Irish Ghost Tales by Tony Locke Page B

chainsaw stopped for no reason on three occasions.
    When attempting to lift the great stone, a steel chain suddenly snapped, cutting the hand of one of the labourers and, significantly, allowing blood to soak into the ground. Although legends still abound in the locality of the ‘man who was buried three times’ and the fantastic treasure that was buried with him, few local people will approach the grave, especially after dark.
    This, then, in essence is the legend with its folkloric additions. But is it simply an isolated tale or does it fit into a tradition of Irish tales of vampires? The spilling of blood was not uncommon amongst the ancient Irish – indeed animal blood was ritually let under Christian directive upon St Martin’s Eve (11 November). The roots of this tradition undoubtedly go back to pagan times and may have a connection with the returning dead.
    The horrors of the famine added considerably to the lore. The blood of pigs and cows supplemented a meagre diet, either drunk raw or made into relish cakes (a mixture of meal, vegetable tops and blood brought together in a kind of patty).
    Although most cultures have vampire stories, such tales have a particular resonance in Ireland. Here, interest in and veneration of the dead seems to have played a central part in Celtic thinking. However, it was the historian and folklorist Patrick Weston Joyce who actually made connections between Abhartach and the Irish vampire tradition. Joyce enthusiastically recounted the legend in his own book A History of Ireland (1880). This was seventeen years before Dracula was published and it is believed that Stoker, then a Dublin civil servant, read Joyce’s work (and presumably the Abhartach legend) with some relish. Around the same time, manuscript copies of Geoffrey Keating’s History of Ireland , which made much of the undead, were placed on public display in the National Museum in Dublin. They were on loan from Trinity College Library (which possessed two manuscript copies) and the display included chapter ten on the undead. Although Stoker himself could not read Irish, he had many friends and acquaintances that did and he may have received at least part of the work in translation.
    So there you have it. Could the legend of the vampire king, coupled with the strong tradition of blood-drinking Irish chieftains and nobles, be responsible for giving birth to the gothic tale of Count Dracula? Can we really consign the vampire to some remote part of Eastern Europe, where he is unlikely to do us any harm, or should we keep a clove of garlic handy?

25
T HE L EGEND OF
C ARRICKAPHOUKA C ASTLE
COUNTY CORK
    A fter the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, Cormac Tadgh McCarthy, Lord of Muskery was made High Sheriff of Cork County. The newly ruling English were having problems with the defeated Irish lords, who refused to obey their new masters, and McCarthy was given the job of rounding up troublemakers. Carrickaphouka Castle had a sinister reputation. Its name means ‘Rock of the Pooka’, which is one of the most feared creatures of the fairie realm. The pooka was a shape-shifter and could take many different forms, including a horse, a goat with large horns or a black dog. The pooka was said to inhabit the castle, where its evil insinuated its way into the veins of Cormac Tadgh McCarthy.
    One of the most troublesome rebel lords was James Fitzgerald. He was extremely popular and had a large following among the displaced nobility. McCarthy invited Fitzgerald to Carrickaphouka Castle under the pretext of broaching a peace agreement between the Irish rebels and the English. The meal that was served to Fitzgerald was poisoned but McCarthy wasn’t satisfied with just killing Fitzgerald; he wanted to impress the English lords who were present. McCarthy ordered that Fitzgerald’s body be drained of blood and cooked. He then started to eat the flesh, washing it down with goblets of Fitzgerald’s blood. The English were horrified. When news of