Lí Ban (mermaid)

Lí Ban or Liban' (from Old Irish , meaning 'beauty', and , meaning 'of women', hence 'paragon of women'), in the legend surrounding the formation of Lough Neagh, was a woman turned mermaid who inhabited the area before the great lake gushed up on dry land. Her family was drowned, but she survived in an underwater chamber in the lake for a year, after which she was transformed into a being who was half-human, half-salmon.

In her mermaid form, she was spotted by the ship carrying a messenger sent by St. Comgall to Rome. She promised to meet at the seaport inlet of Inbhear nOllarbha (Larne Lough) in Ireland after one year, and was captured in a fishnet. There she was baptised by Comgall, and given the Christened name Muirgein ("sea-born") or Muirgeilt ("sea-wander"). She appears canonised as St. Muirgen in genealogies of Irish saints, her feast day assigned to 27 January.

The mermaid figure may ultimately derive from another Lí Ban, Sister of Fand, in Irish mythology.

Liban, a mermaid (muirgelt) who was the daughter of Eochaid was captured in the year 558 A.D. according to the Annals of the Four Masters, compiled the 17th century. Her capture is also given brief notice under the year 571 in the Annals of Ulster.

The Annals of the Four Masters adds that Liban was captured on the strand of "Ollarbha" (River Larne, or Inver River in Larne), in the net of a fisherman for St. Comgall of Bangor. An account of Liban's life story is found in the tale Aided Echach maic Maireda (Death of Eochaid son of Mairid), preserved in the 12th century Lebor na hUidre ("Book of the Dun Cow"). The tale has been translated by P. W. Joyce and by Standish Hayes O'Grady (1892).

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