We all know that Dracula was the creation of the Irishman Bram Stoker, but when a sober journal, History Ireland, edited by two academics, Hiram Morgan, Department of History UCC and Tommy Graham, Department of Modern History UCC, runs an article "Was Dracula an Irishman?" You have to take notice. This is the heading to an article by Bob Curran, lecturer in Celtic History and Folklore at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, which appears in the current, summer edition of the journal. Not Transylvania with its mountains and ruined castles, but somewhere in north Derry, between Garvagh and Dungiven. In the middle of a field in the townland of Slaughtaverty is an area known as the Giant's Grave, or more properly as Abhartach's sepulchre. And Abhartach was the original bloodsucker, if legend is to be believed. The people got a local chieftain to kill him. The deed was done and he was buried standing up. But the next day he came back and demanded a bowl of blood drawn from the veins of his subjects. He was not dead. He was one of the undead or neamh-mhairbh and they had to try killing him all over again . . . read all about it in that utterly beyond-reproach History Ireland quarterly.
This issue has excellent very-much-alive articles. Con Costello, retired army officer and local historian, gives us "Glorious Punchestown". Splendid pictures: Tim Healy, Governor General of the Free State congratulating Harry Beasley (aged 72) after a win in 1923. No undead around. All full of life. The formation of the Chester Beatty Library is a fascinating article by Charles Horton, Curator and Archivist, which requires study and admiration. There are, in fact, several articles to make of this issue probably one of the best the editors have ever produced. Included is an interview by Hiram Morgan with Brian Walker to whom so much is owed. His contribution to Irish publishing, and history in particular, is enormous. Many lively history picture-books from the Friar's Bush Press. His outstanding book Sen- try Hill, the record in words and pictures of a farm just outside Belfast which deserves to be on every bookshelf in this island, especially among those who live outside towns and cities.
His preface opens: "In 1976 I was invited by Conor O'Clery of The Irish Times to look at a collection of old photographs which had recently been drawn to his attention . . ." Brian Walker is now Director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast and Chairman of the Arts Council for Northern Ireland. A splendid interview with him.