Banshee
So here it goes…apologies beforehand as it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. This will be a record of my families and my personal experiences living in a very old part of Ireland.
Let’s begin.
Bullet points will be used in some instances as I can’t remember exact ages/dates and what order things happened in.
I live in an extremely old part of an old city in Ireland. A city which has seen uncountable bloodshed and war. To us locals it is known as Dublin Town.
Where I live my family have lived for generations, we come from very old Irish bloodlines (this will matter later in the story). My street is now made of tarmac but was once old cobblestones, I have numerous neighbours who have heard the sound of horses clopping outside during night hours and those of you who know the sound of horses on cobble know it is unique. This is an extremely minor part.
My great grandfather lived at the top of an adjacent laneway to my house in what we know as tenement housing, story goes one night on his way home from work in the very early morning hours he heard a low growl behind him. When he turned, he saw a large black dog with burning red eyes at the bottom of the lane (This laneway is a steep hill and maybe 100 feet long, it is quite narrow.) He ran to the door facing down the lane and proceeded to make his way upto his room where his wife and children lived (including my grandfather). His room faced the laneway and was 2 or 3 floors up. As he looked out the window he saw the black red eyed dog sitting at the top of the lane maybe 20 feet from his tenement door, staring up at him. This dog is not a good Irish omen.
My oldest aunt once seen what she thinks was the banshee as she walked home from a night of partying in the early 1980s. A woman dressed in white, combing her hair and what sounds like unnatural crying. She was sitting atop a 20 foot high wall.
My uncle who is from a different country and is extremely pragmatic was once driving through the countryside and swears he seen one of “the little people” ( A leprechaun ) sitting beside a bush.
Now I will begin my own personal stories. I apologise for the length of this post but I feel it is time to share my experiences.
As a child myself and my three siblings shared the same bedroom, sadly when my mother was pregnant on my little sister she was hit by a car and my sister suffered some health problems when she was born.
One night when we were around 7 and 8 years old I woke up to the sound of my little sister having a conversation in the pitch black room, I slept in the top bunk bed and will never forget peering over and groggily asking her what she doing. She was sitting on a chair and told me she was talking to our grandfather, sounding so excited. Our grandfather had passed away a few years earlier. Thats when my family realised she was special. Due to the circumstances surrounding her birth she was not meant to survive but against all odds she did.
When I was around 12, myself and my little brother who was maybe 8 or 9 were alone in our bedroom. We had stayed up very late playing games as young siblings usually do (parents thinking we were asleep). Our bedroom was ground floor and the window faced the same huge old slate wall my aunt had seen the banshee decades earlier when we heard it, I cant describe the exact sound but it will forever be etched in my memory, I have heard all sorts of urban foxes fighting, wild cats fighting. It was an unnatural crying sort of like a guttural but also high pitched screeching. Like the sound of a cat being mutilated on our window sill. Both in terror we froze and my little brother being a curious kid wanted to look out, I stopped him and remembered what our father had told us (Explanation at the end).
He asked me what it could be maybe in the hopes being the oldest brother I would have some sort of natural explanation. I dared not say it aloud in fear she would hear us or come for us and whispered about our father's warning . It lasted what felt like hours but may have been just a few minutes and slowly made its way away from our house, the sound of it moving into the distance whist still making that fear inducing sound will never leave me, shortly after we got into bed beside eachother and no both agreed we had heard the banshee. Our father once warned us of a woman with long black hair covering her face, she would wear a white dress and be combing her hair. To those who come across her she would appear to be crying and ask for help, if you speak to her or look at her face you will die or one of your family will come to serious harm. He had some stories his father passed on and so forth but I cant remember them. This was before I heard of my aunts sighting.
I will create a second post as finally writing this has helped me remember other childhood experiences. It will not be my last experience with the banshee.
Apologies again for the length and format.
I have continued my second and third posts in the comments as mods have requested I do so, I don’t know why as I’m not here to karma farm but to tell my story as countless other before me have. But I also don’t want my story to be removed. Thanks again and my apologies to all who commented in my last two posts.
Continued Part 1 The reason I am writing these posts is because of something that happened recently, and because of that I asked my little brother if he remembered what we experienced as kids. Sadly he did not. I don’t think I will ever forget but just incase I want to have my experiences somewhere not personal but also easy to find. Somehow this feels safe.
I will begin by explaining what I know of the banshee as I didn’t in my last post. She is a protector but also an omen to the last few ancient Irish bloodlines. She will not appear to all.
A few months ago I was working all over the country with a friend of mine, we set off from Dublin at around 7am and the van we were in was not running smoothly, long story short it had a dropped fuel injector. Against all advice to drive back to Dublin we continued on our journey. What should have been a 14 hour work day in 3 different counties turned into a 24 hour work day. As we left the coast of county Clare at 1.30am having finished all of our work we headed back home exhausted and hungry. It was a stupid thing to do but we’re both hard working men and a 4 hour drive didn’t seem to bad. I was wrong.
