Ireland’s scariest house (allegedly!)

This house was built in 1725 by William ‘Speaker’ Conolly as a hunting lodge for his Rathfarnham estate. It was originally known as ‘Mount Pelier House’ and has some of the finest views of Dublin. Connolly used stones from a nearby passage tomb and the superstitious locals warned Conolly that ‘no luck would come to the building’. One year after an enormous storm blew the roof off and this was attributed to the devil’s work. Conolly replaced the roof with a stronger roof and soon after he died. It was then sold to Richard Parsons who used it as a Hell Fire Club. The president of this establishment was named ‘The King of Hell’ and reputedly dressed up as Satan, with horns, wings, and cloven hooves. One of their customs was to leave the vice-chair unoccupied for the devil – in whose honor the first toast was always drunk! In 1849, its roof was covered in tar and set alight as a demonstration against the arrival of Queen Victoria in Dublin. The building has since been stripped of its fine features and has been vandalized many times.