The Hell Fire Club, Montpelier Hill

OVERVIEW

Montpelier Hill, also called Mountpelier or Slieve Gorra, rises 383 metres at the northern edge of the Wicklow Mountains and looks out over Dublin city. On the summit are two flattened prehistoric passage tombs. Around 1725 stones from those tombs were used to build a sporting lodge for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons; a nearby standing stone was used as the lintel over the fireplace. Known over the years as The Shooting Lodge, The Kennel, Conolly's Folly, The Brass Castle and The Haunted House, it is now a roofless shell on Coillte forestry land, reached by a marked path.

HISTORY

Shortly after the lodge was finished a great storm took the original slate roof off. Local belief held that this was the Devil's revenge for disturbing the cairn. Conolly replaced it with an arched stone roof built like a bridge, which is still intact three hundred years later. After Conolly's death the building was used by the Dublin Hellfire Club, a private club of upper-class young men reported to have engaged in debauchery, occult practice and worse.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The hill and the lodge are among the most-reported haunted places in Ireland: the storm attributed to the Devil, the card game at which a stranger's cloven hoof was seen, and a large black cat associated with the club. Archaeological work on the summit has confirmed the passage tombs and the reuse of their stone — the part of the story that can be checked, and that checks out.

VISITING

Free and open. Park at the Hell Fire Club car park on the R115 and walk up through the forestry — about twenty minutes, steep in places. The ruin is unlit and unroofed; do not go up after dark without proper equipment.