September 1992 as one of seventeen Irish Catholic martyrs who died for their belief. The archbishop is commemorated in his native Limerick by the Archbishop OâHurley Memorial Church in Caherline County Limerick. St Kevinâs church closed in 1912. The old St Kevinâs graveyard has been converted into a modern public park now hidden away on Camden Row near the busy Wexford Street. It is a place of peace, at last. There are no longer any reports of a hanged archbishop celebrating a ghostly mass over the grave of a man who gave up his life for his conviction.
9
S HERIDAN L E
F ANU â S G HOSTS
OF C HAPELIZOD
One dark night in Chapelizod some years ago, a black dog that no one owned began to howl. He did not stop for many hours. It is still remembered chillingly by those who heard the disturbing dirge as it roiled around the small houses of the town. Some said it was just an unfortunate dog who was lost and was howling for its master to come to rescue it from the empty streets where nothing and nobody stirred. But others said it was a Banshee, in animal form, come to foretell the death of a chosen one.
It is said the Banshee only comes for someone from one of the great families of Ireland, those with names beginning with an âOâ, as in OâNeill, OâDonnell, OâBrien. But many other families whose Anglicised names do not carry the âOâ nonetheless have an â Ã â in Irish; Ã meaning descended from. So the Banshee could be calling for any Irishman, whose name is known only to the harbinger of death.
Few chose to leave their homes to seek the keener that night. Most pulled the curtains closed and left the night outside. Some prayed the visitation would pass their home by. Some knelt and made a sign of the cross while they prayed; others shrugged and kept their prayer private to themselves. Few slept easily in their bed until dawn came.
The following morning, the dog was nowhere to be seen, not on the streets of Chapelizod, not in Phoenix Park besideit, not on any of the roads leading to the town, nor in the surrounding parishes. It was as if the phantom had simply vanished. People asked one another what it could have been, but no one could say for certain what they had heard that night. In the natural order of life, some older people passed away in the weeks following that weeping through the streets, so who knew what happened to the soul that was destined to be taken that night. It was the sort of story that Chepelizod takes in its stride.
Sheridan Le Fanu lived in the Phoenix Park in the Royal Hibernian School during the first eleven years of his life. His father, Thomas Le Fanu, a Church of Ireland clergyman, was appointed to the chaplaincy of the school for orphaned and abandoned children of members of the British Army. Interested in the unexplained as he was, Sheridan Le Fanu made sure to feature Phoenix Park and Chapelizod in his stories of Gothic horror. He was called to the bar in 1839, but abandoned law for journalism, newspaper ownership and ghost stories, some of which were told in such detail about Chapelizod that their footsteps may still be followed by late-night wanderers to this day.
In 1851, Dublin University Magazine published his Ghost Stories of Chapelizod , a collection of three stories: âThe Village Bullyâ, âThe Sextonâs Adventureâ, and âThe Spectre Loversâ.
In âThe Spectre Loversâ, Peter Brien leaves nearby Palmerstown, in the early hours of the morning, with a head full of drink, to return to his grandmotherâs house where he lives. He pauses on the bridge over the Liffey. Upstream, as he watches, small houses begin to appear on the bank of the river behind the townâs Main Street. He wonders why he has never seen them before, and wanders around into the Square.
To his horror, he sees a troop of soldiers, dressed in uniforms of a bygone age, marching towards their barracks with terror on
9
S HERIDAN L E
F ANU â S G HOSTS
OF C HAPELIZOD
One dark night in Chapelizod some years ago, a black dog that no one owned began to howl. He did not stop for many hours. It is still remembered chillingly by those who heard the disturbing dirge as it roiled around the small houses of the town. Some said it was just an unfortunate dog who was lost and was howling for its master to come to rescue it from the empty streets where nothing and nobody stirred. But others said it was a Banshee, in animal form, come to foretell the death of a chosen one.
It is said the Banshee only comes for someone from one of the great families of Ireland, those with names beginning with an âOâ, as in OâNeill, OâDonnell, OâBrien. But many other families whose Anglicised names do not carry the âOâ nonetheless have an â Ã â in Irish; Ã meaning descended from. So the Banshee could be calling for any Irishman, whose name is known only to the harbinger of death.
Few chose to leave their homes to seek the keener that night. Most pulled the curtains closed and left the night outside. Some prayed the visitation would pass their home by. Some knelt and made a sign of the cross while they prayed; others shrugged and kept their prayer private to themselves. Few slept easily in their bed until dawn came.
The following morning, the dog was nowhere to be seen, not on the streets of Chapelizod, not in Phoenix Park besideit, not on any of the roads leading to the town, nor in the surrounding parishes. It was as if the phantom had simply vanished. People asked one another what it could have been, but no one could say for certain what they had heard that night. In the natural order of life, some older people passed away in the weeks following that weeping through the streets, so who knew what happened to the soul that was destined to be taken that night. It was the sort of story that Chepelizod takes in its stride.
Sheridan Le Fanu lived in the Phoenix Park in the Royal Hibernian School during the first eleven years of his life. His father, Thomas Le Fanu, a Church of Ireland clergyman, was appointed to the chaplaincy of the school for orphaned and abandoned children of members of the British Army. Interested in the unexplained as he was, Sheridan Le Fanu made sure to feature Phoenix Park and Chapelizod in his stories of Gothic horror. He was called to the bar in 1839, but abandoned law for journalism, newspaper ownership and ghost stories, some of which were told in such detail about Chapelizod that their footsteps may still be followed by late-night wanderers to this day.
In 1851, Dublin University Magazine published his Ghost Stories of Chapelizod , a collection of three stories: âThe Village Bullyâ, âThe Sextonâs Adventureâ, and âThe Spectre Loversâ.
In âThe Spectre Loversâ, Peter Brien leaves nearby Palmerstown, in the early hours of the morning, with a head full of drink, to return to his grandmotherâs house where he lives. He pauses on the bridge over the Liffey. Upstream, as he watches, small houses begin to appear on the bank of the river behind the townâs Main Street. He wonders why he has never seen them before, and wanders around into the Square.
To his horror, he sees a troop of soldiers, dressed in uniforms of a bygone age, marching towards their barracks with terror on
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