The Hauted Hell Fire Club in Dublin, Ireland
The Hell Fire Club, I remember first hearing of this hellish but curiously alluring building as a small child lost in the mountains of Wicklow on a gloomy, foggy and bitterly cold night. May I hasten to add that I was safely tucked away in the back of a warm car with my sleeping siblings whilst my father regaled my mother of the hell-raising escapades of the Club’s colourful members. Years later I happened across it quite unexpectedly, in fact I didn’t know what it was until I stopped in a local tavern for a wee dram of whiskey to warm the cockles. It is now little more than a ruin which sits on the summit of Montpelier, a hill in the Dublin mountains. It was built in the 1720s by William Connolly, the speaker of the Irish House of Commons, as a hunting lodge. Originally called Mount Pelier, it consisted of two large rooms and a hall on the upper floor and kitchen and servant’s hall on the ground floor. The original Hell Fire Club was established at West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in 1741 by Sir Francis Dashwood. It soon became infamous with rumour of pagan rituals, sexual orgies and devil worship. Taking Dashwood’s model as inspiration, Richard Parsons, the First Earl of Rosse established a Hell Fire Club in Ireland. The Club was an exclusive retreat for wealthy rakes who got up to high jinks, allegedly drinking heavily, engaging in madcap sex orgies and dabbling in the occult. Rumours spread throughout Dublin City that the devil had appeared amongst the fine gentleman disguised as a weary traveller seeking food and lodging. The fine gentlemen taking him for chump, dragged him into a game of cards to take whatever the poor old sod had left. Whilst the game was in full flow, a hand of cards was dropped on the floor,
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