Some threads from an Irish Forum discussing the Banshee.

hey i have been reading this forum for a while, very interested in banshees, doe s any one here claim to have seen/heard one Im a Murphy, so the banshee is supposed to follow our family. On the night one of us dies, we re supposed to see her. "she ll follow the O Mhuricu s till the night they die" I think I saw her once myself or It could of just been my ex without any make-up on. Crap, Im trolling again...ah well another two week ban....... My father claims to have seen one like 50 years ago walking home from a dance th at was going on in the village he was with his brother and a friend and him and his friend saw it and fled they jumped across a river that was nearby because a banshee can t cross a river they have to follow the current. There is a saying t hat he always used to say Two out of three can see a banshee which means onl y two people out of a group can see her. My father knows loads about them the stories he has told me so scary, my mother also has said she heard a banshee the night her grandmother died. scary stuff I think My sister saw one outside her bedroom window once, the next morning we got word that one of the neighbours died. He was an O Toole, while we re Byrne. I think they only follow some families. Who do I report such a sighting to? I d say there d be more sightings but they go unreported because fear of ridicul e. Suppose to follow the McNicholas name too. My uncle on the mother s side, a McNi cholas, reckons he heard one when his father died in Dublin in the 70 s. Dunno m yself. It can be heard or seen or both but only exists if people believe in it. Its great craic when you are sitting at home watching the box and the power goes off. people take out candles and start telling stories the banshee usually crop s up at some stage. Otherwise the fear of ridicule is great. most people under 40 don t believe in t he faeries any more. If you are interested in the banshee check out Edddie Lenhan who lives in Crushe e Co Clare. Eddie Lenihan is a great storyteller and a very warm, friendly man. I ve never h eard him tell a banshee story but I bet he has bags of them. Banshees are supposed to follow aristocratic bloodlines. Any stories I ve hear d/read involve them being found at crossroads, combing or washing their hair. A story crops up from time to time of a banshee s comb being stolen and the thief being followed home and haunted. The thief uses some iron tongs to hand the comb through a door or window. The tongs are bent when he pulls them back in and the thief s hair has usually turned grey. My nanna heard one once just prior to a death in the family over in Eire. I ve seen a Leanan Sidhe a couple of times. It s from the Irish bloodline I think I am scourged by them on a regular basis. Only I can see and hear them though. When I try to shout them down to be quiet, people on the bus stare at me.

Myself and my sister have heard the banshee cry, and each time it has been follo wed by a death or a serious illness in the family. the last time my sister heard her my mother passed away. Have never seen one though. The cry is a mixture bet ween a cat and baby crying.

For anyone thats interested I have listed the names of the families she is suppo sed to wail for. Apparantly if the bond between family and banshee is strong she will wail to warn of an impending death no matter what country the family memeb er is in. Don t know how true this is though? Adamson, Ahren, Barry, Bowe, Brady, Brennan, Browne, Caldwell, Carrol, Cartwrigh t, Carey, Cassidy, Coady, Colahan, Conroy, Conway, Cooney, Coughlin, Cox, Cullen , Culleton, Cuskelly, Daly, Dawson, Dempsey, Dewan, Dillon, Doyle, Dowd, Duggan, Dwyer, English, Ennis, Fallon, Faris, Flanagan, Flynn, Fogarty, Fox, Gaffney, G allagher, Galligan, Gannon, Gavigan, Geoghan, Geraghty, Gill, Glennon, Griffin, Griffith, Halton, Hanley, Hannon, Hayden, Hayes, Healy, Hegarty, Higgins, Holoha n, Jennings, Jordon Keane, Keany, Keating, Keegan, Kehoe, Kenny, Kirwin, Lacey, Lawrence, Lee, Lonergan, Lynch, Lyster, Madden, Malone, Manning, Martin, Meehan, Miller, Monohan, Moran, Morrissey, Mullen, Mulligan, Murphy, Murry, MacBride, M acCarthy, MacCormack, MacDermott, MacDonnell, MacEntee, MacGoldrick, MacGovern, MacGrath, MacGuinness, MacGuire, MacKenna, MacMahon, MacManamon, MacNally, MacNa mara, MacNiff, MacPartlan, MacQuaide, Naughton, OBrien, OByrne, OConnor, ODonnell, OD onovan, OGready, OHanlon, OKeefe, OLeary, Omalley, ONeill, OReilly, ORourke, OSull eters, Potterton, Power, Quin, Roche, Roe, Rehill, Ryan, Rynne, Scally, Scott, S hanahey, Sherlock, Sinnot, Smith, Stafford, Steward, Strong, Sullivan, Sutton, S weeney, Tully, Wall, Walsh. My greatuncle heard his own banshee death wail. He was dead that night. Ever hear a hare s scream? you know its not supernatural but itll still scare the crap out ya. Sounds like a baby s scream (what id imagine one to be that is) with an animal e dge. *shudder* Oh thank feck you said that, ,me and a friend were out camping one night and we woke up at around 5 because of this really weird noise sounds just like how you described it, scared the crap out of us! Thought it was some ghost child out to get us. I don t think I ve heard a banshee before but I ve heard some really weird noise s at funerals,do they cry at funerals? My brother heard one before at his friend s house,he was a Mcgovern and that s i n the list of names so?I think his granny died soon after. My Da swears that he saw one. The story he told was that he was bringing my Mother home when they were courtin g, and was walking along a park in Dublin when he thought he heard someone calli ng his name, he went over and thought he saw an old woman sitting on a step but when he went over she was gone. The next morning my uncle was found dead. Creepy! Yes, my mother died recently. 1/2 hr before her death I heard the wail of what s ounded to be a banshee. On closer listening, it also sounded like a very mournfu l sound in an off key.. (it also could have been the wind whistling by the door, but the house was locked up tight. It lasted eerily for a about 10-20 mournful seconds. Night my grandmother died. About half an hour before the call came from the hosp

