I just noticed that there now an Irish version of Dracula. = http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_i ... ts_id=2423

Good stuff!

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It's quite old. The translation is very good, so good and natural that you'd believe that the English text was translated from Irish
For some reason, there are parts of the English text that are missing in the Irish translation, I wonder why. But if you don't know well the English text, it's possible that you won't notice.

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Ah, now that you mention it. I did notice that some parts were missing in the Irish version. Do you know of any other classics besides Alice in Wonderland that have been translated?

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On a side note, I was on a ghost tour at halloween and the guide suggested the name Dracula could have come from (or had an intentional double meaning with) Deoch Fuil - Blood drink

I always understood that the name could be a corruption of "Droc Fholla" (bad blood). This is possible as it is thought that Stoker incorporated ideas from the stories his grandmother told him as a child. She was from the west coast where there were many tales of vampires and seal women.

On a different note - I have a copy of Scéal fá Dhá Chathair (A Tale of Two Cities) by Dickens (1933).
I have read this several times over the years and it still gives me great pleasure.

"Dracula" is generally accepted as being Romanian in origin -- Vlad the impaler was known as Vlad Dracul (literally the dragon and/or devil) and the name stuck with his family. I checked my memory against the internet, where the family name is given as Drăculea, and the claim that this was the source apparently comes from Stoker's own notes.

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
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Yeah I think Stoker certainly based it on the Romanian prince who murdered at will, but the story is influenced, in my opinion by, as Brian said, supernatural tales & traditions from the West of Ireland, but I don't know whether the Irish langauge connotations with the name are based on wishful similarities or Stokers own word play

bad blood would be "drochfhuil" in Irish. I don't think there's any link between this word and Dracula.

See information here, in the paragraph "Scholarship":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Dracula



could you explain more about that? I always thought it was based only on Eastern Europe (Romanian and Slavic) traditions and beliefs

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/v ... es/?id=231 for more information on parallels between Irish stories/ history & Dracula

it has also been said that the famine influenced Dracula, with Dracul, the Prince upon a hill metaphor for a landlord sucking the blood from the tenant farmers. Its well documents that Bram Stoker never actually visited Transylvania, he did however study the area and stories in depth. To what degree the influence of Irish culture has upon it I don't know, but I don't think it is based 'only' on eastern european traditions. I have only read it once but I could see how some people argue with varying degrees that it is influenced by Ireland.

Once you start getting into figurative interpretations, you can say just about anything you want, though.

You could claim Stoker was an early proponent of atheism, and that Castle Dracula represented a papal palace -- remember that Dracula needed holy ground under his coffin. So Dracula was a story about the Pope living as a parasite on an uneducated, superstitious peasantry. Renfield represented the congregation, consuming living creatures as a metaphor for the sacrament of the Eucharist, a metaphor that can also be drawn from Dracula's own prediliction for drinking blood. That makes Van Helsing into Martin Luther -- Van Helsing carries out one action that Harker decries as sacrilege. The fact that Van Helsing claimed papal approval for his actions could be dismissed as a concession to a publisher that wasn't happy with the idea (high Anglican, possibly).

Harker himself would then be one of the later reformers -- Calvin, perhaps, or John Knox. Harker carried on and completed Van Helsing's work, ending Dracula's reign over the people, an allegory for the destruction of papal authority during the reformation.

Now excuse me while I go and sign up for a distance course in literary analysis... I can write that up as my final dissertation and graduate in a couple of weeks!

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.