Burning Bridget Cleary

“Are you a witch, or are you a faerie?

Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”

(Irish children’s rhyme)

Bridget Boland was born in 1869 in Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, Ireland and married Michael Cleary in August, 1887. The couple met in Clonmel where Michael worked as a cooper, and Bridget served as a dressmaker’s apprentice. Once they were married, Bridget went back home to Ballyvadlea to live with and help care for her parents.

Bridget, apart from her husband, grew quite independent. She cared for a flock of chickens, and sold their eggs to neighbors. She also obtained a Singer sewing machine, which was state of the art technology at the time, and she became a dressmaker and milliner (hatmaker) in her own right. Bridget was a professional woman, something that was almost unheard of at this time.

When Bridget’s mother passed away, she became solely responsible for her father, Patrick. Living with him enabled Bridget and Michael to acquire the best house in the village. This house was reserved for labourers, but no local labourers were interested in living there; they believed it had been built on the site of a faerie ring.

In Irish folklore, a faerie ring is a circular fortified settlement with earthen banks or ditches. Sometimes these settlements would be topped with wooden palisades and wooden framed buildings. It was believed that a faerie ring was a portal between our world and the faerie world. Contacting the fairies through the faerie ring would leave the person susceptible to abduction by a faerie, and replacement by a faerie changeling.

There were many reasons a faerie would kidnap and take the place of a human. For some, it was their time to die, and so they wished to do so on the earthly plane. For others, it was a means of bearing children. Often changelings would be sick faerie babies or children, with hope that the humans would be able to nurture it back to health.

One day in early March, 1895, Bridget took a walk to deliver some eggs in Kylenagranagh. Kylenagranagh was also the site of a faerie ring, and it was here that Bridget caught a chill.

She immediately took to bed. On Monday, March 11, Dr. Crean was summoned, but could not arrive until Wednesday, the 13th.  He found her suffering from a nervous excitement and a slight bronchitis. He “could see nothing in the case likely to cause death,” and so he gave her some medicine and left, never to see her alive again.

The priest, Father Ryan, visited later that day. He heard her confession, gave her unction (one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, where a priest or bishop anoints the sick person on the forehead and palms with the oil of the sick – a holy oil that has been blessed by a bishop.) and left, not thinking anything was amiss. When he was called back to the Cleary home on Thursday, he did not go, saying he had administered the last rites of the Church on the previous day, and there was no need to see her again so soon.

Michael sent for Denis Ganey, the “Faerie” doctor. He was convinced Bridget had been abducted and had been replaced by a faerie changeling.

When Denis arrived, they began to treat Bridget, first by forcing her to drink the first milk given by a cow after calving (which was so attractive to the faeries that, once consumed, would cause the abductor to bring back the human.). She was given herbs mixed in a drink to break the faerie spell.

Bridget’s cousin, Johanna Burke and her daughter went to check on her. Shortly thereafter, her neighbors, William Simpson and his wife also came to see how she was doing. The four of them stood outside the home, waiting to be let inside, when they heard a voice shouting from within, “Take it you bitch, you old faggot, or we will burn you!” When the door opened, they heard more shouts, this time, “Away she go! Away she go!” They had opened the door to let the faeries leave.

William Simpson, his wife, Johanna Burke and her daughter all made their way inside. Once inside, they found a slew of people, John Dunne, Patrick Kennedy, James Kennedy, and William Kennedy (The Kennedy men were brothers, and all cousins of Bridget.). These men were holding Bridget down on the bed. She was on her back wearing only a night dress.

Michael was standing by her side, and asked for a liquid. “Throw it on her,” he commanded. Mary Kennedy, brought the saucepan full of the requested liquid. Michael held it while the liquid was dashed over Bridget several times.

Bridget’s father was in the room, standing back out of the way. A young man named William Ahearne stood nearby, holding a candle, all the while Bridget struggled and cried, “Leave me alone!”

