loftus hall

I was passing by there today the plac on the wall has been took down for some strange reason.
The gardens have all been done too theres no more grass.

6th wrote:

Sounds like its gonna be developed ... must put the feelers out.

Indeed!! It would be sweet if we could get a group down there.

bloodcanticle wrote:

me & my friends went in there last week to make a video, we took lotsa great pictures, when i do up my website i'll put up a link if anyone wants to see them? the videos will be on youtube once we've edited them!

I actually heard about that, any chance we could get a look at the vids/pics?

Okay, allow me to clear some things up about the Hall.

First off, there is indeed someone living there. Furthermore the hall is actually listed, under a Mrs Devereux, in the phonebook (at least up to a few years back when I was researching the place). The phone does ring, but nobody answers...

Secondly, there is definitely electricity in the main building. I have been down there and I have seen lights on (in the daytime, suggesting they were automatic perhaps).

Finally, the urban legend of the devil playing cards was, according the accounts written in the 19th century, a cover story actually invented by the Tottenham family themselves. Apparently young Ann, a lonely sort you see, became so smitten with a young man who took up a brief residence in the original hall, that she descended into some sort of unseemly madness once the young man departed. The family apparently saw fit to then present a cover story - however silly it sounds - to draw attention away from the unfortunate Ann's lustful loopiness!

Or so the story goes.

The point most people seem to miss is that the devil and the card game story is NOT the haunting that is associated with the place (as the silly RTE docudrama suggested) but rather the real story was the haunting of the hall by Ann Tottenham herself.

As to the validity of the stories, well, who can say. But there is some interesting accounts written of the alleged haunting that do detail with some intelligence a catalogue of apparent eye witness testimony to strange goings on in the hall.

Yes, it has now been re-built. And few stories, if any, seem to have emerged from the new building. I have yet to track down any interesting sources on this front, but they may be out there.

I heard a few years back that the hall was going to be developed for tourist purposes but that has now fallen by the wayside I fear (perhaps something to do with the fact that the grisly child-rapist, Father Fortune, had attacked some of his victims in the hall in the 1980's in a sleepover).

One thing is for sure, if you visit Hook Head and enquire in the lighthouse info point about the hall, you will immediately be given a frostier reception than if you were to suggest you have a bomb strapped around you waist!

The locals, for reasons perhaps best know to themselves, do not like to talk about it...

A few of us went up there last year , absolutely **** meself it was about 11 at night and we parked down the road because we knew we were tresspassing so we went in through fields and over a hedge and up next to it . It was the most eery experience i have felt in my life anyhow we were only there about 10 mins when the gates on the front swung open and a car approached at speed up the drive , We fckin legged it lol .. I was absolutely ****tin it now felt like a 10 year old again.. This place has a light on but has a caretaker watching it accross the road . I am 100% sure there is nobody inside as why would they chain the fckin gate lol... Is she a prisoner .. This man warned us anyhow that he would call the gardai if we did not leave .. At this stage im thinkin thats great we have got at least 40 mins b4 they arrive down that far Lol .. Anyhow i understood we were tresspassin and did not argue and just left

But for anyone who wants to get an adreniline buzz go down in pitch dark and have a look around it will frighten the **** out of u no matter how hard u think u are .. An amazing structure which would be ideal for murder mystery weekends or Haunted Weekends away .. Its a pity it is not open for viewing anymore as it is an amazingly interesting buliding

U can see it clearly from Dunmore in Co Waterford , I always point it out no matter who i am with

lesbehan wrote:

Has anyone ever seen dogs around the back of loftus hall or even hear barking from them????

That could have been my missus and her mate to be honest ...:D

Isn't the story that the daughter was pregnant, out of wedlock, they killed her, told the father she had ledt and disposed of the body in a secret room. and she haunts the house, crying and moaning etc to this day, scereams etc are meant to be heard?

and I have heard other people mention the dogs at loftus hall. think they are connected to aNN.

The devil bit is bs.

The old lady living there is tormented by the ghost of Ann. THink they found the skeletons of mother and child, and buried them, but the house would still have a lot of residual negative energy.

Last I heard the old lady is scared to death, but can't leave. effectively a prisoner as the haunting follows her and drives away anyone who gets close to her

maisymarshall wrote: »

Guess what? My name is Linda Devereux. I'm related by marriage to the late Michael Devereux who was my late father in law's brother Thomas Devereux. My husbands father. Any info wold be appreciated I have never been to Loftus Hall but my husband has many years ago.

Well, I can't really offer you any recent info I'm afraid. I am not even sure whether or not Michael's widow is still alive - although, if she is, she must feel quite vunreable if she is still living at the rather isolated hall.

For the record, all the stories above - about disembodied dogs and what not - are, of course, quite silly. I wil admit to trespassing there some years ago - not realising until closer inspection - that the place was obviously occupied. There were electric lights on in the front porch/reception area during the day - which suggested that perhaps someone was away at the time (or maybe was not concerned about day-to-day upkeep of the property).

