Frances’s own life story was one with dark chapters no one would wish to open. She lost her soulmate, Christy, in 1960 on Christmas week, the same week her sister Noelle died in childbirth and her beloved baby with her. Left with seven small children to rear, Frances used stories as a disrupter to infuse magic into the mundane. My mother has fond memories of children coming in off the street and sitting round the fire as Frances would relish in regaling terrifying tales of banshees, púca spirits and changeling fairies. She would go on to do the same for me and my friends.

As a child, Frances filled my ears with this béaloideas the word for Irish ‘folklore’, from béal meaning ‘mouth’ and oideas, ‘to educate’. Frances’s ‘mouth education’ urged me on to a degree in Medieval Irish and Celtic Studies 20 years ago, so the Celtic Otherworld has been part of my life’s education in both informal and formal ways.