ital I heard something that, at the time, I assumed to be a car screeching. In retrospect, it probably was a car. But I m not entirely sure, especially sinc e she was an O Neill. I m a logical thinker. I most always use empirical data in my beliefs. However, I do believe that some members of a family are more inclined to be tele pathic, etc. I m not saying it is a ghost. I believe it is some sort of energy not yet define d. Even though I m not superstitious I believe that there is something more than a coincidence that we hear that is the supposed sound of the banshee. Human kind has yet to unravel all of the secrets of the mind and brain. The one coincidence is that my mother s name is also an Irish name. Like I said , I m very logical, but I ve seen phenomenon and heard phenomenon th at people would say are ghosts. I found out my mother and myself have this gift . As far as I know, none of the other siblings do, or else they arent saying. Yes. I m a Murphy descendent.. and an O Toole, Mainly Irish /English, a bit o Sc ottish. (American Born) but yes I heard a sound of a banshee the night my mom died.. It was explainable, the wind whistling thru the door a little before she died. I wa s the first to hear it. She and I always heard experienced strange phenomenon.. I believe that God or whoever sends us messages that appear in earthly human env ironments but are too spiritual to be explained as fact or science. Most cultures have something similar to the banshee at death. The Romans/ Greeks had Hades with a spirit that crossed over a river with you wh en you died. etc.. I do think there is a spiritual energy in all of us. Not sure if it is a "god" e tc.. but I have noticed things thru my life that are can t be explained in human , scientific terms. I remember my grandmother told me when she was younger she heard a loud wailing which she said sounded like a cats wailing. She said the following day she found out a neighbour who lived up the road had passed away. My mother told us of an incident when we were all little, 8 of us, and her and d ad were sitting downstairs, when suddenly there was a terrible racket coming fro m upstairs. It sounded like doors crashing shut and a high pitched screeching. They raced up the stairs to see what we were up to, but we were all fast asleep, and just as suddenly the noise stopped. Next morning, a telegram arrived to say that my dad s godmother, Mary, had died suddenly during the night. We (the children) have never heard anything though, or seen anything when our pa rents and siblings died, so I don t know. I do know that Lord Carnavon, the fell ow who funded Howard Carter in the dig for King Tut s tomb, when he died, every dog on his estate wailed all night. Well, I don t know it but read that. Walking home from town one night with my boyfriend, up Harolds Cross and just pas sing Mount Jerome we heard a banshee cry. It was the eeriest scary sound Ive ever heard. My uncle died two days later. It was weird cos Ive two cousins and an unc le buried in that very graveyard. On a similar note as the banshee, some members of my family say that if you hear 3 knocks then a death is iminent. Though I only know of one instance of it. My mother was in the house on her own. Halfway through using the toilet. There was 3 knocks on the bathroom door. Later that night we get a call to say that my aun tie was sick and only had a few weeks left to live. Before the week was out she died.

