The
Hellfire Club. Part Two.
There are numerous stories that concern the Hellfire Club and its members:
Simon Luttrell was created Baron Irnham (of Ireland)
in 1768 and Earl of Carhampton in 1785. He was a member of the Hellfire
Club in Dublin. After the usual fashion
of satirizing any unpopular character, the first Lord Irnham was introduced in
a satirical ballad, in which the Devil is represented as summoning before him
those who had the strongest claim to succeed him as King of Hell. Having
summoned amongst others Lord Lyttleton, the ballad concludes
But as he spoke there issued from the crowd
Irnham the base, the cruel, and the proud
And eagerly he cried, "I boast superior
claim
To Hell's dark throne, Irnham is my name."
He was connected to various scandals one of which
concerned a woman who may have been Dublin’s first recognised serial killer,
her name was:
Darkey Kelly.
Burned as a 'witch' 250 years ago, however,
was really a serial killer?
Darkey Kelly, whose real name was Dorcas Kelly
ran a brothel in Copper Alley, off Fishamble Street she claimed to have become
pregnant with the child of the city sheriff Simon Luttrell (Lord Carhampton),
and she demanded he support her financially. Folklore suggests that he
responded to her demands by accusing her of witchcraft and of sacrificing her
baby in a satanic ritual, the baby’s body was never found. She was found guilty
and sentenced to death. She was partially hanged and then burned at the stake
in a public execution on Baggot Street in Dublin. The date was 7th
January 1761.
However, it has now been suggested that the
real reason for her execution was murder. She was actually accused of the
murder of John Dowling, a shoemaker and those investigating the murder were to
find the bodies of five other men hidden in the brothel. Reports of rioting in
Copper Alley by prostitutes was recorded after her execution. It was because of
these murders that some suggest that she may even be Dublin’s first female
serial killer?
It has been said that in 18th
century Ireland women were second class citizens and this was reflected in the
form of execution. Men found guilty of murder were simply hanged whereas women
were first throttled then cut down and burnt alive.
In the 1780s Simon Luttrell’s son Henry, who
also had the title Lord Carhampton also hit the news. He was accused of raping
a young teenage girl in a brothel (like father, like son). The girl was
supplied to him by the brothel keeper Maria Lewellyn. By a strange twist of
fate, Lewellyn was the sister of Darkey Kelly. Henry Luttrell had the young
girl and her parents falsely imprisoned. The girl’s mother died in prison.
Luttrell’s charges against the girl and her family were later dismissed in
court.
Another aristocratic member of the Hellfire
Club was:
Lord Santry.
The Lord Santry Trial’ details the events that took place in 18th
century Dublin at the Hell Fire Club. The club had acquired the name, ‘The Devil’s
Kitchen’, and its members were called ‘bucks’. They were often the bored sons
of the aristocracy who engaged in drunken sexual orgies. One of the leading
lights of the Hell Fire Club was Lord Santry, a 29-year-old infamous
aristocrat. He caused an outrage when he stabbed a servant, Laughlin Murphy, to
death with his sword.
Following the incident, Santry simply tossed the landlord of the
tavern - where the incident occurred - a coin and implied that the whole thing
was better hushed up. However, that didn’t happen. Santry was tried for the
death of Murphy and found guilty by his peers, causing a major scandal in those
times. Santry never went to the
scaffold; he was awarded a full pardon thanks to The Duke of Devonshire, the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who had been largely responsible for petitioning
King George II on Santry’s behalf.
If Santry had gone to meet his death, it would have been a
beheading. Instead he lived to carry on his rakish life. He was attainted,
which meant he had to forgo his estate, but that was returned to him after the
pardon in 1740. A year after his pardon, Santry travelled to see George II in
person and thanked him face to face. On Lord Santry’s death his title became
extinct.
The Black Cat of Killakee.
Another story concerns a priest who stumbled across
the club’s activities late one night. The members of the club spotted him and
held him captive. What he was doing there I’ve no idea maybe he was just having
a look to see what was going on. Anyway it is said that he discovered that the
centre of attention was a huge black cat. He broke free from his captors,
grabbed the cat and said a very quick exorcism.
This is said to have torn the cat apart and from within it a demon shot
out went straight through the roof and the whole assembly ran for cover.
In the early 1960s, workmen renovating a derelict 18th-century farmhouse near the notorious Hellfire Club in Rathfarnham witnessed strange phenomena culminating in the appearance of a gigantic black cat. Artist Tom McAssey, who was helping to convert the house into an arts centre, said the temperature in the old ballroom plummeted suddenly and a locked door swung open, revealing a hideous black cat with blazing red eyes. Afterwards the house was exorcised and no sightings were reported for several years. Then in 1969, a group of actors staying at the centre held a mock séance and apparently invoked the spirits of two women who had assisted at the Hellfire Club’s satanic rituals, during which black cats were worshipped and often sacrificed. The arts centre was replaced with Killakee House, in which a portrait of the hellish cat painted by Tom McAssey glowered down upon brave diners.
Another
story tells of a young farmer, who curious to see what took place at the club
visited it one dark night. Unfortunately for him he was caught by the members
and dragged inside the building and forced to watch the night’s
activities. It was said he was found the
following morning wandering the area unable to speak. He was to remain deaf and dumb for the rest
of his days and some say he couldn’t even remember his name.
The area around the Hellfire Club
is thought by some to be one of the most haunted places in Ireland, both the
Hellfire Club and nearby Killakee House are said to be haunted by the ghost of a
young male dwarf who was brutally murdered in the Eighteenth century during a
ritual at the club. There was a suggestion that he was sacrificed to satan. In
1971 the body of a dwarf was found buried under the kitchen of Killakee House,
it was reported that he was found buried with a statue of the devil.
One of the most famous stories
told concerns a stranger who called at the club on a stormy night. He was
invited in and seeing a poker game in play he asked if he could join in. All
was going well until one of the card players dropped a card onto the floor,
bending down to pick it up he saw that the stranger had a cloven hoof instead
of a foot and confronted the strange visitor.
Letting out a shout he was said to have disappeared through the ceiling
in a ball of flame. There is a very
similar story told concerning a card game played at Loftus Hall in County
Wexford but it’s not really surprising as the Killakee estate was owned by the
Loftus family at one point and they kept a hunting lodge there known as Dolly
Mount.
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