During the drive my friend (who is Eastern European, not that it matters) was constantly falling asleep behind the wheel and as I have no licence yet I couldn’t drive in his place. I had a very strong feeling if I fell asleep we would both die, I had to shake him awake numerous times whilst also fighting the sleep myself. We had two hours left before we reached Dublin when I seen her, a white figure like a bright human shaped fog facing me on the road. It was clear all around the motorway but this one figure straight in front of me maybe 20 metres away. I know it wasn’t sleep deprivation because I had seen nothing before or after. As we approached her the urge to sleep finally took over me and for some reason I told myself I’m going to die if I sleep but I can’t stay awake any longer. So I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep. Where she was, the road diverted onto a slipway behind her and I heard my friends voice clearly and loudly asking me if I was awake. I woke up straight away to find my friend fast asleep behind the wheel and we were headed straight for the diversion in the centre of the road. A crash like that will no doubt kill all involved. Again I shook my friend awake having grabbed the wheel and steered us back onto the road, I never told him about what I seen and only told my gf. It is what has spurred me to write this record of events. Since then I can not shake the feeling I was protected by the banshee or some spirit (maybe even my mother).
I will now continue my other experiences as it feels only right to do so, maybe they will help someone somehow.
Once as a child I woke up to see a floating skull facing me in my bedroom. I was in my top bunk staring through the safety bars and the whiteness of the skull shone out against the darkness of the room, it was not close to me nor did I feel threatened but I can’t explain what it was. Hollowed out eyes etc.
When I was thirteen years old I slept in my grandmothers house, the bottom of my bed faced the window. It was on the second floor and the window was open. I woke during the night to hear a voice calling me and I felt a presence coming in through the open window. I don’t know whether it was teenage hormones but it was asking me to sleep with it. Years later I read about incubus or succubus and to this day I think it may have been one.
My mother passed away a few years ago and during that time I hated life and hated myself more than life (I have never experienced mental health problems before or after this experience. One day I was alone in my bedroom and I had a sudden urge to hurt myself. I stabbed myself in the thigh with a pencil and felt a rush due to the hatred I had for myself. At that moment a book fell off my shelf, no window or door was open so no wind or draft could have moved this heavy book. I believe in that moment my mother was letting me know she is watching over me and I’m not alone anymore. Other occurrences have happened that have compounded this fact I have a guardian watching over me always.
A close friend of mine is what we call an Irish traveller, to most it would be Irish gypsy but I find both have semi-prejudice meanings. Their language has some ancient Gaelic vocabulary not spoken in a long time by the majority of Irish. Their bloodlines also contain some very ancient Irish too.
This is the story of one.
In that group of people arranged marriage is quite common, and it is frowned upon to marry without pre-arrangement. The story goes, one such arrangement between two families was agreed upon, but somehow the soon-to-be grooms family found out the soon-to-be-wife was sleeping with a man from a different clan. The marriage was called off and the oldest women in both families met to discuss the terms of the failed marriage, to stop the bloodshed that would begin between the men of both clans. The grooms grandmother warned the consequences of such were dire and the aforementioned wife would never breed a child nor would any of her kin. The wife’s family took this with a pinch of salt, it is better to hear some loose words than to have war between the clans which would undoubtedly cause a great amount of blood to be spilled on both sides.
Years went by and the wife married the man she had been sleeping with, she chose love over the wishes of both families. Many women she called kin would be pregnant over this time but all would suffer heartache during pregnancy and lose the children. This is not a fable but a true story. Now this woman was married to the man she loved and wanted children of her own, soon becoming pregnant herself.
Again heartache ensued and the child passed away in childbirth. A decade had passed since the clans had broke the marriage agreement and not a single child had been born. The oldest of the clan went to see another clan as they had known to have a witch or medicine woman. The medicine woman told her that her bloodline had been cursed and the demonic spirit of a black horse would forever be attached to them, thus no children would be born unless the original clan who cursed them could destroy the curse.
This is when she remembered the old conversation she had with the other elder woman many years ago, pleading to meet this woman again for conversation to put things right. The young wife became pregnant again and during this time the eldest of her clan met with the eldest woman of the original grooms clan, pleading with them to take off the curse as it had ruined the lives of many. I’m not sure why or how but they decided to destroy the curse and the wife gave birth to a healthy child, the first to be born in a decade. My friend who told me this does not believe in ghosts or the like but he knows these curses are real and just named this as one of many examples, it is something I will not forget.
Since the rules say I must always have a personal experience in my posts I guess I’ll tell the story of my little brothers ex girlfriend. When my brother was sixteen years old he had a girlfriend from the local area, none of my family liked her as she did not seem good for him (concerned for his mental health when he was with her etc due to her being a bad influence) one night not long after my grandmother had passed away they decided to stay in my grandmothers home to keep one of my aunts company. My grandmother was extremely opposed to them dating and was basically the matriarch of our whole family. They made a mistake this night of staying in her bed. Supposedly the girl woke up during the night to see a dark shadow standing next to her peering into her face, this girl was not one for the spiritual nor did she believe in ghosts. She woke my brother and both of them soon left the house, she never returned and they broke up shortly after. This dark shadow has never been seen in the house before or after, it is actually a home I feel quite calm and always feel like my grandmothers loving presence is still there somehow. I have slept there numerous times on my own since then even in my grandmothers old bed. Not once have I felt threatened or seen anything.
If I remember anything more I will edit this post, again thank you for reading and I am glad I have somewhere to keep a record of these experiences.