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Banshees in New York

© Lianne Bruynell Lopes

If the legends are true, many a banshee walked the streets of New York City on the morning of September 11, 2001. With so many Irish and Irish American victims of the World Trade Center attacks, I imagine the auburn-haired weeping fairy-maidens were out in force.

Originally, the legends state that the banshee only belonged to the five royal families of Ireland, the O'Briens, O'Neils, O'Connors, O'Gradys, and Kavanaghs, descended from the mystical Tuatha de Danann. Through the centuries, however, with marriages between the many families, the grim messenger of death passed along to grieve for all Irish families. Another legend states that at one point, the banshees got together and rebelled against the royals, and decided to weep for the dead of all Irish families. Whatever the case, each family has its own banshee, and she follows the family members wherever they go, into other countries, even across the sea. There have been sightings of the banshee in England, Australia, the United States...anywhere the Irish have emigrated.

The banshee has been called a ghost. However, the word banshee is the anglicized form of the Gaelic, bean sidhe. Bean (pronounced ban) means woman, and sidhe (shee) means fairy. The Sidhe are special fairies that live in the hills. So the banshee is actually a female hill-fairy. She has appeared in many different forms, some claiming they've seen her in animal form. She has been seen as an old hag dressed in black, but most describe her as a beautiful young woman with long flowing red-gold hair, wearing a green dress. Her eyes are a fiery red from so much weeping. The sound she makes is almost always deeply sorrowful, from high pitched screeching to heart-rending crying. Most who claim to have seen a banshee have sensed an aura of overwhelming sadness. In every instance, the manifestation of the banshee has been a foreshadowing of some family member's death. She will hang around outside the house, or at the place of the dying person's birth, and will disappear as soon as the person dies. Though she is not visible, the banshee will also attend the funeral of the dead family member, her keening blending with the cries of the other mourners.

The banshee has mistakenly been accused of causing the deaths of those she mourns, but that is simply not so. She merely weeps and warns of the impending death, for somehow she knows ahead of time what is going to happen. Banshees love their family, and that is why they grieve so deeply when one of them dies.