An Irish Halloween - Meaning & History

October 30, 2010 / 4326

A lot of people don’t realize it, but Banshees are not the bringers of death, but rather the speakers for the soon to be dead. They sing of the deeds done by the soon to be departed, but to mortal ears, only the keening wail is heard. She is solitary faire woman, mourning and forewarning those only of the best families in Ireland, those with most ancient Celtic lineages, whose names begin with ‘Mac/Mc’ or ‘O’. According to tradition, the banshee can only cry for five major Irish families: the O’Neills, the O’Briens, the O’Connors, the O’Gradys and the Kavanaghs.

By ‘O’ or ‘Mac’, you’ll always know
True Irishmen they say,
But if they lack an ‘O’ or ‘Mac’
No Irishmen are they!

Intermarriage has since extended this select list. Each Banshee has her own mortal family and out of love she follows the old race across the ocean to distant lands. Her wails or keen can be heard in America and England, wherever the true Irish have settled.

When someone is about to die, the Banshee appears at the family’s home during the night and weeps and wails. Sometimes, the Banshee cries for several nights in a row. Her sharp, cries and wails are also called ‘keen’. The wail of a banshee pierces the night, its notes rising and falling like the waves of the sea, it always announces a mortal’s death.

It is said that when a member of the beloved race is dying, she paces the dark hills about his house. She sharply contrasts against the night’s blackness, her white figure emerges with silver-grey hair streaming to the ground and a grey-white cloak of a cobweb texture clinging to her tall thin body. Her face is pale, her eyes red with centuries of crying. Unseen, banshees attend the funerals of the beloved dead. Although, sometimes she can be heard wailing, her voice blending in with the mournful cries of others.

In 1437, King James I of Scotland was approached by an Irish seeress or banshee who foretold his murder at the instigation of the Earl of Atholl. This is an example of the banshee in human form. There are records of several human banshees or prophetesses attending the great houses of Ireland and the courts of local Irish kings. In some parts of Leinster, she is referred to as the bean chaointe (keening woman) whose wail can be so piercing that it shatters glass. In Kerry, the keen is experienced as a “low, pleasant singing”; in Tyrone as “the sound of two boards being struck together”; and on Rathlin Island as “a thin, screeching sound somewhere between the wail of a woman and the moan of an owl”.

It is possible to offend a Bean Sidhe (banshee). Never cut down a Faerie tree, or move an ancient boundary marker. Or disturb her while she laments the dead. If you’ve managed to get yourself into one of the bean sidhes bad books, go to the place where she most often appears after dark and leave a peace offering of bread. If it is gone the next day, you know that all is forgiven. If not, you must have really got her angry. It is said that if you meet one and she gives you her name, do not tell anyone else her name as she’ll never forgive such an intrusion of her privacy.

In County Clare local legend in the Dysert area told how Aoibheall (a well known banshee) and twenty-five other banshees washed blood-stained clothes in Rath Lake on the eve of the famous battle in 1318 at which Richard De Clare was killed, and that they still do so in times of crisis. Richard the Clare, the Norman leader of the 12th century, had met the “horrible beldame”, washing armor and rich robes “until the red gore churned in her hands”, and had been warned by her of the destruction of his host. Read more …

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