Ghost Stories of Chapelizod

"Ghost Stories of Chapelizod" is a collection of supernatural tales by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, an influential figure in Victorian Gothic literature. Set in the quaint Dublin suburb of Chapelizod, the stories explore themes of hauntings, the supernatural, and the unsettling intersection of the ordinary and the eerie. Le Fanu's masterful storytelling, characterized by atmospheric detail and psychological depth, invites readers into a world where the past lingers ominously and the boundaries between reality and the supernatural blur. The collection showcases Le Fanu's skill in crafting chilling narratives that continue to captivate fans of ghostly fiction.

• Fiction

								
Take my word for it, there is no such thing as an ancient village,
especially if it has seen better days, unillustrated by its legends of
terror. You might as well expect to find a decayed cheese without mites,
or an old house without rats, as an antique and dilapidated town without
an authentic population of goblins. Now, although this class of
inhabitants are in nowise amenable to the police authorities, yet, as
their demeanor directly affects the comforts of her Majesty's subjects, I
cannot but regard it as a grave omission that the public have hitherto
been left without any statistical returns of their numbers, activity,
etc., etc. And I am persuaded that a Commission to inquire into and
report upon the numerical strength, habits, haunts, etc., etc., of
supernatural agents resident in Ireland, would be a great deal more
innocent and entertaining than half the Commissions for which the country
pays, and at least as instructive. This I say, more from a sense of duty,
and to deliver my mind of a grave truth, than with any hope of seeing the
suggestion adopted. But, I am sure, my readers will deplore with me that
the comprehensive powers of belief, and apparently illimitable leisure,
possessed by parliamentary commissions of inquiry, should never have been
applied to the subject I have named, and that the collection of that
species of information should be confided to the gratuitous and desultory
labours of individuals, who, like myself, have other occupations to
attend to. This, however, by the way.

Among the village outposts of Dublin, Chapelizod once held a
considerable, if not a foremost rank. Without mentioning its connexion
with the history of the great Kilmainham Preceptory of the Knights of St.
John, it will be enough to remind the reader of its ancient and
celebrated Castle, not one vestige of which now remains, and of the fact
that it was for, we believe, some centuries, the summer residence of the
Viceroys of Ireland. The circumstance of its being up, we believe, to the
period at which that corps was disbanded, the headquarters of the Royal
Irish Artillery, gave it also a consequence of an humbler, but not less
substantial kind. With these advantages in its favour, it is not
wonderful that the town exhibited at one time an air of substantial and
semi-aristocratic prosperity unknown to Irish villages in modern times.

A broad street, with a well-paved footpath, and houses as lofty as were
at that time to be found in the fashionable streets of Dublin; a goodly
stone-fronted barrack; an ancient church, vaulted beneath, and with a
tower clothed from its summit to its base with the richest ivy; an humble
Roman Catholic chapel; a steep bridge spanning the Liffey, and a great
old mill at the near end of it, were the principal features of the town.
These, or at least most of them, remain still, but the greater part in a
very changed and forlorn condition. Some of them indeed are superseded,
though not obliterated by modern erections, such as the bridge, the
chapel, and the church in part; the rest forsaken by the order who
originally raised them, and delivered up to poverty, and in some cases to
absolute decay.

The village lies in the lap of the rich and wooded valley of the Liffey,
and is overlooked by the high grounds of the beautiful Phoenix Park on
the one side, and by the ridge of the Palmerstown hills on the other. Its
situation, therefore, is eminently picturesque; and factory-fronts and
chimneys notwithstanding, it has, I think, even in its decay, a sort of
melancholy picturesqueness of its own. Be that as it may, I mean to
relate two or three stories of that sort which may be read with very good
effect by a blazing fire on a shrewd winter's night, and are all directly
connected with the altered and somewhat melancholy little town I have
named. The first I shall relate concerns

The Village Bully

About thirty years ago there lived in the town of Chapelizod an
ill-conditioned fellow of herculean strength, well known throughout the
neighbourhood by the title of Bully Larkin. In addition to his remarkable
physical superiority, this fellow had acquired a degree of skill as a
pugilist which alone would have made him formidable. As it was, he was
the autocrat of the village, and carried not the sceptre in vain.
Conscious of his superiority, and perfectly secure of impunity, he lorded
it over his fellows in a spirit of cowardly and brutal insolence, which
made him hated even more profoundly than he was feared.

Upon more than one occasion he had deliberately forced quarrels upon men
whom he had singled out for the exhibition of his savage prowess; and in
every encounter his over-matched antagonist had received an amount of
"punishment" which edified and appalled the spectators, and in some
instances left ineffaceable scars and lasting injuries after it.

Bully Larkin's pluck had never been fairly tried. For, owing to his
prodigious superiority in weight, strength, and skill, his victories had
always been certain and easy; and in proportion to the facility with
which he uniformly smashed an antagonist, his pugnacity and insolence
were inflamed. He thus became an odious nuisance in the neighbourhood,
and the terror of every mother who had a son, and of every wife who had a
husband who possessed a spirit to resent insult, or the smallest
confidence in his own pugilistic capabilities.

Now it happened that there was a young fellow named Ned Moran--better
known by the soubriquet of "Long Ned," from his slender, lathy
proportions--at that time living in the town. He was, in truth, a mere
lad, nineteen years of age, and fully twelve years younger than the
stalwart bully. This, however, as the reader will see, secured for him no
exemption from the dastardly provocations of the ill-conditioned
pugilist. Long Ned, in an evil hour, had thrown eyes of affection upon a
certain buxom damsel, who, notwithstanding Bully Larkin's amorous
rivalry, inclined to reciprocate them.

I need not say how easily the spark of jealousy, once kindled, is blown
into a flame, and how naturally, in a coarse and ungoverned nature, it
explodes in acts of violence and outrage.

"The bully" watched his opportunity, and contrived to provoke Ned Moran,
while drinking in a public-house with a party of friends, into an
altercation, in the course of which he failed not to put such insults
upon his rival as manhood could not tolerate. Long Ned, though a simple,
good-natured sort of fellow, was by no means deficient in spirit, and
retorted in a tone of defiance which edified the more timid, and gave his
opponent the opportunity he secretly coveted.

Bully Larkin challenged the heroic youth, whose pretty face he had
privately consigned to the mangling and bloody discipline he was himself
so capable of administering. The quarrel, which he had himself contrived
to get up, to a certain degree covered the ill blood and malignant
premeditation which inspired his proceedings, and Long Ned, being full of

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes