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Irish Ghost Stories
Selected by Rosemary Gray. When you think of Irish writers of supernatural tales, then the names Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker will figure prominently, but this does no more than scratch the surface of a rich vein of chilling and macabre fiction to be found on the Emerald Isle. This rich and diverse selection showcases some of the very best.
608 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 25, 2019
I wish I could like this anthology more. It is a formidable 250,000 word, 600 page tome containing a wide range of supernatural tales associated with Ireland, and I have to admit my knowledge of the field would be poorer without it.
There are pristine examples of Irish folklore here, some collected during the Regency by Thomas Crofton Croker and others during the late Victorian period by the American Jeremiah Curtain. These tales have the ring of authenticity, for the dead encountered therein are as palpable and familiar as famine or disease, and what humor they may have is sparse and sardonic—as in Grimm.
Secondly, we have numerous productions from The Dublin Magazine and other Unionists periodicals of the early Victorian period which combine an enthusiasm for Irish folk tales with a somewhat dismissive jocular style and just a whiff of Protestant contempt. Some of these approach the power of Coker, but others allow the condescending attitude to dissipate whatever power the tales may have. The best of this type are the stories of Joseph Sheridan La Fanu, who transcends the others through his extraordinary sympathy and superior knack for choosing the most terrifying realistic detail; he alone transforms the folk tales into real ghost stories. Much of his work reprinted here—which comprise almost a third of the anthology—is not available in his two major collections, and some of the stories are fine indeed, particularly the E.T.A. Hoffmann influenced “Schalken the Painter” and “The Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand,” one of his most unsettling tales. Contained in this broad category are a few other gems as well, notably William Maginn's “A Vision of Purgatory."
A third type of folklore influenced tales are sentimental products of the middle to late Victorian era, often narrated by insufferable characters with thick Irish brogues and filled with charming leprechauns and harmless faerie folk. The four tales from D.R. McAnally's "Irish Wonders" are all pretty bad, but Herminie Kavanaugh's “Darby O'Gill and the Leprechaun” is even worse.
There are other good stories here, some not often anthologized: two good workmanlike chillers from Mrs. Riddell, Republican politician Dorothy McArdle's “The Prisoner”(about a hunger striker and a Kilmainham jail ghost), George Moore's enigmatic “A Playhouse in the Waste,” and Wilde's elegant “The Canterville Ghost.” There is, however, more inferior stuff as well, including a silly story by F. Marion Crawford full of third-rate gothic claptrap and a guilty secret (incest!) and an interminable, adjective-stuffed novella by Dickens' protegee, the decorous Rosa Muholland.
Perhaps the worst thing about this anthology is that it contains none of the apparatus one might expect: no introduction, no author biographies, no dates of composition—just the stories themselves, in no discernible order. If this book had been half the size and well edited, it might have been a fine anthology, but--as is--it is a lot like a low-rent antique mall: sure, you can find a lot of good stuff here, but you're gonna have to root through the junk.
November 7, 2022
It's a selection of short stories that are centred around the supernatural with a unique Irish aura.
The reader will find a number of gothic tales of haunted mansions and castles, obscure folk tales featuring fairies, pots of gold and strange demonic possessions.
There are great names to be found among the featured authors, including Bram Stoker and J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The stories vary in topics and length, some lasting only a few pages, while others are composed of longer, more complex narratives.
The book is lengthy but it's wonderfully easy to sink into its mysterious setting. Definitely worth a read during long autumn evenings.
The reader will find a number of gothic tales of haunted mansions and castles, obscure folk tales featuring fairies, pots of gold and strange demonic possessions.
There are great names to be found among the featured authors, including Bram Stoker and J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The stories vary in topics and length, some lasting only a few pages, while others are composed of longer, more complex narratives.
The book is lengthy but it's wonderfully easy to sink into its mysterious setting. Definitely worth a read during long autumn evenings.
June 5, 2018
I feel hot and cold about this one. To start with, most stories have nothing to do with ghosts, but rather with leprechauns, or even no supernatural stuff at all (as in the excellent "The Living Ghost"). Quite a few stories were boring, but there were some gems in here too, and the last story is the hilarious "The Canterville Ghost" by Irish literature pharagon Oscar Wilde. So, I guess it was worth the read. My favourite section was the one dedicated to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the author of the horror classic "Carmilla" (not included in this volume).
December 28, 2024
How might an Irish ghost story differ from any other ghost story – other than being set in Ireland and/or written by an Irish author? In Rosemary Gray’s selection, the answer is by including elements of Irish folklore.
