Devils Passage, Corcaigh Park

Would love if someone finally posted photos of the place??

Please?:o

how do you upload the photos i have a youtube account could make a video and post the link if that help thats the only way id be able to get the photos up on in here

READ...JUDGE BY YOURSELF & HAVE FUN TO READ!!!!
The Hellfire Club was the popular name for what is supposed to have been an exclusive English club established by Sir Francis Dashwood which met irregularly from 1746 [citation needed] to around 1760 as an extension to his Society of Dilettanti. There is no evidence that they referred to themselves by this name, rather it is likely they used the names of a number of mockingly religious titles, beginning with the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe. Other titles used included the Order of Knights of West Wycombe and later, the Monks of Medmenham. Other clubs using the name "Hellfire Club" were set up throughout the 18th century, most notably the "Hell-Fire Club" founded around 1719 in London by Philip, Duke of Wharton.

The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and Dashwood as "Abbot". Female "guests" (prostitutes) were "Nuns". Unlike the more determined Satanists of the 1720s the club motto was Fait ce que vouldras (Do what thou wilt) from François Rabelais, later used by Aleister Crowley. Though they may have indulged in pseudo-Satanic rites, a Monk named Horace Walpole said the "practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the complexion of those hermits."
According to tradition, the first gathering of this "unholy sodality" was in May of 1746 at the George and Vulture public house in Castle Court, near Lombard Street, City of London. This meeting-place, however, has been ascribed to several other of the Hellfire Clubs, so it must be treated as anecdotal. Later it met on Dashwood's properties at West Wycombe Caves and at Medmenham Abbey, beside the Thames. The membership was initially limited to twelve but soon increased. Of the original twelve, some are regularly identified: Dashwood, Robert Vansittart, Thomas Potter the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Francis Duffield, Edward Thompson and Paul Whitehead. Benjamin Franklin is said to have occasionally attended the club's meetings[citation needed] as a non-member. The name George Bubb Dodington, a fabulously corpulent man in his 60s, is often cited. Though hardly a gentleman, William Hogarth[citation needed] has been associated with the club.

The George and Vulture Pub, a notorious meeting place, burned down in 1749, possibly as a direct result of a club meeting. It was rebuilt shortly thereafter and survives as a city chop house off Cornhill. Dickens lived and wrote here for a period of time. The Pickwick Club still meets there to this day. After a hiatus, meetings were resumed at members' homes. Dashwood built a temple in the grounds of his West Wycombe home and nearby 'catacombs' were excavated. The first meeting at Wycombe was held on Walpurgis Night, 1752; a much larger meeting, it was something of a failure and no large-scale meetings were held there again. Despite this and the factionalising of the club Dashwood acquired the ruins of Medmenham Abbey in 1755[citation needed], which was rebuilt by the architect Nicholas Revett in the style of the 18th century Gothic revival. It is thought that William Hogarth may have executed murals for this building; none, however, survive.

The list of supposed members is immense; among the more probable candidates are John Wilkes and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Whatever the nature (the existence, even) of such club, there is no question that several events in the early 1760s prevented further activities on the part of Dashwood.

The first was the rise of the Earl of Bute and the Tory party to power following the accession of George III in 1760. In 1762 Bute appointed Dashwood his Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite Dashwood's being widely held to be incapable of understanding "a bar bill of five figures". (Dashwood resigned the post the next year, having raised a tax on cider which caused near-riots.) The second was the publication (1762-5) of Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea by Charles Johnstone, in which Lord Sandwich was ridiculed as having mistaken a monkey for the Devil, supposedly during a rite of the club. The third was the attempted arrest and prosecution of John Wilkes for seditious libel against the King in the notorious issue 45 of his The North Briton in early 1763. During a search authorised by a General Warrant a version of The Essay on Woman was discovered set up on the press of a printer whom Wilkes had almost certainly used. This scurrilous, blasphemous, libellous pornographic skit, principally written by Thomas Potter which can from internal evidence be dated to around 1755, was subsequently to be used by the Government as the means by which to destroy Wilkes as a public figure.

The Hellfire Clubs of popular culture tend to be based on Dashwood's rather than any of the others.

* The Hellfire Club (1961) is a film featuring Peter Cushing.
* A recreation of the Hellfire Club is the focus of an episode of The Avengers, called "A Touch of Brimstone", notorious for Diana Rigg's risqué outfit. Peter Wyngarde, the main guest-star of the episode, has an official fan club also named after the club.
* The suspense of Olivier Assayas's film Demonlover (2002) partly regards The Hellfire Club both as a critical element and as a metaphorical border between reality and virtual world.
* British comedy programme Blackadder refers to the club in Blackadder the Third, with Prince George making numerous comments about spending time at 'The Naughty Hellfire Club'.
* The Doctor Who Audio Drama Minuet in Hell (produced by Big Finish) features a modern-day Hellfire Club based in the USA, while the original Club features in the eighth Doctor novel The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.
* In the episode "The Call of the Yeti" in the second series of The Mighty Boosh, Naboo has a conversation with another Shaman, during which they recall a night out at "Wycombe caves".
* In Australia, formerly connected Hellfire Clubs with a BDSM theme were founded in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane by underground film director and producer Richard Wolstencroft. The only remaining Hellfire Club, in Sydney is run by Craig Donarski and Wet Set Editor Jackie McMillan. [1]
* The Hellfire Club is a Marvel Comics supervillain organization. The group is based in a modern time version of the original club, that has become a sort of gentlemen club for the rich and powerful.
* The Hellfire Club is the title of a 1996 novel by Peter Straub.
* Kathy Reichs's novel Fatal Voyage involves a Hellfire Club spinoff in the US begun in the early 20th century by Prentice Dashwood, a descendant of Sir Francis. This group, which calls itself H&F, practices ritual cannibalism to impart wisdom to its leaders. According to the novel, the group met its demise in 2001.
* The Hellfire Club is presented in Karen Moline's novel Belladonna as a secret society flourishing well into the 1950s and involved in the auctioning of young women.
* Diana Gabaldon's short story "Hellfire", written in 1998, was the first of her Lord John Grey mystery stories set in 18th century London. While trying to solve a murder mystery, Lord John finds himself being initiated into the Hellfire Club at Medmenham Abbey.
* There have been an electronica band and a country band called The Hellfire Club, as well as one band called The Little Hellfire Club, another called The Infamous Hellfire Club, and yet another called The Electric Hellfire Club.
* There is also a UK NU-NRG group called Hellfire Club consisting of Baby Doc and SJ, usually releasing tracks on the Resist/React Label.
* Horrorcore Rap Artists Tommie and Phatty Smallz of Robinson, Illinois, Go under the name "The Hellfire Club"
* Hellfire Club is the title of the sixth studio album by the German power metal band, Edguy, released in 2004.
* Hard NRG VII, also called The Hellfire Club, is an album by DJ Proteus. The album also contains a track called "The Hellfire Club".
* The Hellfire Club appears in the comic "Histoire Secrete" along with an appearance of Dr. John Dee, although it is clearly anachronistic since the story took place in 1666.
*
The Hellfire Club
by Mike Howard
The name 'Hellfire Club' conjures up all sorts of sensational and lurid images, but what was the truth behind the legend?