My granddad maintains he saw various mythological creatures, although the banshe e he only heard, on the night someone died in the valley where he lives. Althoug h he also admits that the banshee wail sounds exactly like a vixen (female fox) in heat. But he still claims it was a banshee and that he s seen other types of creatures. Some of his kids also say they ve seen faeries up by the old faerie r ing at the top of one of the fields, though me and my brother never saw anything . If memory serves correct my grandmother heard the banshee for the name Flannery once and I think she once heard it for the name Murphy as well. This was during the early fifties. She was a firm believer in the banshee. I find it very strang e though that there are no stories (that I have heard anyway) from the same area (Mayo) in relation to the banshee for the last thirty years or so. My father sa ys it is because people have cars now and don t walk the roads in the dark as mu ch as they used to. I don t know. It is interesting to read the posts about rece nt experiences. I heard one a few years ago. It was daytime and this uneartly screeching screami ng occurred. I rushed out the house thinking it was one of the dogs hurt. The do gs where all lying down peacefully. It went on and on for about ten minutes. The next day had a phone call to say my gran had died. Patricia Lysaught has a lot written on this subject, and it s quite interesting. It s well worth searching for her name using Google Scholar! I know about 20 years a friend of my mother s and her husband went out for lunch and on the way back stopped at the Black Lake near Loughgiel, (Co. Antrim) to go for a walk. She said that they didn t stay long as she was felt uncomfortabl e for some reason (the area does have quite a creepy atmosphere apparently the t rees on the hill south of the lake were used for gallows in years gone by!). As they neared the car, all of sudden this high pitched ungodly scream started up o ut of nowhere, they ran to the car but they couldn t get the doors to unlock! Ap parently the screaming lasted for about 10 seconds and then as soon as it stoppe d they could get the doors open... I don t know if it s true but they still swear it s the truth. Later that night, my mum s friend s aunt took took very badly ill and died a few days later and s he s convinced it was a banshee which was trying to forewarn her about her aunt s death. Slightly related to the banshee question, a late uncle of mine who is a life-lon g non-drinker and a very religious man, claimed for many years to have heard mus ic coming from nowhere on a dark night on a country road (about 50 years ago) an d a voice saying "the living are not welcome here". He absolutely believed it. There is a saying that he always used to say Two out of three can see a banshe e which means only two people out of a group can see her. When I read this I had to post, I had never heard that quote before but it made my mind up on whether I should tell my story or not. The banshee follows my moth er s best friend s family. Once when my mother was about sixteen she was in her room with sister and her best friend. My mother and her friend both heard the ba nshee crying but my mother s sister couldn t hear her, she thought they were mak ing it up, trying to scare her. Soon enough my mother s friend was told that her cousin in England had died. Hey, i lived in an area which was prone to incidents near a banshee tree. In cas e your not familiar u can look them up but they dip out like a W. anyways i have seen a ghost or two near the site and the field beside the tree often had fork lightning strikes and causes the field to always go on fire it funny how it hits the ground and not the banshee tree thats the only thing in that field.. many p

eople hear the horses scream and a lady scream late at night iv moved from that area but it is pretty bizarre. Ive heard Over 85% of random noises are banshees.... My Godfather died in 1991 my Mum and I heard the Banshee at 02.30am the time he died. It started of in the distance and moved closer, the sound seemed to circle the house and the garden. My bedroom was the only downstairs bedroom and I reme mber going to bed a bit spooked but unsure of the noise. As I entered my bedroom I heard the cry in our back yard. I stood for about a minute and listened but heard nothing else. I then closed my bedroom door and as I walked toward the be d the cry came from outside my bedroom door. I have never known such terror in my life, I was so scared that if I stayed in the bedroom it would enter. Afte r about 30 seconds of psyching myself up I rushed out the bedroom door and upsta irs to my parents bedroom - turning on every light in the process. My Mum also heard it, everyone else slept through it. She immediately knew what it was and reassured me. All I can say is it was an unearthly cry which no human or animal cry could reproduce. I now understand it was an ancient ancestor of o ur family and it s an honor which shouldn t be feared. Stayed for the weekend many years ago in an old stone cottage in the mountains o f Donegal with some friends. A bleak night with rain and wind, clung to each other all night whilst she waile d and scratched at the door. I suppose there was a death of sorts! Car ignition was dead the next morning. We didn t want to stay any longer so we hotwired the car and got the hell outta there. I had some tough friends with me and we were a ll very scared. Absolutely true! Also heard her when I was about 9 years old and saw her once on the Antrim Coast . Very Scary, absolutely believe in her or something. Maybe it s like the grim reaper? It doesn t really warn but inform people that t hey re about to be dead? I remember when I was a child having a friend over to stay the night (I have one of those surnames on the list, or at least a derivative of it). My room used to overlook the back of the pipes near the Coombe. For years there was stories there about Banshees. My aunt had gotten a job as a secretary and was returning home late one night when she seen the shilouette of a hunched over woman up ahead of her and she froze out of freight. Same thing as you guys said, she heard this icy, terrifying scream and just ran the other way . She s a tough woman but there s no way she was going to pass through here. Thi s was when she was in her twentys and she s now in her sixties and still believe s it. One of her neighbours passed away a few days after the incident. Anyway, I had a friend over one night who used to have a bit of a vivid imaginat ion, and he ends up waking me up really late. We were only kids, around 8 or 9 a t the time, but I remember how terrified he was when he woke me up. He d told me he d heard someone crying out in the garden below my window, and that he d seen a woman in rags. I thought he was taking the piss until I d heard someone sobbi ng in the distance, coming from the direction he was talking about. When I looke d out the window I didn t see anything myself, but I definetly felt it s presenc e. I believed him. Though it might sound like a horrible coincidence, his aunt e nded up passing away not even two weeks afterwards. She was dying of cancer. I was about nine years old when I first heard her, same as previous post, my gra ndad died the next day. She also knocks on the door of your house, heard it!

A few years ago my granmother was very ill in hospital and my family were all th ere with her. I was at home and no one else was in the house. I had the sitting room light off but the hallway light was on and the sitting ro om door was open. I was sitting watching television when I saw something like a black shadow of a person walking up the stairs. I wasn t spooked at all when I seen this and was totally at ease, but I knew the n that my granmother was going to die. Two days later she passed away. She had always told me stories of getting signs when people were going to die. At a local park there is a castle. The banshee is rumoured to appear there at 12 o clock at night. Rumours were recently confirmed by the hardy men who go drink ing in said park. These bulletins can be viewed at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t =2055756079