Discover Dracula’s Dublin Roots
Ireland’s tales of the undead and Dublin’s Gothic architecture inspired the creation of the world’s most famous vampire.
Transylvania may be thought of as Count Dracula’s home, but the fanged fiend began his life in Dublin. The legendary vampire is the creation of Irish writer Bram Stoker, who was born in Dublin in 1847 at the height of Ireland’s Great Famine.
As a child, Stoker spent several years bedbound. His mother would tell him stories including horror tales of the neamh-mairbh, the walking dead, which may have planted a seed that was to germinate in his adulthood. After attending Trinity College, Stoker worked as a civil servant in Dublin Castle and famously suffered from nightmares about headless corpses in the building.
Every Halloween, Dublin celebrates its famous son in the Bram Stoker Festival (31 October – 3 November). The festival is a mix of theatrical performances, literary events, spine-tingling entertainment and night tours that delve into the dark side of Dublin.
Those who want to see the Dublin that influenced Stoker’s sinister imaginings can follow the Dark Dublin, Dracula, Bram Stoker & Other Horrors tour. The guided tour visits grand Gothic buildings such as Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, and Marsh’s Library where Stoker studied maps of Transylvania and texts about Vlad Dracul. It also reveals the city’s troubled history and haunted hotspots and introduces participants to Ireland’s evil spirits.
Ghost hunters will also enjoy the Haunted Dublin Tour and the Dublin Ghost Bus Tour, which visits the sites of reported paranormal activity and of historical dark deeds while professional actors bring the horror stories to life with a dollop of comedy thrown in.
Stoker and other Irish authors including Oscar Wilde and Sheridan Le Fanu, whose story Carmilla – featuring a female vampire – predates Dracula, helped to shape the Gothic horror genre. The blend of ancient Celtic folklore and tales of medieval goings-on such as body snatching and satanic rituals in Dublin created a rich vein of stories for these novelists to mine.
Their imaginations may also have been fired by Ireland’s dramatic landscape, where, under darkening autumnal skies it is easy to visualise ghostly shadows and sinister beings from another realm.
As Ireland is the Home of Halloween, which has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, there is no better place to celebrate it and at the same time uncover the origins of one of the scariest ghouls of them all – Count Dracula.
Article & images courtesy of www.ireland.com
except Marsh's Library reading cage, which is my own
