The O’Briens’ Banshee

 The O’Briens’ Banshee

By Cole Herrold

Banshees are a bizarre breed of Faerie as Banshees are not one specific variety or species of fae but instead more of an entity that holds a position. This position which is to be a faithful servant to a noble Irish family, holds an important position as these spectral apparitions appear, wail, and keen before the death of a family members death. The word Banshee comes from both Bean si or Bean Sidhe, which translates to "Faerie Woman" however, as previously stated, these omenic figures are not always elven women or some other member of the Seelie or Unseelie court but on occasion tend to be apparitions from a specific family line usually those who died an untimely death or were murder victims. It's in cases like Banshees that we see an overlap with another Fortean phenomenon, such as hauntings and spectral apparitions. In classic faerie lore, there is a kind of muddying in the water when it comes to the origins of the fae, and one of the most famous was that the fae are the souls of the dead or that the souls of the dead could become enslaved to the fae or continue to live with the fae after they died. So, where the Banshee exactly fits in this complex otherworld or faerie realm is not exactly clear; in fact, faeries are often taxonomically categorized by kind, and some of the major categories include Trooping Fairies and Solitary Faeries the Banshee, Dullahan, Phooka, and Leprechaun are placed into the Solitary faerie category but there’s always a major distinction between them and the more traditional fae like the Leprechaun, Red Cap, Far Darrig, and Clurichaun thereby implying that they probably belong in their own category altogether.

Now with all that said, I had mentioned that some of the reports of Banshees are not of a fae attached to a household or family but of a deceased person performing the exact same behavior as the faerie woman. The Banshee of the O'Briens is one such case. The apparition of the Banshee began when a young woman was seduced in the garden of the House of Lady Honora O'Brien by one of the O'Briens. The young woman who in the blinding throws of passion in the green was after the romance ended murdered right there at the same spot by the murderous O'Brien and, in an effort to hide the crime, flung her body from an open window on the property where it sank to the bottom to never be found. The crime went unpunished, and so now the poor maiden haunts the property as an apparition who behaves as a kind of malevolent Banshee. Reports of her were kept tightly by the O'Briens until a sighting, and consequently, death occurred after the apparition was seen by Lady Fanshawe and her husband, who was staying on the property during a visit. Lady Fanshawe's husband was an ambassador at the Spanish Court throughout the reign of both King Charles the First and King Charles the Second (sometime throughout 1625-1685) and, having it grown late one night, retired to bed. The Lady Fanshawe was then awoken at around one o'clock in the morning by a strange sound that permeated outside by one of the windows in their room. She, getting out of bed, began to walk towards the old antediluvian window, and upon moving back, the curtains began to look out and around the perimeters of the property, searching for just what could have made the sound. As she looked, the light of the moon was not the only source of illumination on the property; as she peered down, she saw a pale white glow coming from an open casement. As she stared at the seemingly self-illuminated casement, she soon noticed that there leaning in through it was the figure of a woman. She was very beautiful, but something she could tell was very off about her; she seemed to be very pale and sickly, and this was offset by her bright, vibrant red hair, and the skin was just one tone darker than the white gown the woman wore. The woman seemed upset as she paced to and fro, and as she listened closely just over the sound of the wind, she could hear that the woman was weeping and seemingly talking to herself. The few words she uttered were in a loud strange tone, but she was unable to decipher just what the girl had said. Then suddenly, the girl sighed, and as she did, so a massive rush of wind seemed to come from her. Upon this, the Lady watched and saw that the girl began to dissipate before her eyes as though she was made up of some "dense air." The Lady realizing that she had seen an apparition, was truly disturbed and so proceeded in fainting only to be found sprawling on the floor the next morning.

Upon being revived in the morning, she proceeded to tell the Lady of the house about the apparition she witnessed, but Lady O'Brien looked unsurprised by her tale. Lady O'Brien then began, "My Cousin, whose ancestors owned this house, died at two o’clock this morning, and as is the case with the rest of my family, the Banshee was heard wailing every night during his illness. The individual who utters the caoine (cry) for this branch of the O’Briens, is supposed to be the ghost of a woman who was seduced and murdered in the garden of this very house by an ancestor of the gentleman who died this morning. He flung her body into the river under the window, so the voice and appearance of this wailer causes more terror than those of other spirits, with whose grief there is no blending of revenge". As the nights went on, there were no other reported sounds or sights of this apparition, but the experience haunted Lady Fanshawe and her husband so much that they each wrote down about their experiences. These experiences were almost completely forgotten until they were collected by Folklorist Patrick Kennedy of Co. Wexford, Ireland and was included in his Fireside Stories of Ireland book of first and secondhand tales of faerie encounters and folktales. This story and other similar first and secondhand accounts have later appeared in several other books of Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore, such as Barnes and Nobles A Treasury of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales.

Now I’m sure that there are those out there that will automatically place this account into folklore and fiction, which I can completely understand however It is important to note that the witness to this case is a historical figure, and there is alleged documentation of the sighting implying more or less the figures did see something. Banshee accounts interestingly, unlike most Faerie stories that are out there are usually first or second person accounts, but due to the fact that these accounts are usually put into tomes which feature oral stories that date back to time and memorial such as Teig O'Kane and the Corpse a story about a foolish youth who becomes partially enslaved to the fae one night and to be freed has to bury a corpse of a man who the fae were friendly with. To me, the fact that so many of these accounts are first-person and even second-person to me seems to indicate that this is a phenomenon worth investigating and taking seriously now, just what it is; we're up for speculation.

