Review: Ghost Story: "Ghost Stories of Chapelizod" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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Chapelizod is a village within Dublin. At the time Le Fanu was writing, it was still on the outskirts. Le Fanu set his book The House by the Churchyard there. James Joyce also used the village for his short story “A Painful Case” from his collection The Dubliners. This was originally presented as three separate ghost stories all set in the village. Alcohol is a universal element. In the first, “The Village Bully,” “Bully” Larkin, an “ill-conditioned fellow of herculean strength,” picks a fight with nineteen-year-old Ned Moran, better known as “Long Ned” because of his slender and “lathy” (i.e., long and thin) build. Larkin beats poor Ned to death, of course, and becomes less likely to get into a fight after that. But don’t think Ned has forgotten. The next, and probably the best, is “The Sexton’s Adventure.” Bob Martin is the sexton of the title, famous for chasing curious boys out of the churchyard. But, as Le Fanu tells us, “it was yet true, that Bob Martin’s severe morality sometimes nodded, and that Bacchus did not always solicit him in vain.” He likes to hang out in taverns and tell merry and horrifying tales. One of his buddies, an “atrabilious publican” gets to drinking with him, but finds he can’t stop. And it’s an expensive habit. After one last look at his books, he puts a gun in his mouth and blows his head away. Bob Martin reins his drinking in a bit after that, especially since he has one less buddy to pay for rounds. When he has to go out for business his wife reminds him not to drink. Finally, he snaps at her: “Well, divil carry me if I drink a drop till I come back again.” Apparently Old Scratch views that as a challenge. The last story, “The Spectre Lovers,” is probably the weakest. Twenty-year-old Peter Brien lives with his grandmother. He’s “much more addicted to wrestling, dancing, and love-making, than to hard work, and fonder of whiskey-punch than good advice.” After a night out with the boys, Peter, tipsy to say the least, pauses on the bridge of Chapelizod for a smoke. He notices whitewashed huts along the bank that weren’t there earlier. As he moves on, he sees an army in uniforms he doesn’t recognize, moving along silently. He can hear the wind, but the army’s artillery doesn’t make any noise as it’s pushed along the road. Being drunk, he takes these anomalies in stride. But since he’s lazy and greedy, it’s all got to come back to bite him in the butt eventually. There’s some genuine creepiness as Peter watches the army march on, and in seeing buildings he knows as ruins restored to their former glory. There’s also humor. He works up the nerve to speak to an officer he believes is French, ignoring for the moment that if he is French, speaking to him in English—even polite English—will be of little use. Overall, I enjoyed this little collection. Had I know there would be his much drinking, though, I would have read it with cold one in hand. The stories are available from Wikisource: _____ Title: “Ghost Stories of Chapelizod” Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) First published: 1851 Source: ISFDB