Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold

As stories from mythology continue to inspire contemporary literature, Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold is an exhilarating and richly imagined anthology, which breathes new life into ancient Irish myths. The collection features some of Ireland’s most electrifying female writers, reclaiming these myths in new and powerful ways, putting the bold and brilliant women from these ancient tales front and centre of their own stories. Banshee transports you to treacherous landscapes and mystical islands of old, where the women no longer stand in the shadows of kings and warriors but forge their own paths. Join the anthology's editor, Ailbhe Malone, and two of the anthology’s contributors, Naoise Dolan and Anne Griffin, for a captivating and transportive evening of conversation; a celebration of womanhood and stories that continue to resonate.

Naoise Dolan writes fiction, essays, criticism and features. Her debut novel Exciting Times was published by W&N in 2020, and became a Sunday Times bestseller. The Happy Couple was published in 2023, and her third novel is due in 2027. Naoise was the inaugural IPUT Writer in Residence at Wilton Park in 2025.

Anne Griffin is the Irish author of the bestselling novels The Island of Longing, Listening Still and When All is Said. Anne has been awarded the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award, 2019. Her work has been shortlisted for the John McGahern Annual Book Prize, the Kate O’Brien Award and the Christopher Bland Prize amongst others. She has been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Anne’s work is published in in twenty-five territories including twenty-three foreign languages. Born in Dublin, Anne now lives in Mullingar, Ireland.

Ailbhe Malone lives in London and is Senior Editor at the Strategist (New York Magazine). She has also worked for the Guardian, Irish Times, Wired and Nylon (US). Educated at TCD, Ailbhe spent summers in the west of Ireland, surrounded by the foundations of legends featured in this collection. From learning about the salmon of knowledge from a seanchaí to reading Sinéad de Valera's Irish Fairy Tales under the covers at night, she gobbled up every variant of folktale she could find. Yet the women of these legends are rarely the protagonists, even in the stories named after them. Banshee asks: why not let the women lead?

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