to die, even if the person had died far away and news of their death had not yet come. In those cases, her wailing would be the first warning the household had of the death. Keening women have been described as "the (human) structural adjunct of the banshee". Keening in County Kerry was said to be closest to the wailing of a banshee. Survival into the twentieth century Authentic keening was effectively extinct by the early twentieth century. In the early 1950s, Cití Ní Ghallchóir (Kitty Gallagher) of Gaoth Dobhair in County Donegal, Ireland sang a keening song she had learnt from an old woman to Alan Lomax, which can be heard online. A recording of Gallagher's keening song was featured on the album Traditional Songs of Ireland (1995). Below is Gallagher's version with a translation.S'airiú, (Word for lamenting – no literal translation) Agus a leanbh (My child) Cad a Dhéanfaidh mé? (What will I do?) Tá tú ar shiúl uaim (You are gone from me) Agus airiú Agus anuiridh, níl duin ar bith agam (I've been left alone after a year) 'S airiú Agus mé liom fein (I am alone) Dá mbeithea go moch agam (If I were early) Agus och, och, airiú, gan thú, gan thú (Alas, alas, without you, without you) Seosamh Ó hÉanaí (Joe Heaney) of Carna, Connemara sang a traditional keening song which he learnt from his grandmother Béib (Bairbre) Uí Mhaoilchiaráin, who had lived during the nineteenth century. The recording is available on the official Joe Heaney website. Heaney was also recorded discussing his childhood memories of keening women in Connemara and the ways funeral traditions have changed since. The album Songs of Aran (1957) has two recordings of keening songs collected from the oral tradition on the Aran Islands, both entitled Caoineadh na Marbh ('The Keening of the Dead’). Both of the recordings, which were made by Sidney Robertson Cowell, are reminiscent of the cronán, described by Eugene O’Curry as a ‘purring,’ beginning ‘in the 'chest or throat on a low key and rising gradually to the highest treble’. The Tobar an Dualchais Scottish music archive has two recordings related to keening which are available to the public; the first is a keening song sung by Calum Johnston (1891–1972) of Barra, and the second is a verse performed by Donald MacIntyre (1899–1964) of South Uist said to have been used by paid keening