Clontarf writer Bram Stoker had never visited Transylvania when he wrote his most famous novel. His descriptions of the landscape and folklore came from a Scottish visitor Emily Gerard (1849–1905) to mutual friends of the family, the parents of Oscar Wilde.
Stoker was more familiar with the English locations like Whitby, where Stoker was living when he wrote the book over three years 1895 to 1897 and where his unexpectedly likeable vampire count plied his trade.
Stoker was more familiar with an Irish vampire, who is exploits has been translators and were well known among his contemporary influencers, such as the parents of Oscar Wilde. The supernatural deeds of a Derry vampire, Abhartach were recounted in a poem collected in 1703 and in the library at Trinity College.
Nowadays, an entire industry has grown up around the legend of Dracula in Transylvania and Bran Castle is the biggest visitor attraction in Romania and one of the most visited attractions in the region. Plans for a Dracula theme park perished during the global financial recession. Bran Castle is a fake, a 17th century recreation much like the faux castles, built in the 1800s to a 1300s design, that tourists live at Ashford and Dromoland. It was never the residence of the warlord from which Stoker, borrowed the Dracula surname.
and while it is now firmly established on the tourist trail, a more likely inspiration for Stoker, lies unattended and unnoticed in Slaghtaverty in rural county Derry.