First of all, the most famous Hellfire Club was the organisation allegedly founded by Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781) yet is was never called that name by its members. It was more formerly known as The Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, The Monks of Medmenham, or The Order of Knights of West Wycombe. Dashwood was the son of a wealthy businessman who had married into the aristocracy. He sat in the House of Commons as an MP for over 20 years and variously held the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Postmaster General and Treasurer to King George III

As a young man, Dashwood went on the Grand Tour of Europe and spent some time in Italy. There he fell in love with the classical architecture and mythology of the country, developed a hatred of Roman Catholicism, met Prince charles Edward Stuart and became a Jacobite secret agent.

Dashwood also seems to have become involved with the Rosicrucian mnovement through these Jacobite contacts. While staying in Florence, he was initiated into a Masonic lodge. This event may have taken place as a result of his meeting with Prince Charles, as the pretender to the Scottish throne is known to have had extensive connections with various Masonic and neo-Templar secret societies. In France, the youthful Dashwood also attended a Black Mass as an interested spectator, although what was to become a lifelong interest in the subject appears to have been more as rebellious reaction to Catholicism than any serious attempt to practise or follow Satanism.

In 1739, Dashwood returned briefly to Italy and made contact again with the Masonic societies. He also visited Rome during the election of the new Pope. The Previous pontiff had prohibited the practice of Freemasonry in 1738 and excommunicated all Catholics known to belong to Masonic lodges. The English Grand Master of the Florence lodge, Lord Raynard, son of the Chief Justice of England, was forced to close the lodge down and destroy all its papers to avoid being arrested by the Inquisition.

On his return to England, Dashwood founded the Society of the Dillettanti. This was one of many London clubs of the time patronised by the aristocracy and royalty and catering for the hard-drinking and womanising habit of wealthy rakes.

In 1746, Dashwood founded his Order of the Knights of St Francis and they initially met at at the 16th century George & Vulture public house in Cornhill in the City of London. This tavern was later to be immortalised in Charles Dickens' 'Pickwick Papers'. The Knights met in a room dominated by 'an everlasting Rosicrucian lamp'. This was a large crystal globe encircled by a gold serpent with its tail in its mouth. The globe was crowned with a pair of silver wings and was suspended in chains in the form of twisted serpents. This lamp is not be confused with the one in the shape of a giant bat with an erect phallus formerly displayed in the Witchcraft Museum on the Isle of Man and allegedly belonging to the 'Hellfire Club'. The Gnostic design of the 'Rosicrucian Lamp', incorporating a snake and doves also appears on the font Dashwood later presented to West Wycombe church. In 1751, Dashwood leased Medmenham Abbey on the Thames near Marlow, about 6 miles from his ancestral home at West Wybombe. It had originally been a 12th century Cistercian monastery, came into secular hands at the Reformation and was converted into a Tudor manor house. In the tradition of the 18th century Gothic revival, Dashwood converted the Abbey at great expense into a suitable headquarters for his Order, installing stained glass windows and carving above the front door the motto "Do as thou will". The gardens boasted a statue of a naked Venus (bending over, so the unwary visitor walked into her buttocks) and a well-endowed statue of Priapus.

At one end of the Abbey's dining-room was a figure of Harpocrates, the Egyptian god of silence, with his finger to his lips, and an effigy of Angerona, the Roman goddess of silence. It has been said that these statues were reminders to the Friars that nothing that was said or went on in the Abbey was to be spoken about outside its walls. In Freemasonry these two deities are known as 'the guardians of secrecy'. In 1740, the Earl of Middlesex had a medallion struck depicting Harpocrates when he became the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge in Florence.

Dashwood's interest in pagan gods and goddesses was reflected in the decorations for his house at West Wycombe, designed by the famous architect, Robert Adam. The west wing of the building was a replica of a classical temple to Bacchus, complete with a statue of the god. On the ceiling was was a painting of Dionysus and Ariadne in chariots drawn by leopards and goats and followed by a company of satyrs and nymphs. Other representations of the two deities appear in the house and the myth would seem to have a special significance to Dashwood.

To celebrate the opening of the Bacchus 'temple', Dashwood organised a pageant with actors dressed as fauns, satyrs and nymphs in animal skins and ivy wrreaths. The classical pagan theme was continued in the garden, which, some writers claim, was laid out in the form of a naked woman. It certainly had many statues of classical gods and goddesses and small temples dedicated to Flora, Daphne, the four winds and to music. There was also a large artificial lake on which Dashwood staged mock battles using full-scale models of sailing ships.

Around 1750, Dashwood arranged to have built a network of caves under West Wycombe Hill and these were used by the Friars for their meetings or, as local and London gossip had it, their wild orgies. The entrance to the caves was surrounded by Yew trees and a low passageway led northwards to join several small caves and catacombs. These caves featured individual 'cells' for the 'monks' to entertain their female guests, and a 'banqueting hall'. An underground stream, known to the monks at the River Styx had to be crossed to give access to the Inner Sanctum, a circular room where so-called 'Black Masses' were said to be performed.

Gerald Gardner claimed the caves represented the Goddess and stated: "the banqueting hall represents the womb where new life originates. After being born in the womb, the worshippers pass through the pubic triangle and into the flowing river. Then born and purified they go on to the joys or resurrection that await them in the temple".

