair vacant at each meeting for the Devil. Their mascot was supposedly a big black cat. One of the legends is of a stranger who arrived at the Club on a stormy night. He was invited in and joined the members in a card game. One player dropped his card on the floor and when he bent down under the table to retrieve the card he noticed the stranger had a cloven foot. Shortly after the visitor disappeared in a ball of flame. Another tale tells of a priest who came to the house one night and found the members engaged in the sacrifice of a black cat. Supposedly the priest grabbed the cat and uttered an exorcism upon which a demon was released from the cat’s corpse. Another tale tells of Simon Luttrell, the Lord Irnham later Earl of Carhampton and once Sheriff of Dublin has supposedly made a pact with the Devil to give up his soul within seven years in return for settling his debts, but when the Devil came to the Hellfire Club to claim his due, Luttrell distracted the Devil and fled. Luttrell is also the man referred to as “The Diaboliad” in a 1777 C.E. poem dedicated to the “Worst Man in England”. Another legend states there was a sacrifice of a dwarf on this site. The Hellfire Club was revived in 1771 and active for another 30 years and called “The Holy Fathers”. They too supposedly met at Mount Pelier Lodge. One legend has it the members kidnapped, murdered, and ate a nearby farmer’s daughter. At this time its most notorious member was Thomas Buck Whaley the son of Richard Chappell Whaley. When he passed away in 1800, the Irish Hellfire Club supposedly died with him. Supposedly in 1970 a dwarf human skeleton was found below the floor of Killakee House, another location for Hellfire Club meetings.
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