These news articles crossed my feed yesterday.
800-year-old ‘Crusader’ at Dublin church decapitated
Search underway for missing head of 800-year-old Crusader after vandals broke into church
This is the church I visited while touring Ireland while researching Crimson Death. I’m still sad I wasn’t able to use St. Michan’s on stage in the book. I’ve got story notes and always planned to revisit the Church, its crypt, and its mummies, yes, mummies in Ireland. I had no idea until we found the church and all its history by accident. We were lucky to be given a tour of the crypts by the historic preservation coordinator (I can’t find my notes, so if the title is incorrect, I apologize. Nor his name, deepest apologies, I will find it all later.) To be given a tour by the person who knew the most about all of it was amazing. He also shared that this was Bram Stoker’s family church while he was growing up in Dublin and the family had a crypt at the church. Walking down into the crypt I kept picturing Stoker as a little boy with only a candle to light the way. The crypt was dark with electricity, it must have been terrifying by lamp or candle, especially to a child. It was impossible for me to not think that the seed for certain scenes in Dracula were planted here. And then there were naturally occurring mummies in the crypts under the church.
Naturally occurring mummies in Ireland! One of the few places in the world where this has happened, and we still don’t know why or how! No, seriously, no one knows exactly why these bodies have mummified underneath this church. Our friend who works with the British Museum, and is an expert in her own right on Mummies, had no idea that she could find some naturally occurring ones just a day trip away. The Crusader and his crypt mates are artifacts of global significance, both to the historic record, and to origins of horror as a genre of fiction. I was hoping that some serious science would happen and we would learn the secrets of these amazing remains, and instead they have been desecrated, destroyed, and even parts of them stolen. The people who did this didn’t just take a head off a body, which is bad enough, they stole the history of Ireland. They stole the history of Bram Stoker and his family and of all the families that have relatives down in this crypt. They have stolen part of the story that created Dracula which was one of the very first modern horror novels. Without Dracula I might never have created my own vampire stories, perhaps no one would have, yes Dracula really is that important to the genre. I am hoping that someone will read this and help us bring this piece of history back. Help us reclaim this story, this inspiration.
Please, if you know anything, contact the Gardai.
For a more detailed write up on the church and its mummies, visit
St. Michan’s Mummies at Atlas Obscura
