A Banshee tale

By Chele Crawley

Have you ever heard the Banshee cry? The topic of conversation around a table at some ungodly hour of the morning at a wedding reception after imbibing a few strong spirits.

The men raised their eyebrows and wrinkled their noses like there was a bad smell in the room. The women, all west of Ireland bred, immediately grew pallid, their voices lowering to no more than a whisper as they acknowledged their belief in the shrouded other-worldly figure. Maybe it was the Westie in us, the strong roots to our pagan ancestors and storytelling heritage, or maybe it was fear of the unknown, but each of us shared an insight, anecdotal evidence if you will, that validated our opinion, and here is mine.

My father heard the Banshee cry the night my grandfather passed from this Earth. ‘It was loud and shrill,’ he recalled, ‘and not at all like a squawking cat.’ He told me the next morning at the breakfast table in the house he was reared. I’d taken the day off school, just days before my Leaving Cert mocks, to help with the funeral preparations.

I wasn’t expecting to hear such a statement spill from my father’s mouth. It was so out of character, but I had heard that grief can play tricks on one’s mind and immediately dismissed it out of hand. His father had just died. Maybe he had heard one of his siblings in the night? It was late when they’d left the hospital and chose to spend the night with their mother, mourning and reminiscing together.

We were interrupted by the sound of a rasp on the door. A six foot something sea of navy greeted us. It struck me as rather strange but maybe he had heard the news – it was a small town. Perhaps a family member of his worked at Roscommon General and he felt incumbent to sympathise before the sun was fully up.

‘Good morning,’ said he casually, ‘I’m just making enquiries following a report made to us in the middle of the night.’

‘Yes, it’s true,’ interjected my father, ‘he passed away last night.’

The garda looked confused. ‘Who passed away?’

‘My father.’

He uttered his condolences immediately and admitted that he was calling on another matter, proceeding to inquire if we had happened to see a woman with long flowing hair, dressed in a black coat, with a swaddling baby in her arms, pacing up and down the street, during the night.

‘No, but I heard a woman crying,’ my father replied. ‘It sounded like the Banshee.’

I expected the man in uniform to roll his eyes and shrug off such a notion but instead his face grew pale. He informed us that the report came from a family up the road. ‘The woman was in distress, they said.’

He never asked to speak with the rest of the family who had slept in the house the night before. Instead, he stayed a while and asked about the man who had passed. He believed in the Banshee. This I couldn’t discount, for he was not clouded by grief. It chilled me to the bone.

Have you ever heard the Banshee cry?

A divisive topic, but one that is best kept until the wee hours of the morning, over a drop of a strong spirit.

Chele Crawley is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays 11am at the Annebrook House Hotel.