‘The folklore lends itself to it’: Ireland’s horror films find mainstream success

Country's film industry makes 20 horrors in last six years, as directors channel the vampires and banshees of traditional tales

A century after Bram Stoker introduced Dracula to the world, Irish storytellers are again conjuring vampires - as well as zombies, ghosts, changelings and grisly, mysterious diseases - and this time on the big screen.

Young film directors are channelling Ireland's dark folklore and contemporary social ills into a wave of horror films that are finding mainstream audiences overseas.