Why Irish Fishermen Dreaded Meeting a Red-Haired Woman Before Setting Sail

Before his boat left the harbour, a Connemara fisherman would check two things: the clouds over the bay and who he met on the way down to the water. If a red-haired woman crossed his path, he would turn around and walk home. The catch could wait. The risk was not worth it.

This wasn’t unusual. Across the fishing communities of the west of Ireland, the red-haired stranger ranked among the most feared omens a man could encounter before setting out to sea.

Why Red Hair Was a Warning Sign

The superstition — known in Irish as a deireadh (an ill omen at the start of a journey) — was specific and consistent. Meeting a red-haired woman whilst walking to the harbour was bad luck. Meeting her as she walked towards you was worse. Encountering her coming from the direction of the sea was the worst sign of all.

The belief was not about the person herself. No one thought red-haired women were malicious. The hair colour was the signal — a marker of something unseen and powerful working in the background.

In early Irish tradition, red was the colour of the otherworld. The fairy mounds were associated with fire and bronze light. Figures from Irish mythology — the divine beings of the Tuatha Dé Danann — were often described as auburn or flame-haired. To see that colour unexpectedly was to receive a message from a world that did not always wish human beings well.

The Fisherman’s World Was Full of Signs

The red-haired stranger was just one element in a dense web of signs that fishing families read every day. Certain words were absolutely forbidden before going to sea — you could not say “rabbit,” “pig,” “fox,” or “salmon” aloud near the boats. You did not speak of the priest or the minister. Saying the wrong word before setting sail carried consequences that were taken seriously.

Meeting a weasel on the road was bad luck. Weasels were long associated with witchcraft in Irish belief — an animal that moved through the world in the same way an ill-wishing woman might move through a community. Invisible, quick, and always up to something.

A priest walking towards the harbour was another turn-back moment. This was not an insult to the clergy. It was simple logic: priests were associated with death rites, with the last sacraments. To meet one at the start of a journey was to brush against the end of a journey before it had begun.

Not Just the West

While the superstition was strongest in the fishing communities of Connemara, Mayo, Donegal, and Kerry, variants existed throughout Ireland. Inland farmers had their own version: meeting a red-haired old woman before heading to the fair was a sign that livestock prices would be poor, or that something would go wrong with the deal.

The belief also crossed the water to Scottish fishing communities, particularly in the western isles, where the same logic applied. The sea has always been a place where people paid close attention to signs. When lives depend on weather, timing, and luck, you do not dismiss the things that have warned you before.

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How to Undo the Omen

The important thing to understand is that the bad luck was not inevitable. The piseog came with a remedy.

If you met a red-haired woman on the road to the harbour, you turned around and went home. But you did not stay home. You waited. You performed a small reversal — sometimes touching iron (iron was believed to drive away fairy influence), sometimes saying a specific phrase, sometimes simply retracing your steps and approaching the harbour a second time by a different route.

The superstition was not fatalistic. It was practical. The signs today are bad. Come back when they are better.

That same logic applied to the other omens. If a weasel crossed your path, you watched which direction it ran. If a crow called three times from a rooftop as you left the house, you counted the calls and noted which way the bird faced. Nothing was absolute. The world was sending signals, and the skill was in reading them carefully.

The Strange Inversion

There is something quietly funny about this superstition when you consider how the world sees Irish people today.

Red hair has become one of the most recognisable symbols of Irish identity globally. From St Patrick’s Day celebrations to Irish-American heritage, the flame-haired Celt is practically a cultural emblem. The world looks at red hair and thinks: Ireland.

But in the fishing villages of old Connacht, the people who actually lived in Ireland saw it differently. The red hair that looks so Irish from the outside was, from the inside, a warning that something old and unseen was paying attention to you.

Perhaps that is the most Irish thing of all. The magpie must be saluted, the words must be chosen carefully, and the red-haired stranger on the road to the harbour deserves a respectful nod before you turn quietly around and try again tomorrow.

If you want to visit the communities where these traditions were strongest — the Connemara coast, the fishing villages of Mayo, the islands of Galway Bay — our Ireland planning guide will help you make the most of your time in the west.

Ireland has always paid close attention to the world around it in ways that outsiders find hard to explain. Maybe that is not superstition at all. Maybe it is just knowing how to listen.

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