The Hell Fire Club

About this audio guide

This guide to the Hell Fire Club above Dublin opens with a local legend of a late-night card game, a stranger nobody thought to question, and the cloven hooves someone glimpsed beneath the table. From there it turns to 1725, when William Conolly, then speaker of the Irish house of commons, had his men tear apart a five-thousand-year-old passage tomb on this summit to build a hunting lodge with a view of his estates, work that archaeologists later confirmed by finding the wrecked burial chamber beneath it. You'll hear how locals believed the hill itself objected to what was built on it, and how Conolly responded. Listen for the sound of wind across the summit as the guide reaches its answer.