Michael V. Sherlock – Ma Burke’s Banshee

Ma Burke’s Banshee

The banshee cries like demons

O’er the woods of Monivea

She comes aboard a whistling wind

From a distant starry way

Her screech like broken cymbals

Is eerie and severe

It seems as though the old ones

Are there to ease our fear

She came across Tom Hynes’ field

Like Hecate out of hell

She hovered over an ash tree

I heard a neighbour tell

The ash it crumbled into dust

With a Richter force of ten

A crater marks the spot to day

And scares the best of men.

Ma Burke died at ninety-nine

Clanricarde’s still in state

the banshee cries for others now

but only second rate.