Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 53 - The Burning of Bridget Cleary

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53 - The Burning of Bridget Cleary · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. What now the
0:20
Speaker 1: history podcast? It's not your history class with me? Your
0:23
Speaker 1: host Katie Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. Hello there.
0:29
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is that because of a habit
0:31
Speaker 1: of doing that like hello there, it's people have actually
0:34
Speaker 1: started responding with us fucking obi wan kenobi and honestly
0:38
Speaker 1: not even mad about it. So yeah, did you miss me?
0:43
Speaker 1: First of all, to the people from Google podcast because
0:46
Speaker 1: apparently it hasn't been updating since July. And it's not
0:50
Speaker 1: just Google podcasts, it's anything associated affiliated that goes through it.
0:55
Speaker 1: Loads of people hadn't been hearing me. I was like,
0:57
Speaker 1: why are my numbers getting so much lower? That's why?
1:01
Speaker 1: Either that or I'm just generally unappealing, especially over time. Nah,
1:08
Speaker 1: I'm a fucking delight. So yes, I fixed that, as
1:15
Speaker 1: though we should be all good for all Google podcast
1:16
Speaker 1: related things. And then the last couple weeks have just
1:19
Speaker 1: been a calamity of errors for me. Really, I hurt
1:23
Speaker 1: my back, which was the first thing, and I just
1:26
Speaker 1: a bit managed to record this episode. When I deleted
1:29
Speaker 1: it gone into the ether forever. Whoa just nah bye.
1:36
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't like find it.
1:40
Speaker 1: It was just gone, like I couldn't there is a
1:44
Speaker 1: word for that, to like reclaim the file. Couldn't do that.
1:47
Speaker 1: Nothing happened. It was just gone forever. So that was
1:50
Speaker 1: not fun for me. And then again hurt my back.
1:54
Speaker 1: I was actually off work because I think the technical
1:57
Speaker 1: term for my back is fucked. That's where we're at.
2:01
Speaker 1: I've actually bent like the letter why, except without the
2:05
Speaker 1: other sticky out bit. So it's just kind of like
2:08
Speaker 1: we bend has my back and my legs. I mean,
2:14
Speaker 1: I mean, except for the fact my father has told
2:16
Speaker 1: me on no less than four occasions that I've got
2:20
Speaker 1: along back and we stumpy legs. Thanks Dad, But it's fine.
2:24
Speaker 1: So so that happened. And then like actually on a
2:30
Speaker 1: serious note, the Kushla tragedy happened, And if you're not aware,
2:35
Speaker 1: that's when a petro station and Cryshla had a gas
2:39
Speaker 1: explosion or they think it's a gas explosion, and it
2:42
Speaker 1: resulted in the loss of ten lives, which it could
2:46
Speaker 1: have been so much worse. It could have been even
2:49
Speaker 1: more horrific, and the area surrounding it is damaged and
2:53
Speaker 1: it's only this little village of like four hundred people,
2:55
Speaker 1: but it's such a busy area because it's like one
2:57
Speaker 1: of the main routes from one side of the county
2:59
Speaker 1: to the other. And you would be hard pushed where
3:05
Speaker 1: I'm from to not know somebody from the area, Like
3:09
Speaker 1: they're like six degrees is have Nope, six degrees of
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Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon like that, but like even closer like three
3:17
Speaker 1: four degrees, Like I know somebody from there, and I
3:23
Speaker 1: know people who know people from there, and I don't
3:24
Speaker 1: know anybody from my area who doesn't know people from there.
3:28
Speaker 1: So I had neighbors lose family members, and it's it's
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Speaker 1: been like a dark cloud. Even though it's done. It goals.
3:41
Speaker 1: We always have dark clouds, but dark clouds over the county.
