Alex O'Boyle told the oral history project that the banshee calls for certain people and certain names, the O's and the Mcs she calls for. Francis Quinn said a cousin from New Zealand heard the banshee before her sister died, and that when a sister-in-law with cancer died, family in New Zealand also heard it and rang to ask after the aunt. Mary McCurdy heard a funny sort of craking noise before an old man in a cairn died.
Jimmy Davidson gave a different image, describing banshees as wee men who roamed the riverbanks at night, crying, with a death following within days.
This is a living tradition recorded from people who held it, in a part of Ulster where family names of the O and Mc type are common.
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