J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 4

J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales,
Volume 4, by

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
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Title: J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4
Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Release Date: June 18, 2004 [eBook #12647]
Language: English
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J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 4
Ghost Stories of Chapelizod (1851) The Drunkard's Dream (1838) The
Ghost and the Bone-setter (1838) The Mysterious Lodger (1850)
by
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

GHOST STORIES OF CHAPELIZOD

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,