3:45
Speaker 1: And I mean we do what we do best. We
3:48
Speaker 1: come together and we try our best. I'm getting emotion
3:50
Speaker 1: on it. Who don't do this and we do our
3:54
Speaker 1: best to help. I mean, I had, like I think
3:57
Speaker 1: a tenor spare because you're was broke. It's why I
4:01
Speaker 1: donated what I could to the fund. And it's not
4:03
Speaker 1: just for you know, like funeral costs and healthcare costs
4:06
Speaker 1: of you know people, but it's also to help rebuild
4:09
Speaker 1: the area, to help get people like housed, and you know,
4:13
Speaker 1: rebuild their lives, those who could, those who can, those
4:17
Speaker 1: who have no choice but to, you know. And I
4:22
Speaker 1: haven't really made content since that. Really, like there was
4:25
Speaker 1: a period where I just did not have the mental
4:29
Speaker 1: or emotional capacity because the thing about this is this
4:36
Speaker 1: is such it's such a tragic accident that it could
4:40
Speaker 1: really happen to anybody, you know, somebody buying a birthday cake,
4:45
Speaker 1: you're going for ice cream. Ah. Sorry, I'm not going
4:51
Speaker 1: to get into the details because I will probably cry.
4:54
Speaker 1: So there's that. And then after this, my boy had
5:00
Speaker 1: like all of these got assessments and stuff, so we'd
5:04
Speaker 1: summon like where we live, and then we'd some like
5:08
Speaker 1: in Belfast. So I had to travel all the way
5:11
Speaker 1: across to Belfast. And he is not a good traveler.
5:16
Speaker 1: I mean, he's okay, but he really shouldn't sit on
5:19
Speaker 1: the back of a bus. But he wanted to go
5:21
Speaker 1: on the back of the bus. I warned him, but
5:23
Speaker 1: he ended up getting sick. And I'm like pulling my
5:26
Speaker 1: night dress out of my bag because it's all I've got, right,
5:30
Speaker 1: and I'm like cleaning them up in my pajamas because
5:33
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm really sorry for getting to find
5:35
Speaker 1: to worry about it. It's okay, I need to be sick.
5:38
Speaker 1: Just be sick in the pajamas. Don't worry about it.
5:40
Speaker 1: I'll buy another like night shirt or some pgs when
5:43
Speaker 1: we get to Belfast. It's fine, it's all good. So
5:47
Speaker 1: that's what we did, and everything that could go wrong
5:52
Speaker 1: did go wrong. And then by the time we actually
5:55
Speaker 1: get out of the camera for it was the ASD
5:57
Speaker 1: or the add assessment that by the time we actually
6:01
Speaker 1: made it home, it was like after nine o'clock at night.
6:05
Speaker 1: It was it was. It was a long day. It
6:07
Speaker 1: was a very very long day. But then today I decided,
6:12
Speaker 1: you know what, I have some energy. Let's get this recorded.
6:17
Speaker 1: Let's do this so you know, if you want to
6:20
Speaker 1: rate and review five stars, that would be super amazing,
6:23
Speaker 1: because I'm really not well. I'm still really fucking sore.
6:26
Speaker 1: By the way, like turns out though, by the way,
6:30
Speaker 1: bill Fast is color coded, so it's really easy to
6:33
Speaker 1: travel around like through the like the buses and the
6:37
Speaker 1: public transport system. But it's all good, it's all good.
6:42
Speaker 1: But I know what you're thinking, and you're thinking, quit
6:45
Speaker 1: your jebber jabber in fact me, in fact you I will.
6:49
Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
6:52
Speaker 1: sources are The Burning of bridget Cleary, a true Story
6:57
Speaker 1: by Angela Bark, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers by Ceddie Doyle,
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Speaker 1: The Fairy Defense by David Wallis mc cullough, The Burdening
7:10
Speaker 1: of bridget Cleary, Psychiatric Aspects of a Tragic Tale by P. G.
7:15
Speaker 1: Doyle and H. O'Connell and Cardon Nashinte, The Irish National
7:20
Speaker 1: Archives and The Cooper's Wife Is Missing by Joan Hoff
7:25
Speaker 1: and Marie Anne Yates. Are you sitting comfortably good? Then
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Speaker 1: let's begin. Some of you may be aware of the lane.
