Beanie the Bansheenie

WINNER of the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards Honour Award for Illustration.
Shortlisted for the 2024 An Post Irish Book Awards.
Shortlisted for the 2025 English 4-11 Picture Book Awards.

“Colfer and McCarthy are a dazzling duo in this endlessly entertaining retelling of banshee folklore. McCarthy’s illustrations elevate this story, making it a genuine work of art filled with familiar Irish iconography that readers will adore.” – The Irish Examiner

Banshees are supernatural Irish harbingers of doom, but ? where do they come from? The answer: they grow in pods on the prickly gorse bush. The sole job of a baby banshee, a “bansheenie” as they are called, is to bond with a human. Once bonded, they know everything about that person. Most importantly ? when they will die.

Our bansheenie, named Beanie, is no ordinary herald of death. When she sees her person, a little girl called Rose, she decides to change her own – and Rose’s – fate, and instead of delivering bad news, Beanie wants to protect Rose and her family. When her banshee’s howl of doom won’t work, she must draw power and strength from the ancient secrets and hidden networks of the natural world around her. She must create a brand new sound, a new way of being in the world that will change … everything.