The

The It is commonly believed across a broad array of cultures that spirits can act as messengers from the beyond.

For many, this is a source of great comfort, the idea that a

deceased loved one can transcend the barrier between life and death in order to send one final

farewell. Within the ever-expanding catalog of paranormal entities, however, one will find tales of a more

ominous sort of spiritual messenger.

In the pages of Irish lore, this being is found to be in the employment of death itself,

her pained cries intending to impart a terrifying warning to those who hear it, a message of

impending tragedy and certain death, and what more of an

appropriate time for such a spirit to run rampant than during times of war. These are stories

of wartime and soldier encounters with the Banshee.

I'm Luke Lamanah, and this is wartime stories.

After riding countless hours through the moonlit Irish countryside, Richard Fanshaw and his wife, Anne, breathed a sigh of relief as their destination finally came into sight.

The fortified walls of the O'Brien Castle loomed high over the surrounding area.

Its garrison of soldiers awake and alert amidst the chaos that had seized the local countryside.

At this time in the late 1640s, Ireland found itself drawn into the expanding and complex

mayhem of the English Civil War.

The town of Cork had declared its allegiance to anti-crown forces, now occupied by

the Irish Catholic troops. Two of the town's residents, the Fanshaws, being staunch royalist supporters

of the English king, wasted little time in fleeing the inevitable persecution by the Catholic

Confederates. Hoping to make their way to the coast in order to find safe passage to Spain, the Fanshaws,

needing a safe place to rest, decided to spend the night at the castle of Lady Honara

...