Was she a Witch or Serial Killer with connection to the Hellfire Club that her legends paint her to be? What was the true story behind Darkey Kelley, said to haunt Dublin as the Green Lady of the Liberties.

In the twisting lanes of Dublin’s Liberties, there is a tale whispered even now on misty nights. At the bottom of the 40 steps leading to St. Audoen’s Church, an apparition sometimes appears of a woman shrouded in green light, her form wreathed in fog. She drifts silently before vanishing into the old stone wall as if swallowed by time itself. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Ireland

Locals call her The Green Lady. Many believe she is the restless spirit of one of Dublin’s most infamous figures: Darkey Kelly.

The Life and Death of Darkey Kelly

Dorcas “Darkey” Kelly lived in 18th-century Dublin, an innkeeper and madam who ran the Maiden Tower brothel near Fishamble Street. A pub on Fishamble Street, near where her brothel once stood, is named Darkey Kelly’s.

The tavern was said to attract the city’s most powerful men, including members of the notorious Hellfire Club, a society of Dublin’s elite who indulged in blasphemy, debauchery, and whispers of occult rituals. Among her patrons was Simon Luttrell, the Sheriff of Dublin and a reputed Hellfire Club member who had the nickname “King of Hell”.

According to legend, Darkey and Luttrell were once close, perhaps even lovers, until a bitter feud erupted between them. Some stories claim she accused Luttrell of fathering her child, a scandal that threatened his reputation. Others say she discovered something dark about the club’s rituals — something she was never meant to know. Whatever the truth, Luttrell turned on her, accusing her of witchcraft and infanticide.

In 1760, Darkey Kelly was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death of killing the shoemaker John Dowling by partial hanging and burning at the stake at Gallows Road, now called Baggot Street. She was publicly burned at the stake on St. Stephen’s Green on January 7th. 

An account described her execution like this:

She was placed on a stool something more than two feet high, and, a chain being placed under her arms, the rope around her neck was made fast to two spikes, which, being driven through a post against which she stood, when her devotions were ended, the stool was taken from under her, and she was soon strangled. When she had hung about fifteen minutes, the rope was burnt, and she sunk till the chain supported her, forcing her hands up to a level with her face, and the flame being furious, she was soon consumed. ~ Edward Cave, 1773

Legends After her Death

After her death, her prostitute friends collected, or rather stole her remains, and held a wake for her on Copper Alley, however, the 13 women were arrested for disorder and sent to Newgate Prison for it. 

Newgate Prison

There were many legends and stories about her burning. For posterity, people believed that she was in fact burned at the stake as a witch, not on a murder charge. Witnesses said she screamed curses as the flames rose, vowing vengeance on those who condemned her. 

Another legend was that she became pregnant with the child of Dublin’s Sheriff Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton, a member of the Hellfire Club and probable client of Kelly’s Maiden Tower. She demanded financial support from him. He responded by accusing her of witchcraft and of having killed their baby in a Satanic ritual. The body was never found. Darkey was then burnt at the stake.

A 1788 account in the World newspaper claims that her brothel was investigated by the authorities and that investigators then found the corpses of five men hidden in the vaults. One of them was thought to be Surgeon Tuckey’s son, who went missing and had never been found.

However, this does not appear in any contemporary account of her trial and execution and appears to be a later embellishment. So how accurate this investigation was, is rather dubious.

The Hellfire Connection

Darkey Kelly’s ties to the Hellfire Club deepen her legend and has perhaps even overshadowed it. The infamous group met in the Dublin Mountains at Montpelier Hill, a site already steeped in dark lore. It is said that Darkey supplied women for the club’s meetings, unaware of the darker rituals that took place there. Some tales even claim she witnessed a summoning gone wrong like that she saw the Devil himself.

Read the whole story about the Hellfire Club in Dublin: The Hellfire Club on Montpelier Hill and The Killakee Dower House in Dublin and the haunted mysteries connected to the club.

Whether she was a victim of vengeance, a scapegoat for the sins of powerful men, or something more sinister, the truth remains shrouded in shadow. The Hellfire Club’s reputation for corruption and cruelty only strengthens the belief that Darkey Kelly’s fate was one of betrayal and injustice.

Montpelier Hill: Here from the hunting lodge at Montpelier Hill in Dublin, where the Hellfire Club had meetings and many of the stories of dark rituals and the likes comes from. //Source: Joe King/Wikimedia

Was the father of her alleged child one of the members of the Hellfire Club? Darkey had contested a trial on the grounds that she was pregnant. After it was found that she was not with child by a jury of midwives, she was sentenced in January 1761. Had she even been pregnant? Perhaps the two parts of Dublin’s darker history have merged because of the mysterious and dark aspects?

The Haunting of the 40 Steps

Centuries later, her ghost is said to linger near St. Audoen’s Church, close to where she once lived. Those who have seen her describe a woman in tattered skirts glowing faintly green, her face both sorrowful and fierce. She appears at the bottom of the ancient stone steps, drifting upward before fading into the wall itself.

She is also said to have been seen walking down Fishamble Street towards Copper Alley. 

For some, she is a tragic spirit  who was wronged, burned, and forgotten as a human where another legendary figure took her place. The additional torture for her execution were certainly not something a man would go through for the same crime as he would only be hanged until death. For others, she is a reminder of the cruelty that hides behind respectability and power. Either way, her story lives on, whispered through the cobbled streets of the Liberties.

When the fog thickens and the church bells toll midnight, take care walking near the 40 steps. The Green Lady might be waiting there, her eyes glowing faintly in the dark, keeping watch over the city that condemned her.

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References:

Darkey Kelly – Wikipedia

Dublin’s most-haunted – the city’s five most famous ghost stories | Irish Independent

Darkey Kelly: Witch, Killer or Ghost? | Fringe Rebels