Ross Castle in Co. Meath, Ireland is now run as a Bed and Breakfast, but it is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young girl.
Ross Castle was built in 1536 by Richard Nugent, the 12th Lord of Delvin. He was a brutal and vicious English Lord and the local Irish people referred to him as The Black Baron. They say he once built a gallows and lynched a poor peasant because he suspected the man had stolen a loaf of bread.
The Black Baron had a daughter, Sabina. Although of ailing health, she grew up to be a beautiful, young woman. She spent much of her youth at the shores of Lough Sheelin, near Ross, in the charming scenery of the Irish countryside. Although the daughter of an English Lord, extended walks brought her into contact with the local Irish. She was pleasant and well liked by the village folk. Commonly she would have a governess accompanying her, but now and then she would manage to get away without being watched.
On one of these occasions she was walking down to the bridge across the Inny, which formed the border of her father’s dominion. Down there she met a handsome young man with whom she started chatting. His name was Orwin, son of an O’Reilly chieftain. Time suddenly flew and upon parting they promised to meet again. More and more often they would meet in secrecy, since it was unprecedented for the daughter of an English Lord to visit with the son of an Irish Chieftain. They soon fell deeply in love for one another.
Time passed and the longer they waited the more the realization grew that they could never be together. They talked about getting married and spending their lives together. But their families were foes, waging war on one another time and time again. Orwin and Sabina grew desperate. Their commitment to each other was stronger than their family quarrels and the politics their lives were embroiled in.
Without any hope in sight, one day, they decided to elope. Without any future for them in the land they were raised in they had to say farewell and leave to seek their fortune in common elsewhere. One night they met again in secrecy. They boarded a boat down by the shore and started to row across the lake. As they were well on their way, a sudden storm, of the sort that often blows in from the west, came up and caught them by surprise. They came off course, could not return and struggled as the storm grew stronger. A gale and a sudden swell caught the boat and overturned it. While Sabina was rescued but did not wake up for 3 days, Orwin drowned, his body eventually being retrieved from the Lough’s wet grave. Upon realizing that her lover was forever gone, Sabina fell into deep despair. So grave was her hopelessness, that she would lock herself up in the castle’s tower, not eat or drink until she fell into a deep sleep, from which she never woke up.
To this day, Sabina haunts the castle’s walls. Visitors and guests make frequent encounters with her spirit, still in search for her lover and restless until the day she will be reunited with him.
It is said that Sabina’s fate was the pay back for her father’s cruel deeds. His soul will not find rest over the fate of many of his victims and his grief for the loss of his only daughter. The Black Baron’s presence has been reported by visitors in the vicinity of the castle on numerous occasions.
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