Bob Curran

Many coastal dwellers have taken merrows as lovers and a number of famous Irish families claim their descent from such unions, notably the O'Flaherty and O'Sullivan families of Kerry and the MacNamaras of Clare. The Irish poet W.B.Yeats reported a further case in his "Irish Fairy and Folk Tales" : "Near Bantry in the last century, there is said to have been a woman, covered in scales like a fish, who was descended from such a marriage."