N I G H T B R I N G E R . S E
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THE WRAITHS OF WILION CASTLE
Looming above the landscape of southeastern Ireland, only firescarred walls remain of once-stately Wilton Castle. Until it was ravaged by flames in the early 1920s, this rambling structure was home to generations of the Alcock family, prominent in the region since the early seventeenth century. If local legends are to be believed, a fair number of ghosts are now harbored within the castle walls.
One story recounts strange lights that are sometimes seen in the remnants of a castle tower where an old woman, a one-time actress, died in a fire. Another tale has it that every year on the anniversary of his death, the shade of Harry Alcock, who died in 1840, is seen driving slowly away from the castle in a ghostly carriage. Crowds once gathered in anticipation of the event, and a local shoemaker claimed to have spoken with the phantom.
The strangest tale, however, is that of neighbor Archibald Jacob, who served as a magistrate and captained a local militia company at the time of the rebellion against Britain in 1798. Jacob flogged and tortured many people in the parish. While returning home from a ball at Wilton Castle one evening in 1836, he was killed by a fall from his horse. For years afterward, his ghost was said to haunt both the scene of his death and the castle. On one occasion, a Catholic priest was summoned to the castle to conduct an exorcism. When he made the sign of the cross, the ghost of Archibald Jacob allegedly appeared in the fireplace, then disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
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