Ghost in the Castle

 

A Halloween ghost at Killyleagh Castle

From the Down Recorder, Thursday 27th October, 1977

The wind howled outside the door of Killyleagh Castle as an unearthly figure glided across the ancient hallway. The very air seemed to freeze as the figure, apparently that of a woman, floated amongst the shadows, a small phial of poison in her hand. It was the ghost of Lady Alice Moore, a seventeenth century deadly beauty, who murdered her husband to satisfy her own greed.

Henry, the second Earl of Clanbrassil had scarcely completed the rebuilding of this Anglo’Norman castle before he took the hand of Lady Alice in marriage. She was the daughter of the First Earl of Drogheda, but her marriage to Henry was a misalliance of the first degree. The couple had only had one child which died in infancy, after which Lord Clanbrassil became impotent.

Will

In the meantime Lady Alice had discovered that her father-in-law, the First Earl of Clanbrassil, had, in the event of his son dying without issue, left his entire estate to five Hamilton cousins.

Rather than accept her disinheritance, Lady Alice took the law into her own hands and hatched a deadly and dastardly plot which would take her husband to his grave.

With icy calm, she broke into the charter room of Killyleagh Castle, removed the will from its envelope and laughed blackly to herself as she burnt its contents in her bedroom.

She then forced her husband to make a will of his own, seconding the Hamilton estate to herself and her brother.

The second Earl may have been a weak man, but his mother, the Dowager Countess, was more of a match for Lady Alice.

 

Warning

Although she knew nothing of the original will’s disappearance, she distrusted her daughter-in-law and warned her son, “within three months of the day you sign that will you will lie with your father in the vault of Bangor”.

Foolishly, the Earl ignored the warning and on March 27, 1674 he did as his wife directed and signed the will.

The second Earl survived three months –- but little longer. Early in 1675 he was found poisoned and, although it could never be proved, it was believed that Lady Alice committed the cruel deed to gain the estate for herself and her brother.

So on Halloween night don’t go near Killyleagh Castle if you are of a sensitive or nervous nature.

For when the wind moans in the night, and all good souls are tucked up in bed, the ghost of Lady Alice Moore, a doomed spirit who can find no rest, may haunt the ancient hallway of the castle where she drove her husband to death.