MOST HAUNTED

IRELAND'S most haunted house has made it into a Top 10 of the world's scariest Halloween spots.

- BY LARISSA NOLAN

The ghostly and gothic Charleville Castle is No 8 in the global ranking of most scarifying stays, calculated by analysing TripAdvisor reviews.

The 225-year-old castle near Tullamore in Co Offaly is said to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl called Harriet, the youngest daughter of the third Earl of Charleville.

Harriet, 8, died tragically on the impressive main staircase in the grand house while sliding down the bannisters in 1861.

Visitors have heard her laughing and shrieking and others claim to have seen the phantom vision of a small girl in a blue and white dress, ribbons in her golden hair.

So spooky is Charleville that it has been featured on most-haunted TV shows such as Ghost Hunters International. It has been investigated by numerous paranormal sleuths and psychics from around the world.

The stunning neo-Gothic property is open to the public, with grand rooms such as the entrance hall with its oak staircase; the ballroom where Lord Byron frequently attended balls; its scary dungeons and its beautiful vaulted ceiling and stone floor interiors.

It was designed by Francis Johnston, who also designed the historic General Post Office in Dublin.

Now, Charleville Castle joins the ranks of the world's most haunted places, along with Salem and Vlad the Impaler's imprisonment location in Romania and the haunted Tower of London, if you are looking for a spooky sojourn ahead of Halloween.

Here is the top 10 list, as compiled by the spinblitz.com gaming website.

1. Salem, Massachusetts, USA (TripAdvisor Score: 4.9/5)

Every October, Salem transforms into a living Halloween movie set.

The city's haunting legacy from the 1692 Witch Trials lures more than a million visitors each October, with 87,500 people crowding its streets on Halloween night alone, a record-breaking 37% increase from the previous year (2023).