Ballymun, County Dublin

The "Banshee" is supposed to be a little old woman who is crying and combing her hair together. There are certain families she cries when they are going to die.

One calm frosty night my uncle and grandmother were coming home in the milk-car from Dublin. When they came to the Charter School hill near Ballymun my uncle heard the Banshee crying an old man named Mr O'Reilly who had broken his neck at the hunt and was dying nearby. The cry started in the field, right along the road where they were driving. My uncle heard it all the way but my grandmother never heard it at all. Then my uncle stopped the pony and then the banshee stopped too, and when he went on again she went on. She kept crying all the time until she came to the end of the man’s land where she stopped.

Another time she was crying a woman named Mrs Quinn who lived in Ballymun House. This time it was early in the winter’s morning and it was dark. One old man called Hairy Terry was going to his work and he was very nervous. She was crying over at Sillogue and he was hurrying to get past the field before she came to the road. Before he got up she was leaning out over the hedge crying. So he ran back and did not go to any work that day.

I once heard of a man who stole the banshee’s comb. Every night she used come crying to his door for the comb. He was afraid to give it to her so he had to put it on a tongs out under the door.

From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.