Hell Fire Club and Massey Woods

The trail starts at the Hell Fire Club car park.

The trip starts with an exploration of the Massy Woods. The entrance to the woods is reached by walking north from the Hell Fire Club car park on the R115 road for around 100 meters.

The lands in this area were originally granted to Walter de Ridleford after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169 and later given to Sir Thomas Luttrell in the sixteenth century. The Lutrell family held onto the estate until the seventeenth century when they were relinquished to a jurist called Dudley Loftus. Loftus subsequently sold the lands to William Conolly, who built the lodge now known as the Hell Fire Club on the summit of Montpelier Hill. The history of the Hell Fire Club will be told later in this guide. The Conolly family sold the lands to a politician called Luke White who built a house and gardens on the site. The estate passed to the Massy family through inheritance and their name continues to be associated with these woods, although the estate originally encompassed a much wider area including adjacent Montpelier Hill and Cruagh mountain.

The Massys used the estate to entertain guests shooting game in the Dublin mountains and to host parties during major events on the Dublin social scene. The last baron Massy - Hugh Hamon - was declared bankrupt in 1924 and evicted from the estate. He moved into nearby Beehive Cottage, entirely dependent on the modest salary his wife earned as an employee of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes. In the years up until his death in 1958 he could be seen in these woods, gathering firewood in what was once his estate. This lead to him earning the nickname, the "Penniless Peer".

This section of the trip roughly follows the route of the Nature Trail laid out in the estate, marked with orange waymarkers.

Following the eviction of Hugh Hamon Massy in 1924, the lands were eventually acquired by the State. The Forestry Department laid out the area as an urban forest, planting a wide variety of European, American and Asian tree species. Many of these survive to the present day and the wood is home to a broad mixture of species including beech, oak, lime, horse chestnut, sycamore, ash, Sitka spruce, Norway spruce, Japanese larch, Noble fir, grand fir and western hemlock.

One of the less well-known points of interest in the woods, located off the marked nature trail, is the remains of a Bronze Age wedge tomb. To reach the tomb, leave the trail by turning right at this junction to follow the track uphill into the trees. As the trail begins to peter out it passes a small dell to the left. Just after this dell and also to the left, behind the remains of a wall, is the wedge tomb.

Hidden among the trees are the remains of a Bronze Age wedge tomb, discovered in 1978 by the archaeologist and local historian Patrick Healy.

Wedge tombs are so called because the burial chamber narrows at one end. They generally consist of two or more chambers surrounded by a double-walled gallery and covered with a cairn of stones.

Only the skeletal remains of the double-walled gallery that formed the main chamber survive of this wedge tomb. Most of the surrounding cairn has disappeared; most likely the stones were used to build the adjacent wall that runs through the woods here.

Having completed your visit you can either retrace your steps back to the main trail or descend into the dell to the southeast of the tomb to reach the banks of the Owendoher river and follow the adjacent track back to the main trail.

The remains of an icehouse, used by people in the locality to store lamb.

Colonel Samuel White, son of Luke White who bought the estate from the Conolly family, laid out two formal gardens in the estate, the ruins of one of which can be explored.

White engaged the services of Sir Ninian Niven, director of the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, to lay out the gardens. The gardens included several glasshouses which were designed and built by the renowned Irish iron-founder Richard Turner who also designed the glasshouses in Kew Gardens.

Sadly, the trees have long since reclaimed the land once occupied by the gardens. All the remains is the outer wall, the foundations of one of Turner's glasshouses and the remains of the irrigation system used to provide water to the glasshouses.

The Military Road (now the R115 road) was built in the wake of the 1798 Rebellion to enable British forces to travel easily into the Wicklow Mountains, which had long served as a base for rebels opposed to foreign rule.

The Military Road originally ran through the Massy estate and this section of the trail is part of the original route, still with parts of the original paving intact.

A small plaque in the woods denotes the former location of Killakee House. This was the house built by Luke White in the early nineteenth century after he acquired the lands from the Conolly family. It was a thirty-six roomed two-storey stucco-faced house with a Tuscan-columned entrance.

Following the eviction of Hugh Hamon Massy in 1924, the house was sold by the bank to a builder who proceeded to strip the contents before demolishing it entirely in 1941.

Immediately opposite as you exit the Massy Woods is The Steward's House, also known as Killakee House (not to be confused with the demolished Killakee House built by Luke White). It was built around 1765 by the Conolly family as a hunting lodge and has also served as a dower house and residence for the manager of the estate. The belfry at the rear was used to call workers in for meals.

The house has long held a reputation for being haunted and is also believed to have been used by the Hell Fire Club after the building on Montpelier Hill was destroyed by fire. The most common apparition sighted is that of a black cat. The most well-known account of the hauntings occurred in the late 1960s when the house was being renovated to become a restaurant. One night, a friend of the owners, artist Tom McAssey, and two workmen were confronted by a spectral figure and a cat with glowing eyes. McAssey later painted a portrait of the cat. Other reports were made of apparitions and poltergeist activity. In 1971 a plumber working on the house discovered the skeletal remains of what has been described as a "dwarfish figure". Local superstition associates this with a tale associated with the Hell Fire Club in which a dwarf was drowned in barrel.

