Bridget Benson - When Tomorrow Speaks to Me: Memoirs of an Irish Medium

About the Author

Bridget Benson was born in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. A clairvoyant medium, she began working with the spirit at the age of three. At sixteen, she entered nurses training, working in that field and using her gift for spirit contact to bring comfort to patients and their families. Since 1990 she has followed her true gift and vocation to the spirit world, seeing people from all over through word of mouth for readings, audiences, and interviews.

Bridget conducts public and private readings, appears at charity events, and uses her gift to help with police investigations. She has been a guest on numerous British television and radio programs. Visit Bridget online at www.bridgetbenson.com.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

When Tomorrow Speaks to Me: Memoirs of an Irish Medium 2010 by Bridget Benson.

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First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738728179

Cover art Johner Images/PunchStock

Cover design by Ellen Lawson

Editing by Connie Hill

Map Chris Down

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my beloved father, Charles, and also to my mother, Bridget, who passed to spirit on the 14th April 2010, aged ninety, sadly, before the publication of this book.

I feel blessed that they chose to be my parents, showing me the true meaning of strength and reassuring me that life is eternal and our loved ones are only a thought away.

I am not a professional author, so it is with much
gratitude that I acknowledge the assistance of
Sophie McAdam, journalist and writer.

Contents

of Straide

Part One: A Very Different Child

Part Two: My Gift Through Love and Loss

Part Three: Finding Peace

: When Tomorrow Starts Without Me

PROLOGUE

I was three years old when I first saw Harry. I can picture him even now: his kind smiling eyes, his rough, weathered complexion, his craggy face creased with laughter lines. His presence made me feel safe and warm. Harry was probably in his seventies, but his full head of brown hair and clean-shaven face made him look younger.

He was dressed in a white pinstriped shirt and tweed mustard waistcoat, with turn-ups on his grey-green trousers, and his black boots were highly polished. He looked just like an ordinary person, like you or me.

After that first time, Harry never came back in the same outfit. There were times when he had braces on, and sometimes, to my amusement, hed pair these with a belt. His trousers often looked a bit big for him around the waist and I remember wondering whether hed borrowed them from somebody.

I start my story with Harry because things might have been very different had it not been for the messages he gave me in the earliest years of my life.

Im Bridget Benson, clairvoyant medium. Ive had the gift for as long as I can remember: since the first time I saw Harry one cold, winters night at the tender age of three.

My gift has taken me from a ramshackle farm cottage in rural Ireland to appearances on TV, radio, and fundraising at high-profile charity events. My gift has saved me, burdened me, made me laugh, and made me cry.

This is my storya story of ups and downs, twists and turns, joy and sorrow. I know that many of you will understand how it feels to lose a loved one, and I hope by sharing my story I can bring you peace, hope, and the knowledge that your loved ones are only a thought away.

INTRODUCTION

I was born in 1956 in the farming village of Straide, County Mayo, Western Ireland. Mayo is a county of lush meadows and peat bogs, purple heather-clad moorland, and sandy-beached lakes and rivers that make it famous for trout and salmon fishing.

The fertile land is broken up by hedgerows, clay pits, and craggy rocks of limestone and granite, while the Nephin Beg Mountains can be seen on the horizon where rolling hills meet the towering skyline. To the west of Straide is the Atlantic Ocean, where green fields give way to sharp cliffs that drop into sandy bays and secluded coves.

In Straide and its surrounding towns, farming is, and always has been, as natural as breathing. Today, even those who work in the nearby towns of Castlebar and Foxford still tend the land and peat bogs that have been passed down through generations for hundreds of years. Knowing how to make hay, dig turf, and farm cattle are essential life skills even now. In Straide, everyone is a farmer at heart.

Catholicism is deeply woven into the fabric of every community, but religion hasnt altered peoples superstitious naturetraditional Celtic beliefs existed for hundreds of years before Catholicism came to Europe, so in Ireland its common to find those who talk of fairies, leprechauns, spirits, giants, and banshees in much the same way as they believe in the Virgin Mary herself.

Until as recently as the 1970s, most families lived in small clay or stone homes topped with a thatched roof. Brightly painted stable doors would open into the cottage, where a stove sat in the huge chimney breast for cooking, heating water, and burning peat for warmth. A double bed, tucked into the wall and hidden by curtains, would stand by the fire, with a few wooden chairs and a small table pushed against the opposite wall for family meals.