Love it or loath it – Halloween is here – and it means that images of witches riding brooms, scarecrows and poorly carved pumpkins are probably plaguing your news feed.
We’re taking a different route by playing to our strengths and exploring our top 10 list of creepy buildings and monuments that is sure to give you nightmares for weeks… or at least make for some intriguing lunch-time scrolling.
We did a run around the office and got #Team3DDB’s top picks resulting in a fine selection of both international and local Irish attractions that left a lasting impression on our team.
First up, Nick, our MD, insisted that this HAD to be on the top of the list. High up in the Dublin Mountains, the Hellfire Club, is a long abandoned, eerie looking building. It’s the ruin of a small hunting lodge built by William Conolly in 1725 over a prehistoric burial mound.
By the 1740s the building was unoccupied and a club of “wild” young lords and gentlemen, barred from taverns they frequented in Dublin city, began renting it as a meeting place for their club. Such clubs were fashionable at the time and linked to excess drinking, gambling and often despicable behaviour and depravity. This one apparently drank toasts to the Devil and thus became known as the Hellfire club.
Rumour has it that one night a lone man knocked on the door seeking refuge. They allowed him in, and during a game of cards, one of the members of the Hellfire Club dropped his card. When he reached down to retrieve it, he looked at the man’s feet and saw that he had cloven hooves. Seeing this, the man immediately burst into flame. This flame started a fire that spread throughout the lodge, and you can still see the charred walls when you visit today.
Nick even reckons he witnessed some supernatural activity up there while hiking with his dog Snoop some years ago. He legged it down the hill in record time.
Kevin, our Digital Marketing Manager and self-acclaimed movie buff, submitted this entry: The cream-colored siding and traditional shutters make this Dutch Colonial Revival home appear cheery and comfortable.
Don’t be fooled. This house has a horrific history that includes grisly murders and claims of paranormal activity. The story became famous in Jay Anson’s best-selling novel, The Amityville Horror.
Caroline, our Accounts Manager, discussed her eerie experience when visiting Leap Castle in County Offaly.
“Chilling” is the word that Sinéad, our BID Manager, used to describe Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.
Even if you did not know the horrific history that inspired the structuralist memorial, you would sense it as you wandered the labyrinth of pathways between massive tomb-shaped stone slabs.
Next up, Danny, on our Post-Production Team, told us a few tales about his visit to Cork’s Lunatic Asylum. It was established in 1798 by William Saunders-Hallaran, the infamous inventor of the Hallaran’s Chair, a device that spun a hysterical patient at 100 revolutions per minute.
With the cruelty of this invention, one can only imagine the types of torture that were used on the patients when the asylum functioning. The voices of these patients can still be heard, and they have even been recorded by paranormal investigators.
Danny got to visit the building before it was closed to the public due to a fire that gut the building in 2017.
Like Buddhist prayer flags, bones are also strung above. The design dates to 1870, when a local man was hired to take bones stored in a crypt and turn them into art.
Conor, our Business Development Manager and lover of Irish history, discussed a recent trip to The Wicklow Gaol which has seen many acts of injustice and suffering.
From penning in thousands of prisoners during the Great Famine to jailing and torturing rebels during the 1798 Rebellion and the War of Independence.
Thousands of prisoners died here from starvation and disease, leading to it being known as the “gates of hell,” by those who found themselves on the wrong side of the wall.
Although Marcus, our Project Manager, has never been to The Hill of Crosses, he said that images of the monument always gave him the creeps… and we can see why.
Between crosses, crucifixes, rosaries, and carvings, there are now more than 100,000 spanning on the hill. Despite the country’s Soviet Union occupation between 1944 and 1990, and organised removals by the government, the crosses have never completely gone away.
Richie, our Associate Director, reckons that the pictures of Downhill House don’t give it justice.
Downhill House was a mansion built in the late 18th century for Frederick, 4th Earl of Bristol and Lord Bishop of Derry at Downhill. Much of the building was destroyed by fire in 1851 before being rebuilt in the 1870s. It fell into disrepair after the Second World War.
Last, and by no means least, Ramos, our Photography Manager, has produced a rather striking entry inspired by his trip to Croatia.
The eerie monument celebrates the uprising and resistance movement of the people of Kordun and Banija against Nazi-fascism and commemorates the victims of nazi-fascism, both civilian victims and fallen resistance fighters.
It is a World War II monument built on Veliki Petrovac, the highest peak of Petrova Gora, a mountain range in central Croatia. The site of the monument is shared between three municipalities: Gvozd and Topusko, in Sisak-Moslavina County and Vojnić, in Karlovac County.