For many years the building operated as a restaurant and Tom McAssey's painting of the black cat hung in the dining area. The restaurant closed in 2000 and today the house is a private residence.

Returning to the Hell Fire Club, the next stage of the trip follows the Montpelier Loop Trail, marked with green waymarkers.

The trail runs through the forest before emerging into a clearing overlooking the Piperstown Gap and across at the mountains to the south west of Montpelier Hill.

In the distance, crowned by the television mast on its summit, is Kippure, the highest mountain in Dublin. The nearest hill is Piperstown Hill which blocks the view over the Glenasmole valley. The mountains of Corrig and Seefingan, which form the western boundary of the valley, can be seen behind.

As the trail turns back to face Dublin, on the slopes below can be seen the ruin known as Carthy's Castle. This is all that remains of Dolly Mount, a hunting residence built by Henry Loftus, Earl of Ely. It was originally a substantial two-storied building with an arched gate on either side from which extended various ancillary buildings ending in a three-storied tower with an embattled top. The building fell into ruin and all the remains is one of the three storey towers.

As the trail turns and begins the climb up towards the Hell Fire Club, a complete view across Dublin City and Dublin Bay can be seen. Certain landmarks such as Howth, Bull Island and Poolbeg can be easily made out, weather permitting. On a particularly clear day, it is possible to see the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. With the aid of binoculars or other magnifying device it is possible to discern various Dublin landmarks, including the Aviva Stadium at Lansdowne Road, the National Conference Centre and Croke Park.

At the summit of Montpelier Hill is the ruined building, "Mount Pelier", that gives the hill its name but is better known to generations of Dubliners as the Hell Fire Club. It was built around 1725 for use as a hunting lodge by William Conolly, who was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons.

The building was of a Palladian design with a hall and two reception rooms on the upper floor. On the eastern side was a third, timber-floored, storey used for sleeping quarters. The ground floor consisted of a kitchen and servants' quarters. At each side of the building is a room used to stable horses; a mounting block with steps can be seen on the eastern side of the building. The main entrance was at the centre of the building on the first floor and was reached by a set of steps (now missing).

The building's association with the Hell Fire Club began some time after Conolly's death in 1729. The Irish Hell Fire Club was founded in 1735 by Richard Parsons, First Earl of Rosse. It's president was Richard Chappell Whaley, known as "Burn Chapel" Whaley for his penchant for setting fire to Catholic churches. Accounts of the meetings of the club claim that they drank "scaltheen", a mixture of whiskey and hot butter and left a chair vacant at each gathering for the Devil. The Club rented the property at Mountpelier from the Conolly family although it's not certain whether they made much use of it (most of their meetings were held in Dublin). Nevertheless numerous lurid stories of their antics at Mount Pelier have entered the local folklore.

One of the best known stories - common to many haunted houses in Ireland - tells of a stranger who came to the club one night. During a game of cards, one of the members dropped his card on the floor and when he went to pick it up up saw that their guest had a cloven hoof, at which point the Satanic visitor vanished in a fireball. In another story, the Devil visited the club to claim the soul of club member Simon Luttrell in exchange for clearing a gambling debt. Luttrell distracted him and fled. Other stories tell of exorcisms and ritual sacrifices of cats and, on one occasion, a dwarf.

At some point during this period, the building was damaged by fire. There are several accounts of what happened. Some suggest it was to give the building a Satanic look, other suggest the club set fire to it when the Conolly family tried to evict them. One story says that after a footman spilled a drink on "Burn Chapel" Whaley, Whaley doused him with brandy and set him alight. The fire spread and damaged the building. The club's activities declined after this period although there was a brief revival a few years later under the auspices of Thomas "Buck" Whaley, son of Richard Whaley. Since that time the building has lain in ruin.

To the rear of the Hell Fire Club building is a circular mound with a dip in the centre. This is all that remains of the Neolithic passage tomb that once stood at the summit of the hill. A few surviving kerbstones can be seen around the base of the mound.

Local legend has it that the stones from the tomb were used to build the Hell Fire Club. Shortly after building work was completed, a great storm blew the roof of the building off. According to local superstition this was revenge from the Devil for the desecration of the tomb. The roof of the Hell Fire Club was replaced with a sturdy arched-stone structure, which remains intact to this day, even though the roof was set alight with tar barrels to act as a beacon during the visit of Queen Victoria to Dublin in 1849.

An account of a visit by the antiquarian Austin Cooper in 1779 suggests, in fact, that the tomb was left largely intact by the construction of the Hell Fire Club. It is speculated that the stones from the tomb were ultimately used as building materials for the Military Road.

The trail follows a short downhill track to return to the car park.