Roodstown Castle

Roodstown Castle can be seen on the hill to the north (to the right if heading to Monaghan). If you have time on the way back, it is worth a small detour just to see an intact £10 castle. £10 castles were built by local lords, paid for by Henry VI Locally associated with the Taffe family, yes Taff, as in the nickname for the Welsh from the river through Cardiff. The Taffe’s built it and number of others around Ardee, and Carlingford, in the 1400s. They weren’t blow-in’s they had been around for over three hundred years even in 1400. But, the Taffe’s went onto to be on the losing side in The War of the Three Kingdoms in 1690, and they lost all their Irish Land, and the First World War in 1918 where they lost all their Irish titles, the English being sore winners. They are still known as the Graf von Taffes in Europe. Oh and there are still Taffes around here, only not Counts and Grafs.

One of them, Lawrence Taffe, tells this ghost story: There is a certain field in the district of Roodstown where there are fairies. This old man, who lived about a century ago in 1840, was always going home late and was usually drunk. Then someone warned him not to be going across this field after midnight, but in return, he told them that he would fight all the fairies in Ireland. This night he was going home after midnight, and he was drunk. As he was crossing the field, he got a slap on the face, which knocked him. He rose, but got the same again. He lay there groaning, and while thus, a little red man came up to him and said "now my good man, you must come for a ride to the Slieve Gullion mountains". The old man refused, but the next place he found himself, was on top of an enormous horse. The little man told him, that when he would want the horse to jump anything, he should say "High over all". But anyway, when he was near Armagh, a big river, with a ditch on the side opposite appeared. "Beggora she will never jump this". So instead of saying "High over all", he said "Right through all", so excited was he, but the horse jumped through the ditch, leaving the man behind and him stuck fast in the ditch. It took the man three hours to get out, and three weeks to get back home. So, he never said that he was not afraid of the fairies after that. Told by Laurence Taaffe of Roodstown, to Nancy Conlon of Drumcashel, County Louth 422 words

https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5008852/4961104/5074900 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0670, Page 005 Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD. See copyright details »