St. John Drelincourt Seymour was born in the second half of the 19th century in Ireland.
Around 1913, he came to realize that although Ireland was replete with collections of folklore and fairy-tales, the country's rich tradition of ghost stories remained largely untapped. Working with friend Harry L. Neligan, Seymour set out to correct this. The two of them put out a request for anecdotes in the newspapers of the day, and compiled the stories they received in what is now Seymour's most well-known 'non-fiction' work, True Irish Ghost Stories (1914).
Around the same time, Seymour published his other more popular titles, Irish Witchcraft and Demonology and Haunted Houses in or Near Dublin.