7:35
Speaker 1: Are you a witch? Are you a fairy? Or are
7:38
Speaker 1: you the wife of Michael Cleary? Parently, this is a
7:42
Speaker 1: song sung by skill children all over Tipperary. There's a
7:47
Speaker 1: long way to Tipperary. But ah, I lived on the
7:51
Speaker 1: clear Tipperary boarder for a while and I never heard
7:56
Speaker 1: anybody's sickness. But apparently parently we do. If you did,
8:00
Speaker 1: can you let me know, because I just maybe I
8:04
Speaker 1: just didn't know that many school children, I mean that
8:07
Speaker 1: could be it, but anyway, and the rhyme itself all
8:11
Speaker 1: comes from a tale which actually garnered international headlines in
8:16
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, and that is the Burning of Bridget Clearing,
8:21
Speaker 1: a tale which was suggested to me by Mark from
8:24
Speaker 1: the Bearded Badger Storytelling podcast. He loves his folklore, I
8:28
Speaker 1: love my history, and this was a story that I
8:31
Speaker 1: kind of always knew about. It was just one of
8:33
Speaker 1: those things, and it always bothered me because I'd heard
8:37
Speaker 1: bits and pieces of it, and a lot of the
8:40
Speaker 1: times when it's we told, it fails to mention that
8:45
Speaker 1: this entire event, everything that happens is just reeking of
8:51
Speaker 1: misogyny and patriarchal, fucking bullshit. Ninety eight percent of the
8:56
Speaker 1: time it is portrayed from the perspective of the page
9:00
Speaker 1: and stale males. Now, I may be pale, but I
9:04
Speaker 1: am not stale, and I am not male. And let's
9:08
Speaker 1: get into the tragic demise of Bridget Cleary. Bridget was
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Speaker 1: born Bridget Boland on the nineteenth of February either eighteen
9:21
Speaker 1: sixty seven or eighteen sixty nine. There was a discrepancy
9:26
Speaker 1: here somewhere, because it's a woman from the past. Why
9:32
Speaker 1: the fuck would we have a definitive answer. And the
9:35
Speaker 1: reason there's this discrepancy, well, it's because at the time
9:40
Speaker 1: of her death, her dad said that she was twenty
9:42
Speaker 1: six years old, but I think the census record sort
9:47
Speaker 1: of suggests that she was like two years older than that.
9:51
Speaker 1: But it could be a mistake on the records, or
9:53
Speaker 1: it could be a mistake by her dad, whom's to say.
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Speaker 1: What we do know is Bridget was born in the
10:01
Speaker 1: late eighteen sixties in Ballyvadley and Tipperary to Patrick Boland
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Speaker 1: and his wife, Bridget Keating. I'm going to take a
10:11
Speaker 1: wild stab in the dark hair and suggest that Bridget
10:13
Speaker 1: was named after her mother, Agatha. Christie's got nothing on me.
10:18
Speaker 1: Bridget's father, Patrick would have been a farm laborer at
10:21
Speaker 1: the time, and his wife, well, she was a housewife,
10:25
Speaker 1: because that's just how things were back then. It's the
10:28
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds in rural Ireland. And there was one report
10:33
Speaker 1: I read that said that Bridget was the youngest child
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Speaker 1: of Patrick and Bridget Boland. But I could not find
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Speaker 1: any other information on her siblings, if they existed. Nothing,
10:48
Speaker 1: couldn't find it, not open hell, and I was digging
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Speaker 1: through census records, like, nah, not a fucking thing. But anyway,
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Speaker 1: I am going to go with you know what, I'm
11:00
Speaker 1: gonna make a decisionaire based on the information I could find,
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Speaker 1: And I am gonna say that Bridget was born in
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven because she was baptized in March of
11:10
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven. And you had my notes here somewhere
11:15
Speaker 1: back in the day baptisms and christenings. They were pretty
11:19
Speaker 1: sharpish because you know, infant mortality rates and all that.
