Patricia Lysaght , a native of Co. Clare, is a Professor in the School of Irish , Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore, and Linguistics, University College Dublin. She is currently Head of Subject, Irish Folklore.

Professor Lysaght’s academic background is in Law (Barrister-at-Law), the Classics, Irish Language and Literature, and Irish and European Folklore and Ethnology. She was an Alexander von Humboldt Scholar at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany , in 1987-8, Acting Professor of Folklore at Georg-August Universität, Göttingen , Germany , in 1996-7, and Guest Professor at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, in 1998-9. She was visiting scholar at the Institute of Ethnology , Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow , in 1993.

Professor Lysaght has published ten books (2 as sole author, 7 as contributory editor and 1 as coeditor), and more than one hundred sresearch articles both as chapters in books and as research papers in a wide range of international refereed journals. Her book, The Banshee (1986), has become a standard work, and new (1996) and American (1997) editions have appeared. The pocket version of the book (A Pocket Book of The Banshee, 1998) has been translated into Russian and is currently being translated into Japanese.

Professor Lysaght is Editor in chief of two international peer-reviewed journals: Folklore, Journal of The Folklore Society, London , and Béaloideas, The Journal of The Folklore of Ireland Society, Dublin . She is also an elected member of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture, Uppsala , Sweden , and of The Royal Irish Academy, Dublin .