One night in a haunted Irish castle: I try not to make eye contact with the taxidermy otter

Just as I notice the Welcome to Co Meath sign, a song starts playing on the car stereo. An algorithm has just plucked Dusty Springfield’s Spooky from my partner’s random playlist of liked songs.

“That is spooky,” he says.

We’re driving up to Ross Castle on a Saturday evening; the roads are quiet, and long and winding once we leave the motorway, as day slowly turns to dusk.

There’s a sudden atmospheric change as we turn on to the final narrow stretch before our destination: the sky turns grey; rain starts spitting from above and wind rustles the branches of the trees along the roadside. All that is missing is a bolt of lightning to complete the title sequence for an old horror movie, as an unsuspecting couple trundle towards a secluded country castle.

We arrive in the last moments of daylight to see the limestone walls of the towering angular castle appear all at once beyond red gates. Caretakers Jackie and Richard Moeran welcome us inside to sit by a roaring fire.

There are so many visual stimuli as you enter the castle, from a bronze bust of Michael Collins to a taxidermy otter, which I try not to make eye contact with. The otter turns out to be small fry, as we later encounter the head of a wildebeest in the library, and in the hallway the colossal bust of a giraffe which is said to have lived in Dublin Zoo.

Jackie has a background in interior design and antiques, and she has sourced the lion’s share of the exquisite Gothic furniture and design pieces, although, she says, the taxidermy aligns more with castle owner Peter Schleifenbaum’s taste than her own.

It is not, however, the preserved bodies of expired animals that has brought us to Mountnugent on this October evening, but the spirit of a human soul. Like many visitors before us – mainly from the United States, elsewhere in Ireland, and some from Europe – not content with the everyday horrors of paying bills, taking public transport in flu season, and living in a world turned upside down, we’ve come to be spooked the old-fashioned way.

Ross Castle is believed to be haunted by the lovelorn soul of a woman named Sabina. There are variations to the legend of how her restless spirit came to haunt the castle walls but, as Richard tells it, she died in her bedroom at the very top of the castle tower from a broken heart.

Sabina was the daughter of Anglo-Saxon lord Richard Nugent, who owned the castle overlooking Lough Sheelin in the 1500s, and was known as the Black Baron for his awful treatment of those he ruled over. Sabina, it is said, fell into a forbidden love affair with the son of an Irish chieftain, Orwin O’Reilly.

When Orwin was imprisoned across the lake – for what, Richard says, we can’t be sure, but one could speculate it was due to their illicit relationship – Sabina would row out to him, bringing food and water. That was until a bout of yellow fever kept her bedbound for days. Upon her recovery she went out to discover that Orwin had died in her absence, and she returned to the castle, distraught, where she too died shortly after.

A variation of the story sees the couple elope and make to escape across the lake, when a storm overturns their boat. Although Sabina is rescued, she wakes three days later to learn that Orwin has drowned. This version also results in poor Sabina plummeting into a pit of despair.

Sabina’s room is where we’ll be staying tonight.

“Don’t worry, she only appears to men,” Richard tells me, describing how a friend of his was stricken with fear in the night upon seeing her. This was something I didn’t pass on to my partner, who was obliviously scrolling on his phone downstairs by the fire, lest he leave me up here alone for the night.

Sabina’s room, like all of the bedrooms in this original part of the castle, is as authentic as you could imagine, with a mahogany canopy bed and whitewashed stone walls. The mind boggles at how a modern window could be manufactured to fit the arrowslits here, which were built for bow-and-arrow attacks.

The heating comes on in each room automatically to protect against damp, and I’m relieved that it’s nicely toasty for tonight.

Built into a cubby space on the return below Sabina’s room is the magical wizard room, for young guests, where every care has been taken not to infringe on the copyright of any beloved book and movie franchise.

Descending the spiral staircase, another bedroom is named the O’Reilly room after Myles “the Slasher” O’Reilly, who is said to have stayed at the castle the night before his death at nearby Finea, in Co Westmeath.

O’Reilly, Richard tells us, is said to have bitten through the axe of a Scotsman while fighting off British invaders. There have also been reports of his spirit residing at the castle, but one can only focus one’s worry on one ghost at a time.

After duly welcoming and scaring the bejesus out of us, our hosts bid us goodnight and we have the place to ourselves.

Jackie and Richard, who became caretakers of Ross Castle in 2015, live a short drive away, where Richard runs a farm. Shortly after they took over the reins they oversaw a large renovation project, adding the impressive Great Room to the first floor of the more modern portion of the property.

The castle was extended and modernised in the 1960s by Sir David Nugent, when plumbing, en suites and the kitchen and diningroom were added to the medieval structure. Now, the Great Room adds a spacious communal area overlooking the lake, complete with a bar, a vintage foosball table and an abundance of comfy armchairs where you can sit reading a book from the shelves lining the walls.

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Jackie used to run the castle as a B&B, but since 2020 she has rented it out in its entirety to groups. From the guest book it’s clear that it is popular for friend groups and family gatherings: one group spent “a magical” Christmas here; another enjoyed a “Traitors weekend”; and some couples celebrated their weddings in the castle.

The castle has seven beds to accommodate 14 people but it can host 17 in total, with three additional single beds available.

The cost of a stay here varies depending on the number of nights booked, the season, and whether you stay midweek or at the weekend. For example, a two-night self-catered midweek stay for 14 guests would cost €121.50 per person, per night (€1,701 in total per night). There is also a renovated farmhouse and two further cottages on the site, placing total occupancy at 31.

Jackie and Richard’s daughter Steph is a chef, and she cooks for those guests who wish to add catering to their booking, with her fare widely praised in feedback. Tonight, however, we are fending for ourselves, and we heat up the shepherd’s pie I hastily prepared earlier for our dinner.

Once the embers of the diningroom fire go out, we can put it off no longer and must retire to Sabina’s room. Trying to manoeuvre our overnight bags up the narrow spiral staircase, the familiar comforts of the modern part of the property melt away and are replaced by an eeriness.

Once the embers of the diningroom fire go out, we can put it off no longer and must retire to Sabina’s room. Trying to manoeuvre our overnight bags up the narrow spiral staircase, the familiar comforts of the modern part of the property melt away and are replaced by an eeriness.

When we turn the main lights out, leaving my bedside lamp on, I take out my copy of Shirley Jackson’s psychological horror novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle; but I find I’m not brave enough to chance scaring myself further. Instead, I scroll through reels of Japanese stationery hauls until I drift off.

Reader, we survived. I did wake a few times with slight chills even though it wasn’t cold, but that could well have been lingering cold symptoms rather than supernatural intervention. And my partner, ever rooted in this world, didn’t encounter Sabina either.

In the morning, I was relieved to descend from the tower and get a cup of tea. Standing on the balcony off the Great Room, taking in the amazing views over Lough Sheelin, I shook off any lingering dread I had been harbouring.

There is undoubtedly an energy of the past that endures here at Ross Castle; visitors can draw from that what they will. A Dutch man’s comment in the guestbook reads: “The only spirit living here is the spirit of hospitality.” I agree with him on the warm welcome, but I’m not convinced about the absence of Sabina’s spirit.

Jessica Doyle was a guest of Ross Castle