What exactly did the Prior and his Friars get up to in the Abbey and in the caves? The members of the Hellfire Club included some of the most wealthy and influential people in the land. Suspected members included the Earl of Sandwich, Thomas Potter (the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Paymaster General), the radical MP and Lord Mayor of London, John Wilkes, the satirical artist, William Hogarth, the Earl of Bute (who was Prime Minister), the Marquis of Granby, the Prince of Wales and possibly even Benjamin Franklin and Horace Walpole. If popular gossip in the coffee-houses could be believed, the 'monks' ferried 'mollies' and 'dollymops' (prostitutes) down the Thames from London in barges to act as masked 'nuns'. They also celebrated the Black Mass over the naked bodies of aristocratic ladies. The truth is less sensational, but probably more startling. In fact it seems to have been an open secret among the members of the Establishment which Dashwood and his friends belonged to. When Sir Francis became Chancellor, one of his first actions was to tax cider. This led to the circulation of rhyme, saying: "Dashwood shall pour from a communion cup / libations to the goddess without eyes / and hot or not in cider and excise". This was a pointed reference to the goddess Angerona.

A painting was also done of Dashwood depicting him dressed in a monk's habit and kneeling to worship a statue of Venus. One of the leading members, John Wilkes, gave the game away when he said "No profane eye has dared to penetrate the English Eleusinian Mysteries of the Chapter Room (the inner sanctum) where the monks assembled on solemn occasions .. secret rites performed and libations to the Bona Dea". The latter was, of course, the title of the Great Mother Goddess in the classical Mysteries.

In his younger days, Sir Francis had joined the Society of Gentlemen of Spalding, whose members included leading Freemasons and the antiquarian and Chief Druid, Dr Rev William Stukeley. Dashwood was a member of the Mount Haemus grove of druids. Mount Haemus claimed descent from a 13th century druidic grove established in Oxford. In turn, this grove claimed connections with the Mysteries of Ceridwen still practised at that time in the Snowdonia region of North Wales. The druidic Council of Eleven withdrew Dashwood's charter to run a grove, following rumours about sex orgies at Medmenham. The Friars of Wycombe wore white druidic-style hooded robes with silver badges inscribed with the motto 'Love & Friendship'.

The so-called 'Hellfire Caves' existed before Dashwood enlarged them. They were, in fact, prehistoric in origin and it is said that in ancient times a 'pagan altar' used to exist on West Wycombe Hill with 'pagan catacombs' below. The Friars were, therefore, using a long-established pagan site for their meetings. An old folk tradition says that when the first church was built at the base of the hill in the Middle Ages, unseen hands destroyed the building work every night. Finally, the priest heard an unearthly voice telling him to build the church on top of the hill where it would not be disturbed. Its siting obviously had some geomantic significance.

Local legend says a secret passageway leads from the caves to St Lawrence's church. It was apparently used by a mysterious Lady Mary or Sister Agnes, an 'abbess' who was supposed to rule over the 'nuns', for romantic trysts with her boyfriend who was the priest at the church! When asked about Sister Agnes, Dashwood would take his visitors to a hole in the wall of one of the passageways. When they looked through, they saw a 'witch's face', illuminated by candles. In fact this face was a mask.

In 1751, Dashwood paid for the church to be restored - an odd act for a so-called Satanist. However, one later visitor described his renovations as "a Egyptian hall" and said that the restored church "gives one not the last idea of a place sacred to religious worship".

In fact, Dashwood modelled the reconstruction after the solar temple at Palmyra, with Corinthian pillars and walls decorated with friezes of flowers, fruit, doves, olive branches and leaves. On the ceiling was a depiction of the Last Supper, the Christian version of the agape of the classical Mysteries, and a golden ball, seven feet in diameter, was surmounted on the church spire. This obvious solar symbol was a copy of the golden ball on the Custom House in Venice, which has a weather vane in the shape of the goddess Fortuna. The golden globe held seats inside for three people. It is believed this ball was meant to link the sun god who was born at the winter solstice with Christ as 'the Light of the World'.

When one of the leading members of the Order, Paul Whitehead, dies in 1774, he left instructions in his will that his heart should be buried separately.

It was to be placed in an urn and buried in the mausoleum erected on a hill over the caves for Dashwood and a few selected Order members. The urn was carried three times around the edifice, accompanied by soldier's of Dashwood's private army, the Bucks Militia, before it was placed in a niche. Dashwood's major biographer, Eric Towers, has suggested this strange request and ceremony was, in fact, the enactment of a pagan Dionysian dismemberment ritual.

To summarise, it would appear that the popular folk legend of the so-called Hellfire Club with its Satanic goings-on and Black Masses is the product of imaginative fantasy. It is possible that some members of the Order of St Francis indulged in pseudo-Satanic rites as a prelude to their sexual antics. Many of the monks attracted to the Order were merely "happy disciples of Bacchus and Venus who got together occasionally to celebrate women and wine". Others had a more serious purpose and, as one 19th century writer put it, "Sir Francis himself officiated as high priest ..engaged in pouring a libation from a communion cup to the mysterious object of their homage". From the available evidence, it is safe to surmise that this "mysterious object of their homage" was, in fact, the Goddess and that Sir Francis Dashwood and his merry monks were not Satanists but followers of the pagan Mysteries.

References

'The Hellfire Club' Donald McCormack (Jarrolds 1958)
'The Hellfire club' P. Mannix (Four Square 1961)
'Sword of Wisdom' Ithell Colquoun (Neville Spearman 1970)
'Dashwood: The Man and the Myth' Eric Towers (Crucible 1986)

The Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Posted by daev

Photographs of the Hellfire Club, West WycombeIn yet another episode in a never-ending series, blather.net returns to the lair of the English Hellfire Club - Sir Francis Dashwood's party-house at Medmenham Abbey, and the fantastically kitsch tunnels in West Wycombe.

Back in 1998, blather.net visited the Hellfire Club tunnels, in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire - which, in case you don't know, is about 50km out of London. Back then, I knew very little about photography - I pointed and I shot, and was pleased enough. Now, I know a little more, and hope I've presented some better images of one very, very odd place.

I've already written extensively on blather.net about the Hellfire Clubs, both the Irish Hellfire Club and their English counterparts. So, rather than getting into an explanation of 18th century rakes and satanists, I'm going to stick with talking about our recent visit.

In November 2005, a crack blather.net & Strange Attractor team descended upon West Wycombe. First, however, we decided to track down the whereabouts of Medmenham Abbey, where Sir Francis Dashwood, and his Knights of St. Francis had their Bacchanalian raves. Many writers confuse the two - claiming that the Hellfire Club had their orgies in the tunnels, while in fact, Dashwood commissioned the digging of the tunnels quite late in life, and after the heyday of the 'club'.

We found Medmenham Abbey easily enough - on a beautiful stretch of the Thames, between Henley and Marlow. The problem is, if you're on the same side of the river as the Abbey, you can't see it - the walls are two high. We decided to see it from the other side of the river. Back in the car, we made for Hurley, via Henley. Before heading out on the towpath, we visited the churchyard in Hurley.

