Uncanny Ireland - Otherworldly Tales of the Strange and Sublime

Uncanny Ireland - Otherworldly Tales of the Strange and Sublime, edited by Maria Giakaniki / ISBN 9780712355209 / an attractive 320-page hardback published in 2024 by the British Library

***

'Suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun disappeared behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight. Each child felt the transition like a shock ... and the rounded summit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a new fear.'

Ireland’s rich literary history has within it a vein of potent fantastic fiction, drawing upon a deep folkloric tradition brimming with tales of the aos sí (the people of the fairy mounds), the Otherworld and timeless deities. Writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries added a new chapter to this tradition, reworking elements of folklore into modern tales of the weird and macabre.

Featuring stories by classic authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu and Charlotte Riddell alongside pieces by Lady Gregory, Katharine Tynan, Elizabeth Bowen and many more.