The first and clear place to put this phenomenon is actually not fae but as a traditional spectral apparition. This case has all the earmarks of a ghost case and not what one would typically associate with the fae. While the fae can be vengeful upon those who insult them or tread upon their land, this is more akin to cases such as the Greenbrier Ghost, where the murdered apparition is seeking some kind of post grave justice for the crimes enacted upon her. Vengeful apparitions or ghosts are common in countless countries, especially in places like Japan, the Philippines, and Africa, and in these cases, these apparitions do cause the death of those who did them wrong and those that might not have directly done them wrong. These vengeful ghosts are not exactly people but more released emotions in the form of those who have done wrong; they seek one purpose and one only vengeance. This particular Banshee seems to be one of those varieties it unlikely other traditional murdered spirits seeking justice does not seem to show intelligence in the same way as again the Greenbrier ghost did and seems to only manifest either to cause or as a way of viewing the demise of the line that ended her life. This behavior seems to go against just what a Banshee from the traditional faerie world would be as Banshees, while frightening, seems to be more as a warning and do not cause death but portray the important and ancient tradition of the Keening Woman. The fae seem to mimic our world in various ways, from creating wealth and having royalty but at the same time, they seem to have no real purpose for it; it's almost something they do solely for imitation the Banshee as a keening woman seems to be very much a mirror image of this but on their own term. This clearly does not seem to be the case here as there is a main reason for this entities actions and not in the same way that a Banshee is almost a part of the household like a Brownie would be, which is the only discernible reason the fae banshee does what it does.

While I strongly feel that the entity seen at Lady Honora O'Brien's house is not a traditional Banshee, I also cannot rule it out entirely either. The main reason the Fae Banshee hypothesis does not work with this case is that it is assumed that the apparition seen is the murdered girl of legend; however, there is a possibility that the murdered girl and the Banshee might not be connected at all. There's a lot we don't know simply because nothing from a member of the O'Briens was written about their Banshee, so there's no ancient relative who can point directly that this spirit seen on the property was the same that was murdered; perhaps it's a totally different entity that over the years was connected to the story of the murdered girl but in reality could just be a Banshee that is connected to the family. A lot of this is pure speculation, but from what is known about Banshees, they do connect themselves with ancient Irish families, especially those with Mc, Mac, or O at the beginning of their last names, something the O'Briens clearly have. Upon Digging into Lady Honora O'Brien, it is also revealed that she is the daughter of Murrough O'Brien, the 1st Earl of Thomond, and interestingly enough, is descended from the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru. From this, it does seem that her family would fit the bill into having their own family Banshee; however, again, all of this is pure speculation.

Another outlet to examine is the idea of a death spirit while Banshees are known as; thus, I have often wondered if Death Spirits are their own separate entities. In the Bible, there was the Angel of Death who God sent to murder the firstborn of the Egyptians; the Grim Reaper has almost always been depicted as the spirit that comes to end the lives of humans and take them to the next life, I wonder if there are a variety of entities that are essentially the bringers of death they are neither good nor evil and can be either connected to families in the case of Banshees or in an alternative spectral figure of death case the Oxenham White Bird of Doom which was a spectral bird with a white spot on its breast that would encircle those about to die in the Oxenham family before dematerializing. If this is the case, perhaps death is more complex than most of the currently accepted beliefs, and that death may be more akin to the Greek underworld or the faerie realm or perhaps the intricate mandala-type death dimension that has appeared in a few near-death experiences.

Just what Banshees are exactly is a mystery in itself. They seem to be more apparition-like in most cases than fae, but then there are those early accounts where the Banshee was something more tangible and simply could disappear as it would wash the bloody clothes of those about to die in rivers and other waterways or with their own basin. Banshees have always been one of my favorite figures in Irish folklore, along with the Dullahan, Leprechaun, Phooka, and Changeling, and so I'm always fascinated whenever I come across a potentially authentic case of an encounter with one. The realm of ghosts and fae are something that even though we have so much evidence for once, we have practically scant for the other, so I think that is one of the most interesting things about the Banshee as it’s one of the closest researchable fae out there due to its connectivity to ghosts. In fact, Ghost Hunters such as Zak Bagans and Josh Gates have gone and searched for Banshees in several locations where they are said to roam. Both cases came up fairly empty-handed in regard to getting proof of an actual Banshee, and a lot of the reasons I think is that they went in more as ghost hunters and less as someone searching for a death spirit or a fae. If evidence of a Banshee is captured by a ghost hunter, I often wonder if that would open the flood gate to more serious research into other fae reports such as Trolls, Gnomes, and Pixies as accounts of them are still reported, or would it instead simply just focus more on the study of what all spirits and ghosts can do and how do they seemingly do things without physical form? With all that said, however, we are still no closer to capturing a glimpse of or understanding just what people are seeing and hearing before their demise in the castles and cities of Ireland.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Human Spectral Apparition

Location: House of Lady Honora O’Brien, Ireland

Sighted: Sometime Between 1625 -1685

Works Cited:

Fireside Stories of Ireland by Patrick Kennedy

“ The Banshee of the O’Briens” collected by Patrick Kennedy for A Treasury of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales By Barnes and Nobles