The Thames has abundant wildlife here - grebes in the water, and kites (the bird of prey) flying overhead. And then there's the camera-loving llama in a field along the way.

About a half-hour walk took us up where got a full view of the Abbey - these days, it's a privately owned residence, and by the looks of it, the owner has plenty of money. Cistercian monks founded Medmenham Abbey about 1145, which survived until the dissolution of the monasteries in about 1540. In the mid-17th century, Sir Francis Dashwood - then Chancellor of the Exchequer - got his hands on what was left, and used it as a scandalous private club for his friends.
More about Sir Francis Dashwood »

It's a quick drive from Hurley to Marlow, and then on to High Wycombe. Driving out of High Wycombe towards the village West Wycombe, the Dashwood Mausoleum is visible on top of the hill, directly ahead. It's a quick, but steep climb up to the mausoleum - a massive flint structure that looks more like a fortress than a last resting place for the dead.

Just up the hill is St. Lawrence's Church - built by Dashwood, from the ruins of an old Norman tower, which itself was inside the banked enclosure of West Wycombe Camp - an iron age fortification. Dashwood, in a fit of Italian fervour, modelled the tower on the customs house in Venice - and put a large golden sphere on top. This (Christian ) church is claimed to be 300 feet (91m) above the 'Inner Temple' of the caverns.

Back down the hill, are the slightly tacky entrances to the tunnels. When we visited, we got the impression that the staff hadn't quite cleared up after Halloween, but instead we're putting together a 'scary Christmas' theme from the Samhain leftovers. The cafe and souvenir shop has lots of plastic tat - rubber bats and the like. The management seem obsessed with marketing the place as a good, clean, wholesome family day out. Disney with a slight edge. This is ironic, given the history of the place, and Dashwood's carry-on.

Inside, the disembodied voice of the recently-deceased most-recent Sir Francis Dashwood greets us, telling us the story of the caves. The tunnels aren't natural - they were dug out by local workers at the behest of Dashwood following a crop failure. They used the chalk from the caves to build what is now the A40, in order to rejuvenate the local economy.

However, instead of digging a quarry, Dashwood created a bizarre tunnel system, with a banqueting hall, an inner temple - and even a fake River Styx. Everywhere in the tunnels, carved faces leer. I don't remember so many the last time - I have a suspicion that some of them are fairly recent, but I can't be sure. They cute carving of a cat on one wall is definitely suspect.

But enough blather from me - enjoy the photographs...




1. Entrance
2. Tool Store
3. Whitehead's Cave
4. Lord Sandwich Circle
5. Franklins Cave
6. Children's Cave
7. Banqueting Hall
8. Triangle
9. Miner's Cave
10. River Styx
11. Inner Temple


('XXII' refers to a marking on the wall, mentioned in a poem of the time... )


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Medmenham Abbey, on the Thames, where the Hellfire Club had their meetings

Medmenham Abbey, on the Thames, where the Hellfire Club had their meetings. It's between Henley and Marlow.

Medmenham Abbey, on the Thames, where the Hellfire Club had their meetings

Medmenham Abbey


The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
The Dashwood Church, West Wycombe

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
The Dashwood Church, West Wycombe

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
The Dashwood Church, West Wycombe

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The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
The Golden ball on top of the Church. It has a little hatch, allowing access for a couple of people. Dashwood used to use the ball for sending heliograph signals to his friends, apparently.

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
The Dashwood mausoleum. Hammer fans might recognise it from the movie based on a Dennis Wheatley novel, To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

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The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
Mausoleum detail

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
Mausoleum detail

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
Inside the mausoleum

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The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
Inside the mausoleum. Note the tiny people!

The Churchyard and Mausoleum, West Wycombe, Dashwood's Hellfire Club
Mausoleum detail

The entrance to the Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

The entrance to the Hellfire Club Tunnels, at West Wycombe

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Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

Entering the tunnels

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

Disappearing in the tunnels

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

Ghoulish faces abound - carved hither and thither in the soft chalk walls.

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Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

Another face.

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

The 'Banqueting Hall'

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

The 'Banqueting Hall'

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

Bizarre mannequins are employed to tell the story of the tunnels.

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
The Tunnels

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
And there's no one there

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Eek!

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Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Wizard or dunce?

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Hello...


Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Another demon

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Another carved face

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
I'm lonely

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
A figure appears

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
The blather.net Strange Attractor gang.

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Who was Lord Luxford?

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Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
A pentagram. Modern or ancient?

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Carved Skull

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Skull

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
Lonely tunnel

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
A copy of a page from the cellar book from Medmenham, kept in the tunnels at West Wycombe, detailing what the Knights of St. Francis were drinking.

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Chalk carvings in the Hellfire Club tunnels
Zig Zag faces

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
I'm just a lonely face

Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe
More tacky mannequins - Dashwood, a baboon and some friends


The entrance to the Hellfire Club Tunnels and Caves, West Wycombe

The entrance to the Hellfire Club Tunnels at night. Note tacky skull in centre of photograph.

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Photographs: Return to the Hellfire Club, Dublin
Posted by daev

The Hellfire Club, DublinWe've written loads about the Irish Hellfire Club on blather.net, of ghosts and black cats and satanism... But now we've got photographs too....




The Hellfire Club, Dublin

The Blather team keep returning to this spooky place in the Dublin mountains. On Halloween 2005 I returned, with great light and a beautiful sky. I'm not going to go on at length here about satanic orgies or ghosts or giant black cats - I'll point you to my earlier articles on the Hellfire Club for that.


The Hellfire Club, Dublin mountains

The Hellfire Club, Dublin mountains


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin


The Hellfire Club, Dublin



The Hellfire Club, Dublin

Get high resolution photographs of the Hellfire Club »

Irish Hellfire Club Articles on blather.net:
More on the Irish Hellfire Club »
Part II of Blather history of Irish Hellfire Clubs »
Accidental Satanists lecture given by Dave Walsh on Hellfire Clubs »


The Hellfire Club: Accidental Satanists
Posted by daev

[ This is an edited version of a talk given by Dave Walsh on November 7th 1999 at Fortfest, held in College Park, Maryland. © Dave Walsh 1999 ]

When first asked to speak at Fortfest, I thought I'd traipse through a subject close to my heart, the story of the 18th century Hell-Fire Clubs.

