"The rich examinations of folkloric material as a repository of regressive and liberatory energies will be relevant to anyone interested in how a retold story can reanimate our readings and remake our understanding."—Ed Madden, University of South Carolina
"This is an exciting project that will break new ground for many readers, combining gender theory with folklore studies and Irish studies. Ferguson convincingly shows how contemporary reworkings of Irish folk tales repurpose traditional narratives to resist persistent sexism in modern Irish social configurations."—Mary McGlynn, author of Broken Irelands: Literary Form in Post-Crash Irish Fiction
Description
Irish folklore is replete with images of transforming women. The wailing banshee, the alluring mermaid, the unsettling changeling and others recur throughout folktales and have become well-known through contemporary depictions in texts and films. In the wake of recent feminist thinking, online movements, and revelations of gender-based violence in state institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries, Irish women writers have found fresh ways to adapt this folklore, addressing the underlying tensions inherent to these stories and creating alternative paths to agency.
In Banshees, Hags, and Changelings, Molly Ferguson examines how women writers, energized by the recent cultural feminist reckoning in Ireland, reappraise the subjects of these folktales and the anxieties they address. Exploring contemporary literary works across genres, Ferguson identifies the cultural processing of trauma resulting from gender-based violence through exploring the tensions that lie beneath each tale.
About the Author
Molly Ferguson is an associate professor of English and affiliate faculty member in women’s and gender studies at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
February 2026