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Ghost Stories of Chapelizod (1851)
The Drunkard's Dream (1838)
The Ghost and the Bone-setter (1838)
The Mysterious Lodger (1850)
by
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Take my word for it, there is no such thing as an ancient village,especially if it has seen better days, unillustrated by its legends ofterror. You might as well expect to find a decayed cheese without mites,or an old house without rats, as an antique and dilapidated town withoutan authentic population of goblins. Now, although this class ofinhabitants are in nowise amenable to the police authorities, yet, astheir demeanor directly affects the comforts of her Majesty's subjects, Icannot but regard it as a grave omission that the public have hithertobeen left without any statistical returns of their numbers, activity,etc., etc. And I am persuaded that a Commission to inquire into andreport upon the numerical strength, habits, haunts, etc., etc., ofsupernatural agents resident in Ireland, would be a great deal moreinnocent and entertaining than half the Commissions for which the countrypays, and at least as instructive. This I say, more from a sense of duty,and to deliver my mind of a grave truth, than with any hope of seeing thesuggestion adopted. But, I am sure, my readers will deplore with me thatthe comprehensive powers of belief, and apparently illimitable leisure,possessed by parliamentary commissions of inquiry, should never have beenapplied to the subject I have named, and that the collection of thatspecies of information should be confided to the gratuitous and desultorylabours of individuals, who, like myself, have other occupations toattend to. This, however, by the way.
Among the village outposts of Dublin, Chapelizod once held aconsiderable, if not a foremost rank. Without mentioning its connexionwith the history of the great Kilmainham Preceptory of the Knights of St.John, it will be enough to remind the reader of its ancient andcelebrated Castle, not one vestige of which now remains, and of the factthat it was for, we believe, some centuries, the summer residence of theViceroys of Ireland. The circumstance of its being up, we believe, to theperiod at which that corps was disbanded, the headquarters of the RoyalIrish Artillery, gave it also a consequence of an humbler, but not lesssubstantial kind. With these advantages in its favour, it is notwonderful that the town exhibited at one time an air of substantial andsemi-aristocratic prosperity unknown to Irish villages in modern times.
A broad street, with a well-paved footpath, and houses as lofty as wereat that time to be found in the fashionable streets of Dublin; a goodlystone-fronted barrack; an ancient church, vaulted beneath, and with atower clothed from its summit to its base with the richest ivy; an humbleRoman Catholic chapel; a steep bridge spanning the Liffey, and a greatold mill at the near end of it, were the principal features of the town.These, or at least most of them, remain still, but the greater part in avery changed and forlorn condition. Some of them indeed are superseded,though not obliterated by modern erections, such as the bridge, thechapel, and the church in part; the rest forsaken by the order whooriginally raised them, and delivered up to poverty, and in some cases toabsolute decay.
The village lies in the lap of the rich a