11:24
Speaker 1: So one month old ish she gets baptized. Yay, good
11:30
Speaker 1: Jesus and stuff. And that's all we really know about
11:34
Speaker 1: her childhood, apart from the fact that she went to
11:37
Speaker 1: national school or like primary school, elementary school, you know
11:42
Speaker 1: we school and dragon. That's right. She attended the School
11:48
Speaker 1: of the Sisters of Mercy. Yay nuns. Nothing run by
11:54
Speaker 1: nuns is usually good unless it's a bakery. A bakery
11:58
Speaker 1: run by nuns, their angel cake pretty good, you know,
12:03
Speaker 1: most other things run by nuns historically bit of a
12:11
Speaker 1: hellish pit of despair. So her school was four miles
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Speaker 1: away from home, which meant she had to get some
12:18
Speaker 1: kind of left there, right, Like she'd have to jump
12:21
Speaker 1: in a cart or I'm assuming a cart and someone
12:24
Speaker 1: would like take her there because I know that in
12:29
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties when my grandfather was going to school,
12:33
Speaker 1: my papa, he lived like a mile away from the school,
12:37
Speaker 1: and they would have to walk there and walk back,
12:40
Speaker 1: and they would go there with two swords of turf
12:44
Speaker 1: or pete, depending on how you want to call it,
12:46
Speaker 1: under each arm. Now, turf, if you don't know, is
12:50
Speaker 1: like a like a log of dirt that comes from
12:54
Speaker 1: a bog that you burn for fuel. So each student
12:59
Speaker 1: they would bring two saw it to turf with them
13:01
Speaker 1: as they went to as they went to school, so
13:04
Speaker 1: that they could you know, heat the school. That's you know,
13:09
Speaker 1: it's a free education as long as you brought some turf.
13:13
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a fair it's a fair price to pay.
13:16
Speaker 1: And so and I know how long it takes to
13:20
Speaker 1: walk a mile, so I have to think there had
13:24
Speaker 1: to be some kind of transport to and from school
13:28
Speaker 1: for Bridget. So after her schooling and whatnot. Don't really
13:33
Speaker 1: know much about Bridget's life, don't know what she did,
13:36
Speaker 1: where she went, none of that. We do know that
13:40
Speaker 1: at some point she becomes a dressmaker's apprentice, probably in
13:44
Speaker 1: Clommeo because there's not really a lot of other places
13:48
Speaker 1: one could do that, and it's kind of a busier place,
13:53
Speaker 1: and it's roundabout here where she meets Michael Cleary. Michael
13:59
Speaker 1: Cleary is a cooper. What's a cooper? Well, I'm glad
14:04
Speaker 1: you asked, because I'll tell you. A cooper is someone
14:07
Speaker 1: who makes casks or barrels. So you know the barrels
14:11
Speaker 1: that you know the whiskeys cured in. He would make those.
14:16
Speaker 1: It's the only thing I can think that barrels could
14:18
Speaker 1: be used for wine. I suppose a wine cask for
14:23
Speaker 1: the monks there, you go for the monks. Maybe they
14:27
Speaker 1: do like making their old wine. So the twenty year
14:30
Speaker 1: old Bridget meets twenty seven year old Michael and they
14:34
Speaker 1: have a whirlwind courtship because they get married like a
14:38
Speaker 1: month to less than a month after that in August
14:42
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. And Dragon probably because it was Bridget's parish.
