Table of Contents

Family Tree: Clearys, Bolands, and Kennedys
Chronology: March-July 1895
Maps
1: Laborers, Priests, and Peelers
2: Fairies and Fairy Doctors
3: Reading, Sewing, Hens, and Houses
4: Bridget Cleary Falls Ill
5: "Take It, You Witch!"
6: "Bridgie Is Burned!"
7: "Amongst Hottentots...": The Inquest and Inquiry
8: A Funeral, Some Photographs, More Fairies
9: Two Courtrooms
10: Trial and Imprisonment
Epilogue: When Does a True Story End?
Acknowledgments and Sources
Notes
Index

About the Author

Angela Bourke is senior lecturer in Irish at University College, Dublin. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of Minnesota and writes, lectures, and broadcasts on Irish oral tradition and literature.

Reviews

"A historically rich and heady tale...fascinating." —Elle"Tightly constructed and authentically dramatic...a powerful reconstruction of the crime." —The New York Times Book Review"A fascinating, complex study...Bourke uses the horrific murder as a springboard to tell a larger story about sex, religion, and politics." —USA Today

A wonderful example of narrative cultural history, this text examines a pivotal moment in Irish history, through folklore and language. In 1895, Bridget Cleary, of Ireland's County Tipperary, caught a bad coldÄwhich her husband interpreted as a sign that she'd been taken by a "fairie." "She's not my wife," Michael Cleary said, "she's an old deceiver sent in place of my wife." After trying to treat her with herbs, "first milk" and urine, Michael burned his wife to death. When her body was discovered in a shallow grave, the Royal Irish Constabulary, who saw her death as evidence of Ireland's backwardness (and hence justification of the British colonial presence in the region) rounded up a band of menÄincluding MichaelÄand tried them for murder. As she pieces together the details of these events, Bourke (senior lecturer in Irish at University College, Dublin) tells the history as a deeply rooted collision of cultures: the accused Irish believed that they'd justifiably snuffed out a fairy changeling; the British authorities called it murder. Fairies, Bourke argues, held an important place in 19th-century Irish culture, but fairy scares were often evidence of larger personal and social conflict. In Bridget Cleary's case, she may have been the victim of unresolved marital trouble (she was barren, opinionated and financially self-supporting). Found guilty of manslaughter and sent to prison, Michael Cleary, upon his release in 1910, emigrated to Canada, but the legend of Bridget Cleary lives on in a Tipperary children's rhyme: "Are you a witch or are you a fairy,/ Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?" This thoughtful and disturbing book gives the legend a new, more complicated cultural life. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

"A historically rich and heady tale...fascinating." -Elle"Tightly constructed and authentically dramatic...a powerful reconstruction of the crime." -The New York Times Book Review"A fascinating, complex study...Bourke uses the horrific murder as a springboard to tell a larger story about sex, religion, and politics." USA Today