Childhood Fears...

'My childhood fear is simply, of home. It’s an odd one, I’ll grant you.Home is meant to be the place we go to in order to feel safe. To feel ‘at home’ somewhere is a synonym for feeling secure, rested, at ease. But not for me...'

I wrote a blog post for the 'Childhood Fears' column on Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror site. In it I explore some of the reasons why I'm so obsessed with ideas of Gothic domesticity, Freud's notion of the unheimlich home and the peculiarly Irish idea of the home as a dark and secretive space.

'For me this fear of home, this fear set in home, has never really gone away. The most unsettling things I can imagine aren’t improbable and far away. They’re not set in space, nor in ancient history. They’re right here, at home...'