The Black Hag of Shanagolden

By Patrick Dorn

When a gifted Irish priest and his pagan companion visit a remote village to explore the ruins of a cursed convent, they discover a dark arts disciple whose infernal powers threaten them with fates worse than death. Approximately 12,000 words.

 

The Father Declan Supernatural Mysteries are a series of standalone upbeat, redemptive and often humorous urban fantasy short stories set in Ireland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Dorn
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393740957

Patrick Dorn

Patrick Dorn used to write weird westerns set in Old California, New Mexico, and Colorado, but then he visited Ireland. Now his supernatural fiction alternates between The West and The Emerald Isle, but is always, always weird. He's also an Anglican priest and a full-time chaplain. Check out Patrick's blog, stories, plays, musicals, children's books, and more at www.PatrickDorn.com. You can reach him at [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter One

An Unwelcome Detour

The sweetly sentimental melody of Seán McCarthy's Shanagolden burrowed its way into Father Declan's brain like an earwig. The Franciscan friar grimly acknowledged that his spiritual gift of Insight could offer no help in getting the folk song out of his mind.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the song except that the sad ballad about a woman widowed by The Troubles had multiple verses with no chorus to break up the monotony.

And it sounded suspiciously like I Gave My Love a Cherry.

The real problem was that his friend Morgane Delaney, who commanded the driver's seat of her kelly green Kilkenny Ghost Tours van had set the CD to endlessly auto-repeat Shanagolden in order to punish him.

She'd also set the van's heater to broil, despite the pleasantly overcast early-September weather. The Franciscan was roasting in his russet brown habit, staining the armpits with deodorant-scented sweat. His neck itched in back and also where the hooded cowl rubbed up against his throat.

He ruefully thought a more appropriate theme song for this detour would be McCarthy's Some Say the Devil is Dead, in which Old Scratch has risen again to torment the Irish.

The van's tourist-green custom interior was decorated with an absurd caricature of the Witch of Kyteler's Inn (she wasn't), along with images of the reputedly haunted Kilkenny Castle, Butter Slip Alley in the Medieval Mile, and Saint Canice's Cathedral (they are).

Father Declan didn't dare roll down a window, or God forbid, touch the CD player controls. With his luck, the track would shift to Red Haired Mary. Morgane might assume the selection was meant as a subtle criticism of her current tint, and steer them into a ditch.

Her meticulously dyed crimson hair, while too-bright was nicely done, and her too-much makeup was expertly applied. She wore one of her signature flowery flowing dresses revealing too-much cleavage, and pink trainers.

You just had to go and ruin it for us, didn't you? she said, roaring louder than the blasting heater. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and muscles rippled in her jaw. Now what are we supposed to do?

Father Declan held his tongue.

Last night's Limerick Experiment ended badly for the clutch of psychics and ghost hunters who had gathered at the Milk Market. They'd hoped to exploit Father Declan's Insight to help them contact Dan, a tormented 300-year-old ghost who'd murdered his friend while drunk, hanged for it, but never could forgive himself and move on.

Sure, they'd gotten an eyeful and earful of the guilty ghost who primarily haunted himself and was suffering a most pitiable incorporeal existence. The paranormalists should have known the priest would end the remorseful spirit's agony by granting Dan absolution and packing him off to heaven.

All that prime footage and no one dared use it for fear of admitting the ghost had left the market. The revelation would sabotage their lucrative and entertaining moonlight street tours.

Now Morgane wanted to get even by taking a detour to tromp all over the ruins of a persistently haunted Augustinian nunnery just outside the tiny village of Shanagolden.

Hence, the endlessly looping song.

Morgane steered the Ghost Van east along the Old Limerick Road. The drive alone would add an hour to the trip, and he'd promised to be back in Kilkenny in time to say the anticipated Mass at Saint Patrick's on College Road.

You know, he said, hoping to repair their relationship as they came into Shanagolden, population 150. Dan's story is still a good one, even if he's not there in spirit anymore. Stories are like family. They outlive us all.

Morgane sighed, cranked down the heater, and pulled the van next to a quaint-looking shop with a lilac