The Banshee and the Bailys (Lough Gur, Co. Limerick)

Pin It

banshee

Editor’s Note: Count John de Salis gave these legends and they were written out by Evans-Wentz with the help of Rev J.F. Lynch

A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough Gur; and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying of consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily, who were sitting in the death chamber, ‘heard such sweet and melancholy music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like distant cathedral music […] The music was not in the house. […] It seemed to come through the windows of the old castle, high in the air.’ But when Miss Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate the weird phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the music came from above the house; ‘and thus perplexed, and at last frightened, she returned.’ Both sisters are on record as having distinctly heard the fairy music, and for a long time (All the Year Round, New Series, iii. 496-7 ; London, 1870). Evans-Wentz 81

Pin It