The Irish standard., 1909-11-20


locks floating over her thin shoulders,
and attired in loose white drapery. She
appears to, or is heard by the head
of the family she guards. to warn him
of some coming misfortune. The warn
ing is given in peculiarly mournful
wall at night, and resembles the melan-
choly sigh of the wind, but with the
tone of human voice which can be
heard at a great distance. How pathe-
tically the Irish poet reminds us;
How oft has the Banshee cried!
How oft has death united
Bright links that glory won,
Sweet bonds entwined by love-
She is sometimes seen as well az
heard, but rarely visible, except to the
person on whom she expressly waits.
This person must be Of the "ould stock"
the representative of an ancient iam-
lily or sept, whom she never forsakes
in poverty or misfortune.
The descendants or heads of the
historic families of the ODriens, o.
Neils, Maguires, McCarthys. O'Sulli-
vans, O'Reardons, and many others,
have each their Banshee, although now
reduced to the condition of peasants.
In Ulster the great family of the o.
Neil, the chief of which sept lives in
Shane's castle, on Tough Neagh has
its attendant spirit, and when evil
threatens member of the old race, her
wall is heard in the woods by the lake
shore, through the ruined walls of The
fallen castle, in the vaults below and
over the graves of the warriors who
have borne the name and in the days
of old followed their chiefs to battle.
The Banshee of the princely family
of O'Brien of Thomond, is supposed
to be the wrath of young and beau
tiful maiden whose indiscretion in
moment of weakness, brought upon her
misfortune and death. John Walter
Walsh, chief of the sept of walsh of
the Mountains" County Kilkenny, in
his beautiful eulogy on the death of
Oliver Grace, heir of the ancient house
of Courtown, 1894, asserts his belief in
the guardianship of the Banshee over
the destinies of the brave family, in
the following verses:
20! noble youth, my bosom's pride,
Was it for thee the Banshee cried,
Amid the lonely, silent hour
OF midnight, in the fairy bower?
"When sheltering bay and bulwark
strong
Re-echoed in her boding song,
And every cock forgot to pay
His warning welcome to the day.
For thee, for thee, Q youthful chief,
Thus swells the Banshee's voice of
grief,u.
Thus turns the day to night profound,
Thus weeps the woe-struck tribes
around"
Sir Jonah Darlington, in his MEM
cries and Recollections," positively as
serts that he and Lady harrington saw
and heard the Banshee when his neigh
bors Lord Rossmore, died. The his
torian and poet Thomas Darcy Magee,
in note to one of his poems, tells us
that the Banshee was no myth, but an
actual apparition, whose reality was
accredited by indisputable testimony.
Mccarthy. the gifted poet Of Munster,
declares he saw and heard the "wail-
ing Woman" and that:
"She kept her body, and so dream
like was her
Beauty. I could have gazed for aye
Methought the name of Aileen'
'scaped her lips,
And then the keen of that wailing
spirit, caught
Wilder, sadder tone. Twas like the
murmur
That night winds make, when they
are sweeping DER
Aeolian rp-strings"
A dream or an apparton-such at
any rate are the tales that won be.
lief in the brave days of DID, when the
great men Of Ireland had in their fami-
lies the hereditary poet and harpist,
who sang for the warriors and chief
tains deeds of valor; for youths and
maidens songs of love and chivalry, in
short,
who filled each mans corn from the
bins
But slipped the cup of love in Ben
jamin's."