Reading time: 3 minutes
Guest writer, folklorist and musician DAVE McHUGH searches for spirits among the stacks of the historic Marsh’s Library in his native Dublin
Where would you find something spooky on these spooky islands? A local cemetery perhaps? Or maybe that creepy house you always worried about as a kid – that you would run past?
Or perhaps in the field spoken of dwells a lost spirit, a fairy fortress; or maybe that long-closed hospital that always had a strange feeling about it?
Now suppose I told you that I am now doing research in a library in a library. And that the ghosts of long-awaited books resonate within? Is that creepy?
Walk with me, my friends, up the granite steps and into this library. A studious, creepy one – not an ordinary one. A very spooky one.
An old rusty iron chest in a banker’s shop, tightly locked and wonderfully heavy, is full of gold…
So wrote Jonathan Swift in his short essay ‘Character of primate swamp‘. And indeed, this is a chained library. Are books spooky? Can they be unleashed? Follow me more…
Swift walked down these stairs, Bram Stoker, James Joyce – now me. As I walk from the busy Dublin street behind me, we enter one of the few 18th century buildings in Ireland that is still used for its original purpose.
Marsh’s Library has a collection of more than 25,000 books and 300 manuscripts. There were eighty books printed before 1501, 430 books printed in Italy before 1600, 1,200 books printed in England before 1640, and 5,000 books printed in England before 1700.
But who walked these creaking floors and coughed a breath into these ancient walls?
And who was Archbishop Marsh? And is he still browsing the shelves?
Ghosts in Marsh’s Library
Ghosts, you ask – in a library? The stories in these books bring characters to life. Why wouldn’t some stay? Particularly Archbishop Marsh, whose legacy was instrumental in establishing the first public library in Ireland.
Narcissus Marsh was born in Wiltshire in 1638 ‘of honest parents’, as he wrote in his diary. His name, although unusual, was not as distinctive as that of either of his two brothers who were baptized Epaphroditus and Onesiphorus: all three are derived from persons mentioned in the letters of Saint Paul. He accepted religious orders and in 1679 came to Ireland to take up the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin.
The varnish appeals to me. The smell, the smell of the past. Was that a crack behind me?
As I smell the old books and enjoy the spiritual atmosphere of this place, I still feel a slight chill. Of something…
Because this library has more than just books as residents. The ghost of an old man has been seen rummaging through the bookcases around midnight.
A late reading? It is said to be the spirit of Archbishop Narcissus Marsh himself, the library’s founder. Marsh was Archbishop of Dublin from 1694. In 1707 he founded his library in the grounds of The House of St Sepulchre (the archbishop’s house). It is not surprising that Narcissus Marsh returns to a place so important to his life – even after his death.
The story of the archbishop’s ghostly apparition concerns his favorite niece, Grace, whom he had raised as a child.
The story goes that Grace was 19 when she fell in love with a sea captain. Marsh did not approve of this and was vocal in his opposition to it. However, Grace and the sea captain ran away and walked away.
She left a note for her uncle, explaining her disappearance and asking for forgiveness.
This note was apparently placed in one of the thousands of books in the library, waiting for the devastated uncle to read it when he was not so bereft. But Archbishop Marsh never found the note…
And as I look at these shelves, I wonder what that story is. How Marsh’s ghost regularly returns to the library, on an endless quest for it.
The temperature drops, but the sun shines through the window. Traffic has decreased. An autumn day in a library leaves me with many questions.
Are there still deaths among these books? Shhhh! Quiet in the library. Dead quiet.
Have you experienced anything strange in Marsh’s Library in Dublin? Tell us about it in the comments below!
