Bean Sidhe

She comes trailing death like a tattered shroud
With a shriek that chill your very soul -
Spirit woman, spirit of the grave,
Come to claim another life.

Five families in Ireland are cursed – or blessed, if you take another view – with a Bean Sidhe. One of those families is the Kavanaghs.
Where did she come from, this strange spirit woman who haunts the Kavanagh, O'Brien, O'Neill, O'Grady and O'Connor clans, and all who become part of them through marriage or adoption?
She is the Morrigan, the Triple Goddess, the maiden, mother and crone, the Celtic Goddess who rules over life and death and knew the founders of these clans on the battle field. Bound to their struggles by the destruction they caused, she makes it her business to remind each clan that they are composed of mere mortals, taking it upon herself to announce their deaths.
Tales of the Bean Sidhe send shivers down the spines of Irish children and cause them to wake in terror if a dog howls at night – but the Bean Sidhe doesn’t howl, she sings, although her song can take different forms. Sometimes she screeches like an owl, or keens like a heartbroken woman losing a child.
The Bean Sidhe has long white hair which she combs constantly as she sings, and red rimmed eyes from weeping over the deaths she heralds.
Each family has its own Bean Sidhe, an aspect of the Triple Goddess. When many Bean Sidhes wail together, it presages some great tragic occurrence.
According to legend, the hero Diarmuid and his lover Grainne were pursued by her husband, Finn, and slept on beds of stone throughout Ireland. These sites became known as the Giants’ Graves. In 1938, when one of these sites was excavated at Lough Gur, and the remains removed, a great wailing was heard all over Ireland, as if every Bean Sidhe had joined voices.
At http://ireland.celtic-twilight.com/yeats/fairy_folktales/banshee.htm there is a musical notation of the banshee’s cry, while at http://www.shee-eire.com/magic&mythology/Fairylore/Banshee/Banshee-and-Bunworth/Page1.html there is an account of one Reverend Bunworth of Cork , a Bean Sidhe and a herdsman called Kavanagh. (My Kavanghs come from Cork – I was born in Cobh, just down the road from there. I thought you’d like to know that).
The question you are asking now is – have I ever seen the Bean Sidhe?
And the answer is – not yet.