The McDonaghs or more correctly, the Mac Donnchadha, for we must keep up appearances when speaking of ancient things, were once noble folk of Tir Ollíol, now more prosaically called Tirerril, a patch of Sligo that gazes out over Lough Gill. Our name means “Son of the Brown Warrior,” which sounds altogether more impressive than it looks on a modern envelope from the Tax Man.
The Brown Warrior himself is long gone, Val postulates that like all male McDs he is brown because he is a “Muck Magnet”, but his descendants persist in various corners of the world, squinting into the drizzle and insisting, as only the Irish can, that nobility is a matter of memory, not material. Our old castle, Ballymote, still stands, or leans with a kind of stubborn dignity, beside the Ballymote Train Spotting Car Park. (check it out on Google Maps) It’s twinned, by some cosmic jest, with the North Coast Toy Tractor Club, whose Christmas curry night once suffered a McDonagh and a Buchan incursion. The less said about that, the better, except that honour was upheld and strawboffee pie was consumed.
Like all families of proper antiquity, we have our bean sídhe, our Banshee, and she has a name: Aoibheann, pronounced Eevyn, if you please, and not Aye-Oi-be-hean, as outsiders are prone to attempt. Aoibheann favours the form of a short-eared owl, which I think suits her: nocturnal, self-contained, fond of announcing bad news from a distance in a resonate hoot. In this she is not unlike some Irish ladies who excel in being “Pass Remarkable”. When she calls your name, it is not for tea.
The First Nations of British Columbia, I’m told, hold much the same belief about owls, though I doubt their owls are as melodramatic as ours. Lately, Aoibheann has been kept busy among the northern McDonaghs , one hopes for only minor tragedies from now on, but I have asked her, quite firmly, for a moratorium on whispering, wailing, or general haunting in our direction. She agreed, in that way spirits do, before adding, “I will come for you all, eventually.” said in the same forceful manner as my mum would intone “Turn the Immersion off NOW!”
That’s the sort of thing Aoibheann says: just enough to chill the blood without being actually helpful. Still, her remark set me wondering. Suppose, in the fullness of time, I was to take over her duties , to become a fear sídhe, a gentleman of the mound, a psychopomp. (Not that I’m applying for the position, mind.) If I were to appear to the living, as Aoibheann does, what form would I take? An owl would be the obvious choice , there’s precedent, and they do cut a fine figure against the moon , but I’ve never been much for tradition. Besides, one risks confusion with the existing management.
No, if I must appear at the edges of mortal vision, I think I’d prefer to come as a pine marten. There’s something slyly dignified about them, quick, curious, with fur the colour of old whiskey and a face that suggests they know exactly where the bodies are buried, but won’t tell unless you offer them buttered toast. They’re forest creatures, secretive yet sociable on their own terms, and they manage to look elegant while climbing out of bins, a bit like myself in that respect. If a spirit must take form, it might as well be one that can vanish into the trees with a flick of its tail.
So let Aoibheann keep her owlish watch over the ancestral dead. I, for one, would rather be padding along a mossy branch, observing the living with mild amusement and no particular agenda. And should anyone hear a rustle in the dusk or glimpse a glimmer of amber eyes beneath the pines, they might think of the old Brown Warrior’s line and smile. For it is not always doom that calls from the shadows, sometimes it’s only a McDonagh, checking that all is well and the availability of Free Beer, before slipping quietly back into legend.