You can bet that had I known there was a mermaid saint when I was preparing to get confirmed I would have wanted to choose her. That being said, I probably would have been too wracked with Catholic guilt to choose a mermaid for a saint name and would have stuck with St. Joan of Arc anyways (I still love you Joan!). But a mermaid saint is too interesting to ignore, so let’s talk about her here.
Who was Saint Lí Ban Muirgen?
Lí Ban (lee-bahn, meaning beauty or paragon of women) is an old saint, one who’s story begins in 558. She was the eldest daughter of Eochaidh (yo-HAY), the King of Ulster and a Tuatha de Danaan (TOO-ah day DAN-an), a race of people who were believed to have supernatural powers who inhabited Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians. When Eochaidh palace flooded killing all the inhabitants and forming the Lough Neagh Lake, Lí Ban and her dog were the only ones to survive.
Sarah O'Connor 