Ghost Stories of Dublin

Dublin is a city rich in urban myth and legend - and haunted occurrences contribute greatly to the propagation of such folklore. These tales can be of the vernacular or the fictional variety, and examples of both types are given below.

The famous nineteenth-century Dublin ghost-story writer Joseph Sheridan le Fanu published the first editions of his two most famous Dublin-based fictional ghost stories in The Dublin University Magazine. These first editions are reproduced here in readable digitised format illustrated by contemporary scenes of Dublin.


In the case of "real-life" reported ghost-stories there are two good sources for Dublin tales.  Read Patrick Byrne's lecture to the old Dublin Society in the 1970s. An earlier collator of ghost stories was the Rev. John Seymour, who in 1913 advertised in all the principal Irish newspapers to seek out true-life haunted experiences. The ensuing contributions are still in print in True Irish Ghost Stories  and as Seymour vouched at the time of the first publication:

"the majority of the stories were sent to me as first- or second-hand experiences by ladies and gentlemen whose statement on an ordinary matter of fact would be accepted without question".

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