The Fertility of the Supernatural: Stuart Neville’s ”The Ghosts of Belfast”

Abstract

In The Ghosts of Belfast (2009), spectres of the victims of civil war in Northern Ireland haunt Gerry Fegan, a former “soldier” and assassin. Picking up the metaphorical cue from the epigraph to Neville’s novel – “the place that lacks its ghosts is a barren place” – the article addresses the thriller’s supernatural content. The meaning and role of the titular ghosts have been in part determined by Neville’s debt to the Western traditions of making sense of the supernatural. However, they assume new roles within the narrative and possibly also in the author’s vision of the peace process: i.e. in keeping Northern Ireland “fertile”.