Leixlip Castle sits above the confluence of the River Liffey and the River Rye on the western edge of the town, and has been there in one form or another since before 1212. Norman lords, the Knights Hospitaller, Gerald FitzGerald the 8th Earl of Kildare, and the Conolly family – who held it from 1728 until 1914 – all left their mark here. Most recently it was the home of Desmond Guinness, founder of the Irish Georgian Society, who bought and restored it in 1958 and lived here until his death in 2020. The castle opens for guided tours on specific dates each year.

Two distinct traditions are attached to the castle. The first is the banshee, recorded in the Dúchas folklore archive as having been heard here – her cry a warning to the Conolly family, as it would have been to any family of ancient Gaelic lineage she attached herself to.

The second is harder to account for. A many-headed dog has been reported looking in through the castle windows. It doesn’t enter. It watches. The account appears in published sources on the castle’s history but no date, no witness, and no explanation has ever been attached to it. It doesn’t fit neatly into any Irish folk tradition – the Shuck and the Cú Sídhe are single-headed. Whatever has been seen at those windows is something else.