So it is not just the lonely rustic settings or the place names or the names of the characters that make the stories specifically Irish, but some of the specific creatures that the story’s heroes come across. There are plenty of ghosts of course, and even a giant, but there are some sinister or benevolent forces that reminds us that this is Ireland.
As we might expect from such a devout land, there are some religious apparitions here. The devil makes an occasional appearance, and so do some of the saints. These saints sometimes show a surprisingly puckish sense of humour.
Then there are the ‘little people’. Curiously even one of the saints is described as being four feet tall. There are also a few fairies, but more particularly we see the presence of leprechauns, a product of purely Irish mythology.
Leprechauns hold the same position as goblins or trolls in other countries. They are small human-like creatures with magical powers and knowledge about hidden treasure. They mostly hold aloof from human affairs. When caught (and they are notoriously slippery), you may persuade them to grant you three wishes. That at least is the impression I form from the stories in this volume.
It is interesting that stories about being granted three wishes usually end so badly for the recipients. I imagine most of us would rather like to be granted three wishes, and yet storywriters insist on telling us that being granted our wishes will not work out well for us.
I imagine they are quite right. Most of what we wish to have is selfish and short-sighted. That is the reason why elections and referenda only ever seem to leave people bitter and frustrated, even after the results have supposedly gone their way. What we want is generally not very good for ourselves and anyone else.
The most common wish had by people, in fiction and in real life, is for riches. This has a basic appeal, especially for anyone living a life of hard labour. Still it is essentially a selfish wish, a desire to suddenly obtain a lifetime of ease without any great effort of our own – the very fault we deplore in today’s obscenely wealthy people.
It is an irresistible wish, and I feel its pull myself. Yet what would happen if everyone had enough money to live without working? Who would milk the cows, or repair the lighting, or even protect or manage our great sources of wealth? In any form of society we are always going to need a hard-working population, so our wish to avoid being part of that is essentially a shameful one, however tempting.
Gray’s selection is wide ranging here, and the book runs for over 600 pages, but I am afraid I cannot say her stories are well-chosen. She seems to have favoured quantity over quality. There are some splendid stories here, and plenty of mediocre ones.
One problem is that the stories are so stereotypical. We are always quick to complain when other countries engage in slanted representations of our nationality, but there is nobody like the very people of a country for reinforcing those stereotypes in their own works. Perhaps this is an attempt to make them appealing to people outside their country. Perhaps it is because truthfully countries have few distinctive characteristics, so the only way to make something seem authentically ‘national’ is to embrace the stereotypes.
In the case of the stories here, the Irish are frequently portrayed as quaint, pious, with the gift of the gab, a taste for tall stories, and an even bigger taste for drinking. Quite a few stories are offered up in fake Oirish dialect. Reading them, I felt glad that I had not chosen to be a school teacher and having to read my pupils’ essays turned in full of spelling mistakes. That is what reading dialect feels like to me when it is excessively used.
The most famous writers here are notably the ones that do not engage in such pseudo-Irishicisms – Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and (most of the time at least) Sheridan Le Fanu. Still 170 page of Le Fanu (in a book of 608 pages) might seem a bit much, especially since one of the stories does not even have a ghost in it.
That is a fault with quite a few stories here. I would grumble if the stories dealt in vampires and werewolves and such creatures when the book is called Irish Ghost Stories, but I would be indulgent, since at least they are stories of horror or the supernatural.
However many stories here are folk legends and fantasies with no horror in them at all. Other stories are essentially just melodramas. Even a story with the word ‘ghost’ in the title does not have a ghost in it.
When the book is a punishing 608 pages long, I cannot help feeling that Gray should have trimmed some of the non-essential stories that had nothing to do with the book’s title, and maybe removed of the few of the more tedious and whimsical stories. As it stands the book has some enjoyable stories in it, but at times it is a chore to read, something that no ghost story anthology should be.
So it is not just the lonely rustic settings or the place names or the names of the characters that make the stories specifically Irish, but some of the specific creatures that the story’s heroes come across. There are plenty of ghosts of course, and even a giant, but there are some sinister or benevolent forces that reminds us that this is Ireland.
As we might expect from such a devout land, there are some religious apparitions here. The devil makes an occasional appearance, and so do some of the saints. These saints sometimes show a surprisingly puckish sense of humour.
Then there are the ‘little people’. Curiously even one of the saints is described as being four feet tall. There are also a few fairies, but more particularly we see the presence of leprechauns, a product of purely Irish mythology.
Leprechauns hold the same position as goblins or trolls in other countries. They are small human-like creatures with magical powers and knowledge about hidden treasure. They mostly hold aloof from human affairs. When caught (and they are notoriously slippery), you may persuade them to grant you three wishes. That at least is the impression I form from the stories in this volume.