What I didn't expect, in the months leading up to today, while I fooled myself into some form of pseudo-objectivity, was how close I myself would come to my subject of Accidental Satanism. While I can appreciate the works of Anton Lavey, the founder of the Church of Satan, enjoy the often hit and miss humour of Aleister Crowley, and wonder about young murderers who mysteriously become Satanists after reading Anne Rice novels, what truly fascinates me are those who become known as Satanists without ever having claimed such a title.

I must have been about twelve years old when I would go and stay with my mother's sister in Tallaght, a sprawling suburb at the foot of the Dublin hills. My cousin, Jason, was about 15 at the time, and would fill me full of tales of the satanic parties which supposedly took place at the eerie ruined hunting lodge which rose from the peak one of the lower hills, at an altitude of 383m or 1200ft.

The Hellfire Club, Dublin mountains
More Hellfire Club photographs »

This rectangular structure, a blemish amidst soft rolling hills, can be seen, on a good day from many parts of Dublin City. There was a particularly good view from my aunt's house.

Once, on a Sunday drive around the hills with my relatives, we visited this place - known by everyone in Dublin as the Hell-Fire club. We parked in the official car park of the 'Hell-Fire Club Woods', and made our way to the top of the hill, where we found the grim grey building, its empty window sockets gazing wistfully north-east.

Even at 12 years old, the engineer in me wondered what kind of architect would build a house with all but one of its largest windows facing the wrong way for the Sun.

Inside the ruin - which is still intact and safe, my cousin gleefully showed me the room where the devil had appeared during an 18th century card game, while down the hill, I was presented with the bloodied rock where Satanists sacrificed their cockerels.

I was pretty sceptical, but while it looked like splashes of red paint on the rocks, my fascination with the imagery never really dissolved.

Some 13 years later, while digging through various books during my Blather researches, I started to come across mentions of the Hell-Fire club, but in terms of an early 18th century organisation, one which merely used the Hunting Lodge on Montpelier Hill - the original name of the area - occasionally, spending more time in the Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill, right outside Dublin Castle, in the heart of the 18th century city. It was here that the "Bucks" swigged Scultheen , a 'special mixture of whiskey and butter'. "Bucks", according to Sir Edward Sullivan, were a class of gent '"whose whole enjoyment and the business of whose life seemed to consist of eccentricity and violence"'.

The club, alleged to have devoted to their time to the practice of unbridled hedonism, was apparently founded in 1735 by the 1st Earl of Rosse, Richard Parsons, who, according to Peter Somerville-Large, was 'known' to be a 'sorcerer, dabbler in black magic... and a man of "humour and frolic"'. He was also the grandfather of the 3rd Earl of Rosse, William Parsons, who built the giant telescope at Birr, in the Irish midlands, in 1839, which remained the largest telescope in the world for many years.

Club was seemingly disbanded following Parson's death in 1741. As Rosse lay on his deathbed in his house on Dublin's Molesworth St., a local clergy man - the rector of St. Anne's - wrote to him begging him to 'repent of his evil ways'. Lord Rosse read the letter with some amusement, and noticing that it simply began 'My Lord', resealed it and addressed it to Lord Kildare, who was famous for his piety and integrity of life. The poor parson received a terrible grilling before the truth emerged, but by then, Rosse had departed to a far warmer place.

Other members included Richard Chapell Whaley - known as 'Burn Chapell' due to his Sunday morning hobby of riding about the countryside, setting fire to thatched Catholic churches, Simon Luttrell - at one time Sheriff of Dublin, and Colonel Jack St. Ledger, who according to Somerville-Large's book Irish Eccentrics , was so obsessed with the Duchess of Rutland that he would drink the water with which she had washed her hands. Another Hell-Fire Club of the time, in Limerick city, in the west of Ireland, was different in that one of it's more notorious members was a lady by the name of Mrs Blennerhasset.

As if Richard Whaley’s exploits weren't extreme enough, his son, who was three years old when his father died, in the days long after the existence of the Dublin Hell-fire Club, did a fair job of upholding their peculiar brand of hedonistic lifestyle. Buck Whaley, as he was known, was famous for having travelled to Jerusalem (no mean feat in 1789) and back for a bet of £10,000, having played handball against the Wailing Wall amidst the protests of indignant rabbis.

"I was born with strong passions" begin Buck Whaley's Memoirs , "a lively imaginative disposition and a spirit that could brook no restraint. I possessed a restlessness and activity of mind that directed me to the most extravagant pursuits; and the ardour of my disposition never abated until satiety had weakened the power of my enjoyment".

Buck eventually fled to the Isle of Man to escape financial embarrassment, after having an encounter with the Devil in St. Audoen's Church, near Christchurch in Dublin. He built a house at Man, where he lived for four years. The foundations were of the house, known as 'Whaley's Folly, were made of Irish earth, which he brought in by the shipload, in order to win a bet that he could live on Irish soil, without actually living in Ireland. Whaley junior died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1800, at the age of 34, following an impressive squandering of his personal fortune.

Of his era, there was also 'Tiger' Roche, who, even in the days when travel was relatively difficult, was 'wanted' in places as far apart as London, Canada, and Australia for 'dueling activities'. 'Buck' English, another contemporary, once shot a sluggish waiter in an English inn and then had him put on the bill for £50.

As Ulick O'Connor writes:

"A duel in those days could start at the drop of a hat. Though dueling was illegal, judges occasionally issued challenges to impertinent barristers, and since the Four Courts was beside the dueling grounds in the Phoenix Park, their Lordships could get back [to hearings] quickly if their aim was in." O'Connor continues, telling us how the famous Irish politician "Henry Grattan lost his coat-tails in the House of Commons in a duelling escapade as he fled through a door which was slammed shut by the sergeant-at-arms whose duty it was to arrest members who proposed to settle their disputes with pistols."

It was a time when prospective fathers-in-law would ask the suitor:

'Do you blaze?'

Meaning 'do you fight duels?'

So, I think we have an idea, if only a glimpse, of the behaviour of the rich and idle of early eighteenth century Dublin. But what about the Satanism, the black masses, the burning of cats?

A Royal Edict had been passed in 1721 - long before the most famous Hell-Fires were abroad, condemning

'young People who meet together, in the most impious and blasphemous manner, insult the most sacred principles of our holy religion, affront Almighty God himself, and corrupt the minds and morals of one another'.

What I've related so far would probably not, be regarded in terms of Satanism or the paranormal. However, it does give some sense of the times. People, or at least men, with money, could almost literally get away with murder.

