The Deargh Dué or Deargh Dúth, or Dearg Dur was a Vampire said to have been originally born a mortal in Waterford during the Iron Age. Her behaviour, as an undead, stems from personal tragedy brought about by her father’s greed and ambition plus the callousness of the chieftain she was forced to marry.
Her name is said to translate from ancient Irish as the Red Thirst or Red Bloodsucker. Another version of the name is even more chilling: An Dearg Dúth it simply means The Red Black which could be interpreted as living blood that dies.
She was the beautiful only child of an ambitious nobleman in Waterford. She was striking looking, tall with long silver-blonde hair, large green eyes, and full lips. Suitors travelled from far and wide to ask for the maiden’s hand, but she was said to have fallen for a local young man of her own age but against her father’s wishes.
Her father arranged for his daughter to marry a regional chieftain who was known to be as cruel and violent as he was rich.
The young woman suffered abominable cruelties from her husband. It was said he drove her to death in the October after they wed. The burial was immediate and without ceremony.
Exactly one year later it was said that she emerged from her grave as a neamh-mairbh hell bent on revenge. First, she visited her father and sucked all the blood from his body. It rejuvenated her. The Deargh Dué was alive.
Then she went to her husband’s fort in the neighbouring county and killed him too taking all his means and liquids.
The Deargh Dué’s bloodlust was insatiable. Over the next ten months no man was said to be safe out at night.
Eventually plans were drawn up to trick her on to holy ground and to capture her and bury her in a grave woven from both ancient and holy spells. The young man she had loved was to be the bait.
On the day in question, he called out to her. She arrived in a storm. She was so powerful the young man realised he would have to relinquish his life to stand any chance of putting her in the ground for once and for all.
He managed to wrap her in a vest of blessed twigs and pull her into the special grave. The two were covered with sacred stones and the grave filled with sand from the Three Sister rivers.
Two thousand years later and Waterford is a busy city. The place of her burial is unknown but it has been referred to as under Strongbow’s Tree.
Rumours have it that Strongbow’s body was secretly taken from Dublin and re-interred in 1177 to the place where he married Aoife where a Cathedral was built, and a tree was planted in his memory.
Illustrations by Paul Bolger