It is interesting that stories about being granted three wishes usually end so badly for the recipients. I imagine most of us would rather like to be granted three wishes, and yet storywriters insist on telling us that being granted our wishes will not work out well for us.
I imagine they are quite right. Most of what we wish to have is selfish and short-sighted. That is the reason why elections and referenda only ever seem to leave people bitter and frustrated, even after the results have supposedly gone their way. What we want is generally not very good for ourselves and anyone else.
The most common wish had by people, in fiction and in real life, is for riches. This has a basic appeal, especially for anyone living a life of hard labour. Still it is essentially a selfish wish, a desire to suddenly obtain a lifetime of ease without any great effort of our own – the very fault we deplore in today’s obscenely wealthy people.
It is an irresistible wish, and I feel its pull myself. Yet what would happen if everyone had enough money to live without working? Who would milk the cows, or repair the lighting, or even protect or manage our great sources of wealth? In any form of society we are always going to need a hard-working population, so our wish to avoid being part of that is essentially a shameful one, however tempting.
Gray’s selection is wide ranging here, and the book runs for over 600 pages, but I am afraid I cannot say her stories are well-chosen. She seems to have favoured quantity over quality. There are some splendid stories here, and plenty of mediocre ones.
One problem is that the stories are so stereotypical. We are always quick to complain when other countries engage in slanted representations of our nationality, but there is nobody like the very people of a country for reinforcing those stereotypes in their own works. Perhaps this is an attempt to make them appealing to people outside their country. Perhaps it is because truthfully countries have few distinctive characteristics, so the only way to make something seem authentically ‘national’ is to embrace the stereotypes.
In the case of the stories here, the Irish are frequently portrayed as quaint, pious, with the gift of the gab, a taste for tall stories, and an even bigger taste for drinking. Quite a few stories are offered up in fake Oirish dialect. Reading them, I felt glad that I had not chosen to be a school teacher and having to read my pupils’ essays turned in full of spelling mistakes. That is what reading dialect feels like to me when it is excessively used.
The most famous writers here are notably the ones that do not engage in such pseudo-Irishicisms – Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and (most of the time at least) Sheridan Le Fanu. Still 170 page of Le Fanu (in a book of 608 pages) might seem a bit much, especially since one of the stories does not even have a ghost in it.
That is a fault with quite a few stories here. I would grumble if the stories dealt in vampires and werewolves and such creatures when the book is called Irish Ghost Stories, but I would be indulgent, since at least they are stories of horror or the supernatural.
However many stories here are folk legends and fantasies with no horror in them at all. Other stories are essentially just melodramas. Even a story with the word ‘ghost’ in the title does not have a ghost in it.
When the book is a punishing 608 pages long, I cannot help feeling that Gray should have trimmed some of the non-essential stories that had nothing to do with the book’s title, and maybe removed of the few of the more tedious and whimsical stories. As it stands the book has some enjoyable stories in it, but at times it is a chore to read, something that no ghost story anthology should be.
November 8, 2017
In many ways this is a collection of fairly obscure folk tales, and stories with a supernatural or folkloric element, along with some more conventional ghost stories. I would take issue with the title due to this, at least half of the stories weren’t ‘ghost’ stories as I would define them.
What this collection does do well is illustrate the depth and breadth of Irish writing, particularly acknowledging their fascination with the unexplained or otherworldly.
Despite being a fan of Le Fanu, I’m not entirely sure we needed six of his short stories here. The editor Rosemary Gray at times could have paired down her selections somewhat - the volume does become a bit of a slog at times, but ultimately the collection does showcase a number of Irish authors worth exploring further.
What this collection does do well is illustrate the depth and breadth of Irish writing, particularly acknowledging their fascination with the unexplained or otherworldly.
Despite being a fan of Le Fanu, I’m not entirely sure we needed six of his short stories here. The editor Rosemary Gray at times could have paired down her selections somewhat - the volume does become a bit of a slog at times, but ultimately the collection does showcase a number of Irish authors worth exploring further.
September 15, 2023
I have been reading the short stories in this book off and on since my first year of Uni when I bought it in a charming bookshop in Coleraine, Northern Ireland whilst visiting my good friend Jonny Woods. These stories are some of my favorite to read. The 19th century aesthetics of gothic literature are a somber, melancholy joy with their macabre, dreary prose and dreadful catastrophes. My favorite stories involve leprechauns, Faerie, or the Devil, and while some of the these stories were somewhat dull, more than most had enjoyable moments, and vivid descriptions. Looks like I need to find another set of stories to read on nights that are particularly dark and dreich.
High recommendation for anyone interested in gothic, celtic folklore.
High recommendation for anyone interested in gothic, celtic folklore.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews