Editor’s Note: this related to Sooey in Co. Sligo

One night over fifty years ago, I was conversing with an old man who has since passed to his eternal reward. Abut two hundred yards from where we were standing an old woman was ill. Suddenly a weird cry started about a half a mile from where we were standing. For the moment I got a fright – I was in my teens at the time. The old man noticed me and told me not to be afraid, that it was the banshee. He then said, ‘Mary Anne [referring to a woman who was ill] will die tonight.’ The cry came from the south of the house, it apparently hovered over the house for about give minutes, then went north for a bit, returned, delayed over the house for a short time, went south again and became silent. I asked the man how he knew [that it was Banshee’s cry] and he told me that he had heard it on other occasions, and it always followed the Flynns. The woman’s maiden name was Flynn and she was the last of that race… That woman that was ill died that night… This is a true account. (quoted in Lysaght 1998, 31)

Editor’s Note: this relates to Co. Roscommon.

One night about seven or eight years ago myself and my brother were in the living room. Outside we heard a terrible crying. At first we thought it was some cats fighting. We decided that we would let out the dog to chase them away. I opened the door and saw nothing. When the dog came to the door he stood stiff and I saw the hair stand on his back with fright. At this stage myself and my brother got scared. We ran into the room where my father was in bed and told him of the incident. He told us it was the banshee. He had also heard the cries but he was not going to say anything to us only for what happened. The cry lasted for five minutes approximately and then faded away as if it was passing into the distance. I can say it was one of the most terrifying experiences I ever experienced in my life. (quoted in Lysaght 1998, 34)

Editor’s Note: this relates to Co. Roscommon.

I remember one night years ago – my father and mother  were then alive. It was a Sunday night, a cow had calved and I was up. When I fed the calf I came in and sat by the fire and had a smoke and a shot of tea. ‘Well’, I said to myself, ‘before I go to bed I will go out and have another look at the cow and her calf.’ Well the very minute I got up off the chair the cry started again outside the window. Well, it was put the hair standing on my head. There was a lot of us, big and small, in the house at the time, and the cry woke the lot. ‘What is that?’ said my father, down out of the room. ‘It is outside the window’, said I. ‘Put out that light’, he said, ‘and go to bed’. ‘Why?’ said I. ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘Well’ said I, ‘I thought I would have another look at the cow.’ ‘Now’, he said, ‘don’t mind the cow, go to bed.’ I took him at his word and went to bed. Next morning I asked him about the cry. ‘Ah, what was it,’ he said, ‘but the banshee.’ A week later word came from America that a first cousin of his had died.’ (quoted in Lysaght 1998, 46-47)

Editor’s Note: This comes from Co. Offaly.

To tell the truth… I did not believe in the banshee until it came home to me that there is such a thing as the banshee. I proved it. I was putting in the cows one evening. We had three cows and I put in a mash for one of the cows. When I was coming down with the cows – I heard a terrible cry, and didn’t I run down. I thought someone was after meeting with an accident [someone had just had an accident]. But there was nothing wrong with either beast or human. Now, when we seen that nothing happened, it kind of left our heads what had occurred. But that same evening I heard the cry, Mary Anne [narrator’s sister] had a letter in her pocket. She took out the letter which was from a brother of ours who was in North America, Martin was his name. And Martin said in the letter that another brother of ours had gone to hospital, he wasn’t so well. About three weeks after that we got word that he was dead. So it would appear that at the time we heard the terrible cry our brother, Mike, was after dying [had just died]. But I would not believe in such a thing unless it come home to me. And that is not such a terrible long time ago. (quoted in Lysaght 1998, 84-85)

Editor’s Note: This comes from Kerrykeel, Co. Donegal (Ireland).

I personally believe that seals (cowans they are called in this area) are closely associated with belief in the banshee, at least in this area. They make a very weird wailing before and and during frostly spells. There used to be lots of them in Mulroy Bay but for some unknown reason there are now not nearly so many in the inlet. Some fifteen or sixteen years ago a Presbyterian clergyman from Belfast came to the area as a minister of Fanad Presbyterian church. A few nights after he and his wife had settled in I had occasion to call at the manse. On this particular night the cowans were roaring and, as the clergyman was out on duty at the time, I found his wife terrified. She asked me was that the banshee that was crying. I had some difficulty in reassuring her. Foxes, too, make an eerie noise when they are mating. It is a wailing noise very much like a human crying. I well remember one night more than ten years ago when I stood by the roadside for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes studying a fox’s wailing. As I approached home a few minutes later I met a lady who was in her seventies and she was very frightened indeed. Althought I explained to her that it was merely a fox crying I still think she just did not believe me. (quoted in Lysaght 1998 85-86)

It is surprising how many people claim to have seen fairies. An Annalong woman told me that she and her sister often saw them when they were young girls. They were not, she said, tiny people, but were about the size of  children of seven or eight. (Foster, Ulster 66)

A Dervock woman described a fairy she had seen as follows: ‘It was standing out there beside the peat-stack, naked to the world, and it [was] about the size of a five-year-old boy, and that’s now word of a lie, for I saw it with my own two eyes.’ (Foster, Ulster 66-67)

A woman from Milford, Donegal, told me that her grandmother said a fairy-woman often used to come into their kitchen and sit down by the fire and warm her hands. No one took any notice of her and, when she was warm, she went away. I have heard many similar stories in many parts of the country. (Foster, Ulster 70)

From the same district of Derry and from the same source [Magilligan, and the author’s grandfather], comes the story of one Downes who saw the fairies on his way home from a party. As he was crossing a footbridge over a stream the fairies, who had been hiding under the bridge, shook it violently and Downes lost his balance and fell into the water. The fairies were delighted and shouted, ‘Aha, Downes has got a wet foot the night!’ (Foster, Ulster 73)

Another man, in Toberclaur, claimed to have been taught a tune by a fairy fiddler. The fiddler was behind a hedge playing, and the man began to hum the tune; the fiddler repeated it time after time, until the listener was sure of it, then the fairy gave him his own fiddle, an old-fashioned flatbacked instrument which my father remembered being shown. (Foster, Ulster 72)