AUTHOR: Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, whose mother was from Sligo.
Origin of Dracula ?! = Sligo, Ireland =Bram Stoker's Mother
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, May 18, 2014, TRAVEL section, Page N1, Excerpt from "Yeats Rising" by Raymond M. Lane:
"On West Garden Street (Sligo, Ireland), Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (Bram Stoker's mother) used to wash the family clothes in the river there. The cholera epidemic was so bad in 1832 that authorities rushed the dead to the cemetery - so fast, the rumor started that living people were being buried.
'The well-off started putting little bells on the headstones,' said guide John Paul Ryan, who with his son Ben does the free history walk around town. 'A string was attached to the deceased's wrist, and if they woke up in the casket, they could ring for help.'
'We call it the 'escape clause' he deadpanned.
But, in fact, the bell did ring sometimes during high winds, 'and you can imagine the horror,' he said. 'Charlotte was Stoker's mother, and it was she who told him about the 'undead' - which was the working title of his gothic horror novel DRACULA.
'Forget Transylvania,' he joked. 'It's all Sligo laundry-day yarns.'"
From sligoweekender.ie:
About 1000 people died in Sligo during the 1832 cholera epidemic, roughly 50 each day of the epidemic. Carpenters ran out of wood for coffins and people had to be buried in sheets.
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