The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story

In 1895, 26-year-old Bridget Cleary, who had caught cold and had a severe headache, took to her bed where she lived with her husband and her father in a cottage in rural Tipperary. A local doctor concluded that she had bronchitis. Her husband (Michael Cleary) however, goaded by a so-called "faerie doctor", believed something different.1 What he actually believed, as noted in newspapers of the time, tends to fluctuate between thinking she was a witch or thinking she had been kidnapped by faeries who had left a changeling in her place. In any case, he thought she was possessed.2Convinced that a doctor's medicine was not curing her, he again took the advice of the faerie doctor and obtained herbs to banish the faeries and bring back his real wife. Then Michael Cleary, aided by several relatives, forced Bridget to swallow herbs that had been boiled in "new" milk (the first milk a cow produces after calving) and, while holding her over the kitchen fire, demanded that she confirm she was indeed Bridget Cleary. She was also was subjected to all sorts of other torture purportedly to banish the faeries, including having male urine thrown on her and having the group twisting her body to make the faeries leave it.Despite the abuse, Bridget had recovered sufficiently the next night after the herbal treatment to dress and sit in the kitchen and talk with a large group of relatives and neighbours. But her husband wasn't satisfied, and after not receiving the answers and compliance he expected from her, he flew into a rage and stripped her of her clothing, knocked her to the floor, covered her in paraffin oil and allowed her to burn to death while eight relatives - six men and two women - watched. Some of them remonstrated with the husband, who insisted that it was not his wife who was burning but a witch, whom he confidently expected to disappear up the chimney.When it became known that Bridget had 'gone missing', the relatives corroborated the husband's story, which was that Bridget had simply walked out the door and 'gone to the faeries.' Michael Cleary was seen for several nights at a local faerie mound, Kylenagranagh, weeping and supposedly waiting for Bridget to come back.3,4However, on March 22, the police found Bridget Cleary's badly burned body buried eighteen inches under the ground in a swampy field a quarter of a mile from the Cleary cottage. Michael, Bridget's father, aunt and four cousins were arrested. Jack Dunne, the faerie doctor, would also later be arrested.======Footnotes:1 Faerie doctors were humans purportedly endowed with powers of divination and healing from the faeries.2 According to the kind of stories often told at firesides and wakes, certain illnesses were supposed to be the work of the faeries, who could abduct a healthy young person and leave a sickly changeling instead: herbal medicines and ordeals by fire were both said to be ways of banishing such a changeling.3 Irish faerie legends say that a husband could get his wife back fr

This is the first time I have seen the term that titles these comments. The other term that may be a bit too specific is Cultural Biography, but as this book does not focus on a individual, is perhaps less accurate. Any readers looking for sensationalized tabloid nonsense should look elsewhere for this is a scholarly work that uses the death of Mrs. Cleary as a centerpiece around which is built the history of the time, the politics of The Home Rule Bill, as well as the entire culture surrounding Fairy belief. This is about why this death took place and how varied and complex were the factors that made the event possible. This is a serious study of a late nineteenth century event, so while there are pictures, you will find none that exploit the victim. This again is another indicator of the serious nature of the work as opposed to prurient trash.Ms. Angela Bourke did a remarkable job of communicating an event that done with less skill would have been miserable. The Author had to make sense of a Catholic Priest performing a Mass during this crime, and then behavior that most would consider bizarre that bracketed the clerical visits. She shares the significance of earthen structures as old as 1500 years that to this day play a role in Irish Life. As micro implies if an issue was raised it was explained in detail. Religion versus Superstition, the use of certain words and phrases during trial proceedings that were meant to link The Irish with the, "savages", of Africa so as to raise the question in the newspapers for months as to the Irish peoples ability, their fitness for Home Rule was debated.There are also some fascinating background pieces that include Oscar Wilde, and the Marquess of Queensberry. How their legal fisticuffs (pun intended) were relevant again to Home Rule, and the case that is the subject of this book. The book is exceedingly well written, meticulously documented, and is a tribute to the craft of writing good History. I hope Ms. Bourke pens many more.Great read!

Angela Bourke has given the world a meticulously researched, exhaustively detailed account of an event in Irish history that illuminated the state of Irish society at that time. Bourke takes the event of Bridget Cleary's awful death and the circumstances surrounding it and connects it with folk beliefs in Ireland and prevailing political and social climates of the time. Subjects as diverse as the English attitude towards the Irish, women's relatively independent position in Irish society, and the role of mythology in Irish life are explored in brilliant detail. This book is a pleasure to read for those truly interested in Irish culture, and introduces a number of excellent insights and historical tidbits. (My favorite was learning where the term 'hen' in reference to women came from.) A must read for those interested in Irish studies, as well as those involved in womens studies. If you are looking for a prurient murder story this isn't it-it is much richer. An interesting note to take is the difference between the Irish and American editions-the Irish cover features a picture of the house the murder took place in, and the man who committed it. The American cover has a beautiful young woman in a revealing nightgown...

In early March 1895 in Tipperary, Ireland, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary catches a nasty cold and is bed ridden from her illness. Not to long after becoming ill, Bridget disappears without a trace. Most of the townsfolk in this isolated, rural village believe that the fairies claimed Bridget as one of their own. The few that did not believe that felt that something possessed Bridget's body and that the real Bridget would soon reappear.Amidst all this superstition, the real Bridget lies in a grave, having been burned to death by her husband, Michael and nine of his friends and neighbors. All ten of them strongly felt a demon had taken control of Bridget's body. Michael is arrested for killing his wife and ultimately sentenced to twenty years in prison.THE BURNING OF BRIDGET CLEARY is an excellent taut recounting of a real event that shook Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century. Spin doctors in England and Ireland used the brutal murder and the superstitious beliefs of the co-conspirators to political advantage in the debate over a free Ireland. Showing a deft touch for historiography, author Angela Bourke provides a nineteenth century look into why a village killed one of their own and how that seemingly remote case impacted twentieth century events in Ireland and England. This non-fictional book is worth reading by fans of historical novels as well as those readers who enjoy a real chronicled event.Harriet Klausner

I took up my own interest in this case while researching the Theodore Durrant murders of San Francisco. The dates of the Durrant and Cleary cases overlap, and sometimes Durrant researchers will mention it. Additionally, I attended school at Rockwell College in County Tipperary, so the location also peaked my interest. Ms. Bourke does a very nice job of telling and documenting this story. Her latter accomplishment is especially appreciated by other writers like myself who often want to compare the characteristics of separate cases. I think what the reader will get most out of this one is an insight into how powerful folk magic beliefs have been in Ireland. Even when I was in Ireland in 1963, at the age of fifteen, I noticed it was quite common for people to believe in the fairies. In fact, most of my relatives and their neighbors spent far more time talking about the fairies than Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. I had been raised in San Francisco, where my own familiarity with the subject only came from seeing the Walt Disney movie Darby O'Gill and the Little people (Incredibly good by the way), but what villagers told me about the fairies didn't seem so unbelievable at all. When people gather together in any kind of isolation, they tend to generate and support beliefs which would seem preposterous to outsiders, and those of you who have never experienced anything like that will find this book worth reading. I also like the way it's put together. The colors and artwork used for the cover hint of the serious research within. And there are enough maps and photographs here as well; so if I was vacationing in Ireland I would certainly be tempted to see where this all happened.