Bridget’s husband Michael then took a spoonful of the liquid and forced her to take it. The men held her down, one of them holding a hand over her mouth. They all shouted, “Away with you! Come back, Bridget ZBoland, in the name of God!” Bridget screamed out, but they continued, “Come home, Bridget Boland.”

Bridget was picked up by the men and carried to the kitchen fire where she was held, in her night dress, over the flames, her body resting on the bars of the grate where the fire was burning. Her husband was to ask her some questions, and he told her that if she did not answer her name three times, then they would burn her.

“Are you Bridget Boland, wife of  Michael Cleary, in the name of God?”

“I am Bridget Boland, daughter of Patrick Boland, in the name of God.”

Bridget answered Michael’s questions to his satisfaction, and was put back to bed. The women gave her a clean night dress on her and was then asked to identify all the people in the room, which she also did successfully. By daybreak everyone had cleared out of the Cleary home and Bridget was left with just her husband.

Friday came, and Bridget told her husband she could see the police at the window, and he should just leave her be. Michael picked up a nearby chamber pot and threw its contents over her and at the window.

As night came, Michael again filled the house, this time requesting the presence of Thomas Smith and David Hogan. Thomas, David, Mary Kennedy, Johanna, Pat Leahy, Pat Boland and Michael Cleary were in the bedroom. Michael had a bottle in his hand and said to, Bridget, “Will you take this now, as Tom Smith and David Hogan are here? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”

Thomas inquired as to the contents of the bottle, and Michael told him it was holy water. Bridget agreed to take it. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;” and she drank it down.

Bridget was then dressed and brought to the kitchen where a group had gathered and were talking about the faeries. Bridget turned to her husband, “Your mother used to go with the faeries, and that is why you think I am going with them.”

“Did my mother tell you that?” Michael exclaimed.

“She did. That she gave two nights with them,” Bridget replied.

Johanna offered Bridget a cup of tea, but Michael jumped up and quickly prepared three pieces of bread and jam. He demanded that she eat them before she could take a sip of her tea. With each piece of bread, he asked her, “Are you Bridget Cleary, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?”

Bridget answered twice, each time swallowing a piece of bread with jam, but could not do it a third time without having a drink first. Michael then forced her to eat the third piece, threatening her the whole time, “If you won’t take it, down you go!” and he flung her to the ground, one knee on her chest, and a hand on her throat, while he forced it down her throat. “Swallow it, swallow it. Is it down? Is it down?”

Johanna stepped in, telling Michael to, “let her alone, don’t you see it is Bridget that is in it?”

Michael stripped off Bridget’s clothes, all the way down to her slip, and got a lighted stick out of the fire, holding it to her mouth. He threw lamp oil on her and set her ablaze. “It is not my wife, I am not going to keep an old witch in place of my wife, so I must get back my wife!” Everyone in the room began to cry, begging to leave, to get out, but Michael said he had the key, and no one could leave until he had his wife back. Michael believed that once the changeling died, his wife would be returned to him, riding a white horse.

Bridget cried out, burning on the hearth, and everyone fled from the room as it filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Michael screamed out, “She is burned now. God knows i did not mean to do it.”

Bridget was dead, lying face down, her legs turned upwards, as though they had contracted in burning.

Patrick Kennedy helped to carry Bridget’s burnt body from the house and buried her in a shallow grave nearby.

In the end, Michael Cleary was arrested and sentenced to 20 years penal servitude for manslaughter. Patrick Kennedy was arrested and sentenced to 5 years penal servitude for wounding. John Dunne was arrested and sentenced to 3 years penal servitude. William and James Kennedy were arrested and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. Patrick Boland and Michael Kennedy were arrested and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment. Mary Kennedy was arrested, but given freedom. Judge O’Brien said, “I will not pass any sentence on this poor old woman.”

Bridget Cleary was refused a Christian burial by everyone in town. Instead, the police had to bury her, by the light of a lantern, in Cloneen churchyard.

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