Hello, I saw your article on the net this Halloween night and thought to share my feelings on the matter. I am 63 years old, now living in Leitrim.

Has the Banshee been heard of late anywhere in Ireland? As someone from the West of Ireland, brought up there, it was fully believed by my grandmothers and grandfathers etc. that ghosts and banshees were as natural as night and day. Yes, they were very afraid of them but believed they were harbingers of bad news.

I would not agree that they only manifest themselves to families with O or Mac in the names. I personally know of a family of Harringtons near Monasteraden, Co. Sligo, where the Banshee was manifested. These people were real believers in God, and some of them could truly be said to be saints. An untruth would never pass their lips, and they would relate their stories with fear and wonderment but were fastidious in always telling the truth. It seems that as the world becomes more materialistic and the simple ways are no longer, that the phenomenon diminishes accordingly, although this is only my own viewpoint. It would seem to make sense that there is less time for things spiritual, hence there is diminishing belief in religion and God. It would make sense that if spiritual matters no longer matter, we lose contact with simple beliefs such as the Banshee, why would it exist in an increasingly pagan world?

For aeons, Ireland and the Irish were a spiritual people with an intense belief in God and his manifestations. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that there is no history of anything similar in England, where if it existed there it would have been made known to us by the millions of Irish emigrants

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