Behind the Couch

'The Father of the English Ghost Story', Dublin-born Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, is best known to admirers of Gothic fiction as the influential author of such chilling tales as Uncle Silas , The House by the Churchyard , The Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter , and, perhaps most famously, the short story collection In A Glass Darkly , which contains Green Tea, The Room in the Dragon Volant, The Familiar, and, of course, Carmilla . Carmilla  (1872) was groundbreaking for its time, not least because of its subtle love affair between the two main female characters. Taking his cue from John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), Le Fanu’s darkly sensual tale, detailing the delicate yet increasingly sinister courtship of a young woman by a female vampire, further entwined the figure of the vampire with notions of forbidden sexuality. Le Fanu was deeply influenced by the historical figure of Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian countess who reputedly bathed in the blood of young...

While staying in Dublin for a couple of days last week to see Tori Amos in concert at the Olympia Theatre, I took the opportunity to visit Mount Jerome Cemetery in the suburb of Harold’s Cross in the south of the city. With the second highest number of burials of any cemetery in Ireland, Mount Jerome is one of the biggest cemeteries I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. Opened in 1836, the sprawling cemetery features all manner of exquisite Victorian funerary art including ornate memorials, tombs, angels, shrouded urns, vaults and crypts. Due to a population boom, and therefore increase in mortality rate in Dublin in the early 19th century, the British government set up commercial cemetery companies throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland to deal with the need for burial grounds. The land upon which Mount Jerome Cemetery stands was acquired by the General Cemetery Company of Dublin from the Earl of Meath, as their first choice – a section of Phoenix Park – was declined by loca...

Located on Church Street in Dublin’s North Side, just a stone-throw from the dark currents of the Liffey, stands St Michan’s Church; the oldest parish church on that side of the city. Founded in 1095, and named after a Danish Saint, the present church dates from 1685 and still retains many of the features from this time, including its galleried interior and intricately decorated organ; upon which, according to local lore, Handel practised for his first performance of Messiah … The crypts beneath the church are thought to have been created around the time of the 1685 renovation and they are the final resting place for many of Dublin’s most prominent and influential families from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. A combination of the limestone walls and methane seeping up into the air from the earth below is thought to have created the constantly dry atmosphere perfect for ensuring the preservation - mummification - of the bodies resting here. It is also believed that the church st...