Naturally enough, with accusations of blasphemy being bandied about, it's unsurprising that the certain myths have become attached to the activities of 18th century rakes. During the 18th century, the term Hell-Fire was referred to any collection of rakish wastrels intent on causing mayhem. Two main groups emerged from the chaos however, The Irish Hell-Fires and the later English group of the 1740s onwards.

I'd like to return for a moment to the lonely building on Montpelier Hill, forever known as 'The Hell-Fire Club'. The Right Honourable William Conolly, a Member of Parliament, built the Hunting Lodge in 1725. Behind it lies the remains of a megalithic monument, a sizeable stone circle. I say remains, because Conolly used some of the granite slabs in the construction of his lodge.

Naturally enough, this would have upset some of the local people - much mention is made of how Conolly had begun to mess with forces he shouldn't have. And lo, shortly after completion, the slated roof was blown off one night in a tremendous storm - some said it was by the devil, others by said it was the old pagan gods. Undeterred, Conolly built a huge arched roof of stones keyed together, like a bridge. This structure was so strong that no force in the last 274 years - fire included - has been able to make the roof leak, never mind collapse.

The stories surrounding this weird old building are numerous and very doubtful.

It was used, apparently, as a venue for non-stop drinking sessions, and the odd black mass, where defrocked priests performed parodies of the Catholic mass, sacrificing black cats, or in one unsavoury story, a dwarf with very large head.

Some stories tell of a priest somehow stumbling upon a party were a huge black cat was being sacrificed. 'Breaking free from his captors the cleric grabbed the cat and uttered an exorcism, which tore the beast apart. A demon shot up from its corpse. Hurtling through the roof it brought down the ceiling and scattered the assembly.'

Other tales tell of the aforementioned late-night card games with strangers, typically ones who've wandered in from a stormy night. A player drops a card under the table and notices that the visitor has a cloven hoof, whereupon the alleged demon roars and disappears in a ball of flame. Curiously, this motif also pops up in connection with Loftus Hall, one of Ireland's most famous haunted houses.

Yet another tale tells us that during a black mass, a footman spilled a drink on Whaley's coat, after slipping on the mass of drunken bodies on the floor. Whaley poured brandy upon the man, set him alight, and soon had the entire building ablaze. Most were too drunk to escape. Or so we're told...other versions say it was reproduce the sensations of hell. The building was burned again in 1849 to celebrate the visit of Queen Victoria to Dublin.

This weirdness isn't confined to the Hunting Lodge, or to the 18th century. Quarter of a mile or so down the hill, lies Killakee house, a well-preserved 18th century farmhouse, now a high quality restaurant. It's alleged that at least three deaths from duelling took place in the yard outside. In the twentieth century, blood was spilled there again while Countess Markievicz, the Irish revolutionary and the first women to be elected to the House of Commons, occupied the house. Five of her fellow IRA members died in a gun battle at Killakee house during the War of Independence of 1918-21. More recently, in January of this year, a young woman was murdered in the Hell-Fire Club car-park, next to Killakee house.

Close up of 'Satan' in Wicklow

The Dublin Hills, bordering on to the Wicklow Mountains, have a long history of forteana or macabre tales, with stories of 1920s civil war executions taking place on lonely country roads, claims of World War II 'UFO retrievals, and no end of ghost stories. A few miles south-west of Killakee lies Poulaphouca, a major water reservoir and site of an hydro-electric station. Phoulaphouca translates from the Irish as the 'Ghost Hole'.

Close up of 'Satan' in Wicklow

Recently, a friend of mine passed me these images, which was supplied by his brother who works satellite photography. It has been claimed that these images show a 'devil's face' in the patchwork of fields near the reservoir. On the left is a zoom in of the area, on the right the face is outlined. How anyone managed to spot this is beyond me...

Back to the Hell-Fires: Black cats came back into the equation again during the late 1960s, while the house was inhabited by a Mrs. Margaret O'Brien, who was setting up an arts centre there. On moving in, she was told by the local people that the area was haunted by a black cat, alleged to be the size of an Airedale dog.

Mr. O'Brien did indeed see a big black animal disappearing into the foliage one day, but didn't mention it to anyone until her artist friend Tom McAssey and two of his colleagues were one night working late in the house. They had a frightening experience with a black draped spectre that spoke to them, and a monstrous black cat with red glowing eyes. McAssey later did an oil painting of the beast, which now hangs in the restaurant. Val McGann, who lived in a trailer next to the house, claimed to have stalked the monster with his shotgun, but was unable to corner it.

More paranormal events were to haunt the house, including apparitions of nuns, poltergeists, power failures during planned seances, bells, you name it. At one point, a Catholic priest was called in to sort things out, to no avail. Things got even dafter when headgear - in the form of small caps - were reported to be regularly teleporting themselves into the house, and were to be found on picture hooks or other odd places.

As if all of this wasn't enough, around the beginning of 1971, while plumbing work was being done in the house, a shallow grave was found beneath the floor, apparently containing the skeleton of a dwarf, and a brass figurine, depicting a horned and tailed devil thumbing its nose. Was this the dwarf that the Hell-Fires are supposed to have murdered?

As far as I am aware, no one has ever gone out their way to denounce the Irish Hell-Fires as Satanists. However, this wasn't the case with the English group of the 1740-60s. Whereas the Anglo-Irish gentry of the Dublin Hell-Fire club seem to have been little more than a ribald bunch of hedonists, their English version were more a tad more exclusive, and dare I say it, contrived.

To make matters more complicated, the English Hell-Fires didn't really refer to themselves as such - they called themselves The Monks of Medmenham or the Knights of St. Francis, after Sir Francis Dashwood, the then Chancellor the Exchequer and founder of the group.

Sir Francis Dashwood

There was a core group of just 13 individuals, including John Wilkes - a famous supporter of American independence - I believe there is even a town in Pennsylvania named after him, and Lord Sandwich, he who gave name to the snack - it's said that he was too busy playing cards to dine, and instructed his servants to slap some meat between two hunks of bread. The poets Charles Churchill, Paul Whitehead and Robert Lloyd were also members. The others members were all well-known in their day, but their names mean little to us now. However other alleged members are still famous today, but I've found little evidence to support claims of regular membership. These were Irishmen Lawrence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan - author of The School For Scandal . Also alleged to have involvment was painter and engraver William Hogarth, who later fought a stressful satirical war with Wilkes and Churchill through poetry and cartoons.

John Wilkes

Well documented however, are the visits of Benjamin Franklin to the home of Sir Francis Dashwood, between the years of 1764 and 1775, when Franklin was an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Dashwood, like John Wilkes, was a supporter of American Independence, and Franklin was free to come and go as he pleased from West Wycombe. It may surprise some of you to know that Dashwood - head of the English Hell-Fire club - and Benjamin Franklin - never the most religious of men, collaborated on the Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer , mainly because they thought the original book of common prayer was too boring!

One of the main problems I've come across while researching the Hell-Fires was finding material written in any kind of sober manner. I've had to contend with the likes of Daniel P. Mannix's The Hell-fire Club - 'Orgies were their pleasure, politics their pastime', and The Hell-fire Club by Donald McCormick - 'The weird story of the amorous knights of Wycombe'. These pulp publications, printed in the 50s and 60s, are not without their uses, as they are indicative of the how the facts grow more lurid in the hands of writers who seem to be getting some unspecified thrill from scaring or disgusting themselves.

Books by Donald McCormick and Daniel Mannix

These writers, often unquestioningly regurgitating the claims of the Hell-Fires enemies, spare nothing in their descriptions of the masked swinging parties and drunken orgies which took place in the Chalk tunnels built at West Wycombe by Sir Francis. I've been to these dark damp tunnels - they're open to the public and available to rent - and I can't imagine that they were the most comfortable places to hang out in. Also, what these writers seem to ignore is that the tunnels were created long after the heyday of the club. The Monks in fact used the more luxurious venue of Medmenham, an old Abbey on the Thames, which they had furnished for their uses, a bizarre form of retreat centre.

At the other end of the scale of commentators comes E. Beresford Chancellor's The Lives of the Rakes from 1925, and the The Dashwoods of West Wycombe , written by none other than the current Sir Francis Dashwood. Dashwood never shies away from the possibly scandalous behaviour of his ancestors, nor does he add fuel to the fires of scandal, stating that the claims of Satanism only came about in the 19th century, long after the demise of the members.

There is no doubt however, that the members took part in mock-religious ceremonies, usually at the initiation of new members, and the like. The main point of the gatherings, as John Wilkes put it, was that

'a set of worthy, jolly fellows, happy disciples of Venus and Bacchus, got together to celebrate women in wine and to give more zest to the festive meeting, they plucked every luxurious idea from the ancients and enriched their own modern pleasures with the tradition of ancient luxury.'

Medmenham was indeed luxuriously equipped, with books and plenty of food and wine. Servants were always on hand to attend to members who stole away to Medmenham for a quiet night with their mistresses. The house was littered with mottoes and suggestive sculpture - large statues of the Egyptian gods Harpocrates and Angerona stressed the oath of secrecy to which the brothers and sisters of the club were bound. They even had a boat for Thames river trips, with a cabin of scarlet canvas which could be rolled up. Propulsion came from a team of four gondoliers dressed in white with red oars.

Of the contemporary material available, it's possible to get some idea of what went on at Medmenham, without being encumbered with the excited damnations of later days. Even some of the cellar book, taking account of wine consumed, still exists.

No vows of celibacy were required by the members, male or female, yet the latter considered themselves to be the lawful wives of the monks during their stay within the monastic confines - 'every monk being religiously scrupulous not to infringe upon the nuptial alliance of any other brother'. In fact, so that the ladies would not have to deal with the embarrassment of meeting their husbands, they first appeared in masks - if they recognised someone they should avoid, they would retire without giving themselves away.

A book called Chrysal or the adventures of a Guinea was published in 1766, telling the adventures of a coin as it passes from pocket to another. Attempting scandal at most page turns, it's apparently inaccurate in most details, including its portrayal of the goings on at the Abbey.

The Chrysal tells of how John Wilkes smuggled a baboon into the Abbey, dressing it up like a devil and hiding it in a great trunk in the chapel. To the lock he tied a piece of string, which he hid beneath the carpet. At some high point in the mock-religious proceedings, Wilkes is supposed to have pulled the cord, releasing the baboon, who was understandably a little irritated from being locked up in the dark, and leaped upon the shoulders of Lord Sandwich who cried out

'Spare me gracious devil: Spare a wretch who was never sincerely your servant. I sinned only from vanity of being in fashion: Thou knowest that I have never been as wicked as I pretended: never have been able to commit the thousandth part of the vices of which I have boasted of... leave me therefore and go to those who are more truly devoted to your service. I am but half a sinner...

Quite a mouthful for a man with Satan on his back, isn't it? Both the current St. Francis and Beresford Chancellor doubt that the author of Chrysal was ever anywhere near Medmenham, as he obviously didn't know that the chapel was a mere 21 by 19 feet, rather small to accommodate 13 members and a hidden baboon. There was definite animosity, on a public level however, between Wilkes and Sandwich, culminating in the Essay on Women scandal, Wilkes' various jailings and exiles, and the mob riots, following the publication of the infamous No. 45 issue of The North Briton in 1763, in which Wilkes insinuated that George the III was acting against the nation's interest, as well as highlighting as a host of other unsavoury royal scandals.

For over two hundred years, authors, with the exception of Sir Francis and Beresford Chancellor, have had a wild time speculating about the carry on of the Hell-Fire clubs, but always from some kind of supposed moral high-ground. This has led to the supposition that their mysterious quasi-religious ceremonies were of a satanic nature, and not merely devoted to the gods of pleasure. However, it one looks at their behaviour from a Christian viewpoint, it would be fairly easy to assume that whatever the monks were up to, it certainly wasn't very Christian... and for many, that which isn't of Christ, surely must be of the Devil.

Only last week, the Southern Baptist Convention, the United States largest Protestant denomination, published 30,000 booklets asking for its members to pray for millions of Hindu souls. Hindus, the booklet claims, 'have no concept of sin or personal responsibility', and are in effect worshipping Satan. The SBC have also published booklets soliciting prayers for Jews and Muslims. Quite a large chunk of the Earth's population are Muslim, Hindu or Jew - are we to believe that they're all Satanists?

It's often no better on my side of the world. Jon Downes, in The Rising of the Moon , tells of rumours of 'satanic covens' operating on Woodbury Common, in South West England, whereas the area is regularly used by Druidic groups and Wiccans - even the U.S. Army now accepts Wiccans.

Only a week ago, I was visiting a druidic group in rural Ireland. Little statuettes of goddesses and the like are littered around their land, but in amongst them male horned fertility gods can be found. These people are not Christian enough to be Satanists, but do tend to put away their horned gods when visitors of a more conservative nature are about. I'm reminded of the infamous Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, home of numerous historical conspiracy theories. One of the multitude of castings and carvings there is that of Moses, holding the ten commandments, but with two horns upon his head. The current Earl of Rosslyn reckons that this was due to a mistranslation of Exodus 34:29, as the Hebrew word qeren can mean either a horn or ray of light...

I guess I could go on well into the night with tales of Accidental Satanists - the plight of those, who, through no fault of their own except their own taste for hedonism, the bizarre and the distinctly UnChristian have become demonised as Satanists, much the same as the beings of Greek myth were demonised, despite the earlier ideas of the Neoplatonists who saw the daemons as being the intermediates between gods and mortals.

On Thursday evening, before I left to come here, I was swapping emails with a person in England who reckoned that the Hell-Fires were Satanists, because they had been denounced as such. If that's how one becomes a Satanist, then I'm your man.

During the summer of 1998, as some of you may know, I spent a pretty strange two weeks in Norway, the exertions of which were captured on film and are currently being shown on the Discovery Channel, in a programme called The Search for the Serpent .

A dozen or so people from various walks of life had been gathered together by a Swedish gentleman by the name of Jan-Ove Sundberg to, as far as I was concerned, examine claims of a lake monster on lake Seljord, a 10 mile long, 1 mile wide, 450ft deep lake in southern Norway. What transpired was somewhat different. Jan seemed to know that The Serpent - capitalised and singular - was there, and we just had to find it, using echo sounders and sonars and other hastily slapped together methods. Some of us didn't really like this approach.

If there's a new animal to be discovered, it's fair to say that there ought to be more than one. The chances of finding a breeding population of large previously unknown aquatic animals in a land-locked lake are pretty slim, but finding some kind of beast that can live for a long time and doesn't reproduce seemed even more improbable. To cut a long story short, some of us got very tired for the silliness and manners of Mr. Sundberg, leading to two of us clearing out of there several days before the end of the 17 day trip. (Read more about the matter here: http://www.bla ther.net/archives2/issue2no16.html

Since then, Mr. Sundberg has been on the warpath, waging a campaign against several of us, for spoiling his party. In my own case, this has culminated in his building a website about me, titled The Infamous Dave Walsh: Right Hand of the Devil , which alleges that I'm a Satanist and a pornographer. To quote Jan:

'I believe he was possessed by his previous relationship with the occult (and especially Satanism and his strange attraction to the Devil). At one stage I even speculated that a sinister force was at work at the lake and used Walsh as a tool. If you had seen what we saw, you wouldn't be too sure either.'

The site mumbled on this fashion, giving all my contact details and 'accusing me' of several things that I would quite happily admit anyway. [After I made noises about legal action, a watered-down version replaced the original. A copy of the original can be found at http://www.hellshaw.com/gustup/satan.html ]

Do I, ladies and gentleman, look like a Satanist to you? I'm just not that Christian...

Irish Hellfire Club photographs »

Photographs (2006) of the English Hellfire Club - Medmenham Abbey and the tunnels at West Wycombe



Recommended: Geoffrey Ashe - The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality

Photos of the Hell-Fire Club tunnels at West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire:

No Smoke Without Fire - Irish Hellfire Club I

Hellfire and Harlots - Irish Hellfire Club

Hell-Fire Francis - The English Hell-Fire Club


The Irish Hellfire Club: Hellfire & Harlots
Posted by daev

A matter of days after the Samhain issue pitter-pattered into the mailboxes of the Blather clientele, one Sam Smyth of the Irish Independent started an article titled Ultimate sacrifice for new boy Simon thus: 'bright-eyed and eager, Simon Coveney was led into the Dail like a virgin being inducted into the Hell-Fire Club'. Coveney is a newly-elected member of the Irish parliament (Dail TD) for Cork South Central. Is it mere coincidence that Mr. Smyth should employ this Hell-Fire comparison, or did Blather's far reaching influence create a snowball (in hell) meme?

The Hellfire Club, Dublin mountains
More Hellfire Club photographs »

The Hon. Pat Marren was in touch about last week's issue, with a few quotes concerning the exploits of the 'Bucks':

'Your discussion of the "Hell-Fire Club" and mention of the immortal Buck Whaley jogged the synapses, so I duly betook myself to my all-too capacious library (the mammy is all for heaving it out in the yard and selling it to the literati of North Granby, Connecticut, but I say leave the man in peace) and I duly unearthed the following, from Ulick O'Connor's "The Times I've Seen," a biography of the inestimable Oliver St. John (another St. John!) Gogarty, 1963, Ivan Obolensky Inc., New York, p. 34-5:'

[Blather note: Gogarty formed the basis for the character of 'stately Buck Mulligan' in Joyce's Ulysses ]

"Another element in the environment of Dublin had its influence on the formation of Gogarty's character. This was the tradition that had survived in the popular imagination from the 18th century; the tradition of 'Bucks,' 'Fireaters,' and 'Shams,' who flourished side by side with the passionate oratory and patriotic spirit of the Anglo-Irish parliament in College Green. The legend lived on in the novels of Charles Lever and in the street ballads which recorded their feats and escapades. Among them was 'Buck' Whaley, who walked to Jerusalem for a bet of 10,000 [pounds] and played handball against the Wailing Wall amidst the protests of indignant rabbis. Another was 'Tiger' Roche, who, even in the days when travel was difficult, was 'wanted' in places as far apart as London, Canada, and Australia for dueling activities. 'Buck' English once shot a dilatory waiter and then had him charged on the bill. There was 'Fighting' Jack Fitzgerald, who used the Dublin mob to stave off arrest from the police on his frequent visits to the metropolis, where, despite the fact that he belonged to the landed gentry, he was a wanted man.

"A duel in those days could start at the drop of a hat. Though dueling was illegal, judges occasionally issued challenges to impertinent barristers, and since the Four Courts was beside the dueling grounds in the Phoenix Park, their Lordships could get back to hearing quickly if their aim was in. [Henry] Grattan lost his coat-tails in the House of Commons in a duelling escapade as he fled through a door which was slammed shut by the sergeant-at-arms whose duty it was to arrest members who proposed to settle their disputes with pistols.

"The Bucks' Castle (the Hell-Fire Club) can still be seen on a hilltop near Dublin. Here they galloped in the evening dressed in red and black (the devil's livery) to show not so much their sympathy with Satanism as their contempt of superstition. Their leader was Jack Parsons, the Earl of Rosse."

I would venture to wonder if Mr. O'Connor's last paragraph is a trifle hyperbolic; when referring to the building atop Mont Pelier Hill as a castle , I can assume that he means it in jest. This is