Phantoms of the Isles

Phantoms of the Isles: Further Tales from the Haunted Realm combines Simon Marsden’s atmospheric photography with accounts of haunted buildings and the histories attached to them. Its subjects range across Britain and Ireland, including ruined castles, decaying mansions, priories and abbeys, where local traditions and reported apparitions sit alongside stories of violence, imprisonment and long decline.

One featured location is Leap Castle in County Offaly, associated with the O’Carroll family and the story of a brother killed in the Bloody Chapel. Marsden also describes the castle’s reputed spiked oubliette and the discoveries said to have been made beneath it. The book presents these places through history, folklore and photographic atmosphere rather than treating ghostly claims as established fact.