My great-grandfather, Philip Fogarty (1828-1873), was a clerk in the Four Courts of Dublin at the same time Bram Stoker was working there. My great-great-grandfather was also a clerk there, prior to Philip and dating to the early 1800's. I do not know if my great-grandfather Philip knew or even met Bram Stoker but it is interesting that Stoker's first published book was a 247-page work of non-fiction entitled "THE DUTIES OF CLERKS OF PETTY SESSIONS IN IRELAND". (For more info about the book, see www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com/store/366). Although Bram Stoker only worked in the Office of the Registrar of Petty Session Courts for ten years as a young man, directly after graduating from Trinity College, for decades thereafter his book was a well-known reference and guide book for those working in or with the Irish courts. Eventually it became and was accepted as the handbook in legal administration in Ireland. It was over 20 years after he had published this work of non-fiction that he wrote and published "Dracula". I would like to think my great-grandfather Philip was one of the many clerks that Stoker dealt with during his legal career years. In the book, he acknowledges that he greatly relied on a number of them in compiling the book. Unfortunately, I have never been able to find any evidence of Philip knowing or interacting with Stoker. My great-grandfather is buried in Goldenbridge Cemetery in Dublin. He was only 45 years old when he died. My grandmother, Mary Fogarty, youngest of his 13 children, was actually born several months after his death. (Ten years later, his widow, my great-grandmother Cecilia Fogarty, for economic reasons was forced to leave Ireland with her surviving children, accepting her sister's invitation to come settle with her in the US, in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.)