Having since driven past there several times, but declined to intrude on private property, I will say that I have seen many gaggles of teenagers hanging around the entrance (which is near several more modern homes). No doubt, if Mrs Devereux is still living there, she must find this sort of attention rather unwelcoming.

Finally - expanding on what I wrote above - there is a priest, Sean Fortune, who was charged in a very high profile case here in Ireland (sorry, I don't know if you are in Ireland too) with abusing many kids. Without getting into detail, let me just sum it up by saying - the man was one of the most vile and disgusting abusers ever to have been caught. Anyway, Fortune went on to commit suicide when he was found out. An Irish Times journalist, Alison O'Connor, wrote a book about his crimes - called "Message from Heaven" - in which she alleged that Fortune, who was posted to the local parish of Fethard, used to take groups of kids to stay in the hall. This was very much in the days before Michael bought the hall - namely, it was when it was being run by a group of Catholic nuns. The book goes on to speak about a room referred to as "the Devil's Room", which is where Fortune committed his attacks.

If ever the devil did visit the hall, I would say it was in the form of Sean Fortune (not some hoof-footed urban legend).

Anyway, apart from that, there is one very good book I must try to dig out that deals pretty extensively with the Loftus Hall haunting story. It was written at the end of the 19th century and so is steeped in characteristic Victorian zeal for the paranormal and, as such, treats the story with far more seriousness than it currently receives. In the process the author manages to extract some interesting eyewitness accounts of alleged hauntings of the original "tapestry room" (again, remembering that this was in the original building - long since reconstructed).

Watch this space...

lesbehan wrote: »

The original building on the site was constructed by the Redmond family in 1350... The Loftus family obtained the property in (wait for it) 1666 :eek:
However the version of the building that stands today was built between 1880& 1881.

The Ghost Story

Charles Tottenham and his family came to live in the mansion in the middle of the 18th century. According to Rick Whelan's film version of the story, the date was July 1762.

The story of the house is that one cold, rainy night the family of the house were sitting in the parlour playing card games. During the game they heard a knock on the front door. A man on horseback was at the door and asked them if he could stay the night in their house because of the bad weather outside. He was invited in to play cards with the family and preceded to do so. It is said that during the game, one of the daughters of the family (who was about 18 at the time) dropped a card under the table. As she bent down to pick it up she saw the man's feet, which apparently resembled hooves.

It is said that the girl screamed and the man went up through the roof in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a large hole. A rumour states that the hole could never be properly repaired, and even to this day, there is still a certain part of the ceiling which is slightly different then the rest. The family called on Father Thomas Broaders (a Catholic priest) to exorcise the house. Fr. Broaders later became parish priest of the surrounding area.

Father Broaders' gravestone exists today and on it is written, "Here lies the body of Thomas Broaders, who did good and prayed for all, and who banished the devil from Loftus Hall".


Its arguably one of the most eerie places I have ever visited (which include Auchwitz and the Wallachia & Transylvanian regions of Romania (where Vlad III aka Dracula had reigned in the 15th Cnt).

The last time I was in the area, my father & I decided we would take a nosey around the building as it has always fascinated us... we walked up along the adjacent field and climbed over a small wall that led to the courtyard to the front of the mansion. The windows all had timber shutters on the inside but several had slight openings in them. Around the back there is a dilapidated caravan (possibly there for the past decade or two), but one of the most striking things about it was the view over the beach and the channel between hook and Dunmore. (****ing picturesque )

we heard viscous barking from dogs we could swear were within close distance... this barking grew louder and fearing we were about to be attacked we decided to run, at this point it seemed like the barking was just feet away but yet there was no sight of any dogs... quite freaked out we made it back to the road where we had the car parked, we were then approached by a middle aged lady in a car who claimed to be the owner of the property and threatened to call the guards, accusing us of smashing windows and damaging the place, my father (54) then apologised for trespassing saying we had no knowledge of anyone living there... to which she replied "well that’s the sad part about it, there is" :eek:


About a year later my cousin was telling me that him and sum m8's had went down there 1 evening.... without mentioning my experience of the place he went on to speak of the abandoned caravan and "some dogs were running at us but couldn’t see them".... that fact alone freaks me out

This is not the real ghost story. This is the generic urban legend that has grown up around the hall. One point of fact: the hall as it stood in the days of Anne Tottenham has long since been 100% demolished and then rebuilt. So obviously there is no original roof to be repaired!

There is an interesting story however attached to it - or rather, there is a rather conventional ghost story (in which Anne Tottenham's ghost was said to have haunted the Tapestry Room for decades) backed up by some compelling eyewitness testimony in the 19th century.

Go digging and you shall find...

Cool, I had that same yellow phone at home years ago!