Produced by Clare Boothby, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
1914
This book had its origin on this wise. In my Irish Witchcraft andDemonology, published in October 1913, I inserted a couple of famous17th century ghost stories which described how lawsuits were set on footat the instigation of most importunate spirits. It then occurred to methat as far as I knew there was no such thing in existence as a book ofIrish ghost stories. Books on Irish fairy and folk-lore there were inabundance—some of which could easily be spared—but there was no book ofghosts. And so I determined to supply this sad omission.
In accordance with the immortal recipe for making hare-soup I had firstto obtain my ghost stories. Where was I to get them from? For myself Iknew none worth publishing, nor had I ever had any strange experiences,while I feared that my friends and acquaintances were in much thesame predicament. Suddenly a brilliant thought struck me. I wrote out aletter, stating exactly what I wanted, and what I did not want, andrequesting the readers of it either to forward me ghost stories, or elseto put me in the way of getting them: this letter was sent to theprincipal Irish newspapers on October 27, and published on October 29,and following days.
I confess I was a little doubtful as to the result of my experiment, andwondered what response the people of Ireland would make to a letter whichmight place a considerable amount of trouble on their shoulders. My mindwas speedily set at rest. On October 30, the first answers reached me.Within a fortnight I had sufficient material to make a book; within amonth I had so much material that I could pick and choose—and more waspromised. Further on in this preface I give a list of those persons whosecontributions I have made use of, but here I should like to take theopportunity of thanking all those ladies and gentlemen throughout thelength and breadth of Ireland, the majority of whom were utter strangersto me, who went to the trouble of sitting down and writing out page afterpage of stories. I cannot forget their kindness, and I am only sorry thatI could not make use of more of the matter that was sent to me. As onewould expect, this material varied in value and extent. Some personscontributed incidents, of little use by themselves, but which worked inas helpful illustrations, while others forwarded budgets of stories,long and short. To sift the mass of matter, and bring the variousportions of it into proper sequence, would have been a lengthy anddifficult piece of work had I not been ably assisted by Mr. Harry L.Neligan, D.I.; but I leave it as a pleasant task to the Higher Critic todiscover what portions of the book were done by him, and what should beattributed to me.
Some of the replies that reached me were sufficiently amusing. Onegentleman, who carefully signed himself "Esquire," informed me that hewas "after" reading a great book of ghost stories, but several letters ofmine failed to elicit any subsequent