In the accounts of Irish vampirism on line, there are various Irish terms mentioned: neamh-mharbh; dearg-diúlaí; deamhan fola. These terms give the impression that there is a thriving ancient tradition of vampirism and the undead in Irish folklore. However, none of these terms is actually ancient.
Neamh-mharbh
Neamh-mharbh seems to have been invented by Seán Ó Cuirrín, the translator of the Irish version of Dracula in the 1930s, as the equivalent of Stoker’s term undead. Neamh- means non- or un-, and when it combines with the adjective marbh, meaning dead, it becomes neamh-mharbh, which is pronounced nyav-varuv or, in Ulster Irish, nyaw-waroo. While neamh-mharbh is in the book, Ó Cuirrín mostly refers to vampires in his translation using the term súmaire, which means a leech (i.e. the bloodsucking creatures found in ponds, as in the scene from Stand By Me.)
Dearg-due, dearg-dul, dearg-diúlaí
Haining and Tremayne’s book The Undead says that there are tales from the 18th century of a vampire called the dearg-dul. Even if this is correct (which I doubt), it is completely useless, of course, because it gives no evidence, no references, not even a clue as to where such information might be found. Haining and Tremayne then claim that a being called the dearg-due is mentioned by Anthony Masters in a book published in 1972. In fact, the earliest reference to a term like this seems to be Montague Summers in 1928: ‘In Ancient Ireland the Vampire was known simply as dearg-dul, “red blood sucker”, and his ravages were universally feared.’
Others have suggested that Montague Summers got this information from the works of Crofton Croker, an early 19th century collector of Irish folklore but I have failed to come up with any evidence for this.
Anyway, what could a dearg-dul be? Well, the likeliest explanation is that this represents the Irish word deargadaol (Devil’s coach-horse), originally known as a darbdael or darb-dóel. In the former spelling, it occurs as early as the Book of Ballymote of 1391. The deargadaol is not red and is not a vampire, though it is an unlucky and cursed creature. In fact, it is a black beetle. The word is formed from the two words doirb (a water beetle) and daol (a beetle), and this was later corrupted to Dearg-Daol or Deargadaol.
Because most of the people writing about this subject have little or no Irish, this has then given rise to a lot of ludicrous mutated versions, in both Irish and English: dearg-dubh; dearg-diúlaí; dearg-dur; dearg-dililat and whatever you’re having yourself. Haining and Tremayne simply assume that dearg-diúlaí (red-sucker) is the ‘original’ Irish version of dearg-dul and their book is full of references to it.
In fact, dearg-diúlaí is not a real Irish expression for a vampire. It is not in any dictionary. There are several words for blood in Irish, such as fuil and cró. The word dearg, which means bright red or scarlet, is not used as a noun for blood.
Even if dearg were used to mean blood, in a compound word séimhiú would apply, so it would be dearg-dhiúlaí (pronounced jarrig-yoolee).
There is also claimed to be a story from Waterford about a vampire woman called the Dearg-Due buried under ‘Strongbow’s Tree’. No such place exists in Waterford and no source is given for this story, so we are quite at liberty to regard this claim as fake until such a time as the Irish vampire ‘experts’ get their act together and provide some evidence.
Deamhan Fola
Deamhan Fola (pronounced dyavan folla or jawan folla) is given as one of the terms for vampire in Irish dictionaries like de Bhaldraithe, along with the word vaimpír, which of course is just a Gaelicisation of the word vampire. Deamhan means demon, while fola is the genitive of fuil meaning blood, so deamhan fola means ‘a blood demon’.
This sounds quite native. It’s the kind of thing a native Irish speaker would invent to describe the concept of a vampire. However, as far as I know, this is not an ancient term. It is not found in Dinneen’s dictionary in the early twentieth century. The earliest reference I can find to it is in the radio listings for August 1941, when there was a detective drama on Radio Éireann called An Deamhan Fola. It was written by Ciarán Ó Nualláin, brother of the great Irish writer Brian Ó Nualláin (Flann O’Brien).
So – what is the Irish for a vampire?
The simple answer is that we now use the word vaimpír. (Don’t trust any self-appointed ‘expert’ who tells you there is no letter v in the Irish language. The letter v occurs in a number of words and phrases such as veain, Cathair na Vatacáine, and two that have been hard to ignore over the last few years – vacsaín and víreas.)
In reality, there is no traditional and ancient word for a vampire in Irish. Why would there be? There was no need for it in ancient Irish, because the concept didn’t exist, any more than the ancient Irish had a word for djinn or mujina or zombie.
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