14:48
Speaker 1: I guess she probably came under the diocese. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: Michael's originally from like another part of Tipperary, but he
14:55
Speaker 1: is working in Clonmel and after they marry, he stays
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Speaker 1: there to work and bridget. She ends up moving back
15:03
Speaker 1: in with her family. Like they get married. She moves
15:08
Speaker 1: back home fairly quickly afterwards. Now this isn't exactly too
15:13
Speaker 1: unusual for the times, like families would live together and
15:17
Speaker 1: husbands would often live apart from their wives because they
15:21
Speaker 1: would be working in one area and they would be
15:23
Speaker 1: sending money back like it was just you'd go where
15:26
Speaker 1: the work was British. When she goes home, she's actually
15:30
Speaker 1: there looking after her mom because her mom's unwill. And
15:34
Speaker 1: this is where I'm gonna have to give you a
15:35
Speaker 1: wee bit of backstory, or the first bit of backstory,
15:39
Speaker 1: I should say. So at this time, Ireland was still
15:43
Speaker 1: under British rule. It had been colonized and ruled by Britain,
15:48
Speaker 1: and the land was owned generally by British landlords who
15:53
Speaker 1: were like members of the British gentry, or they were
15:58
Speaker 1: owned by how do I put this, well to do
16:03
Speaker 1: Irish people who were seen as loyal subjects to the crown,
16:09
Speaker 1: but mainly it's the British gentry. So basically, in one
16:13
Speaker 1: area they would be like a bunch of poor people
16:16
Speaker 1: in one fella in a big house who owned it all,
16:19
Speaker 1: and he would generally have these laborers cottages which will
16:22
Speaker 1: be set up on the land. And also in addition, furthermore,
16:27
Speaker 1: as a result of Engrton Moore the Great Hunger, which
16:31
Speaker 1: you probably know better as the Famine, a bunch of laws,
16:36
Speaker 1: policies and groups sort of came into play, one of
16:39
Speaker 1: which was the Laborers Active ten eighty three. So under
16:42
Speaker 1: this act, the Casual Peer Law Guardians, they would build
16:47
Speaker 1: these farmer laborer cottages. So a lot of the labors
16:52
Speaker 1: and the people who worked on farms, they would live
16:55
Speaker 1: in these like huts, these cabins, like tiny cottages. They
16:58
Speaker 1: were fucking teeny many and these would get demolished and
17:03
Speaker 1: these bigger cottages would be built. So because himself, Patrick
17:09
Speaker 1: Boland was a farm laborer, he was eligible for one
17:14
Speaker 1: of these laborers cottages. So he gets it anyway. So
17:18
Speaker 1: Patrick Boland has this pretty sweet farmer's cottage, like it
17:22
Speaker 1: is pretty sweet. It's one of the best cottages in
17:24
Speaker 1: the village. And he is doing all right for himself anyway.
17:28
Speaker 1: Because the Bolands, they purchase a Singer sewing machine for
17:33
Speaker 1: their daughter, Bridget. So at some point in the early
17:36
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, Bridget's mother passes away and the responsibility of
17:42
Speaker 1: looking after Patrick Boland, her father, is on her. So
17:48
Speaker 1: during the years that Michael is away working in Clonmel,
17:52
Speaker 1: Bridget sort of gains this independence. I mean she was
17:57
Speaker 1: fairly independent anyway, because she was already working, well, she
18:01
Speaker 1: was an apprentice dressmaker, you know, she was doing something
18:04
Speaker 1: for herself, and she was in her you know, she
18:06
Speaker 1: was twenty. So Bridget she's got her singer slowing machine,
18:10
Speaker 1: she's dressmaking, she's doing alterations, she's making clothes, and she
18:15
Speaker 1: also has chickens. She gets some chickens and she sells
18:20
Speaker 1: their eggs, so she's got two way things going for herself,
18:25
Speaker 1: which makes her independently not wealthy, but she isn't reliant
18:33
Speaker 1: on Michael for an income for money to survive because
18:37
Speaker 1: she's making her own money. So we're a little bit
18:41
Speaker 1: hazy on the dates. But at some point after Bridget's
18:44
Speaker 1: mother dying, Michael moves into the laborer's cottage with Bridget
18:49
Speaker 1: and her father and he sets up his own coopering
18:54
Speaker 1: business in Ballyvadley. So you know, they're both working, they're
18:58
Speaker 1: both in this pretty sweet gage and all they going
19:01
Speaker 1: to do is look after her dad because he's he's
19:03
Speaker 1: getting on a bit, he's elderly. I think it's one
19:06
Speaker 1: of the reasons why they think that she is the
19:09
Speaker 1: youngest child of Patrick and Bridget Poland because Patrick is,
19:17
Speaker 1: you know, so elderly at this point. But if Bridget
19:20
Speaker 1: did have siblings, you know, they could have they could
19:23
Speaker 1: have died in infancy, they could have migrated or immigrated.
19:28
Speaker 1: Anything's possible. But yeah, Michael and Bridget they're staying in
19:33
Speaker 1: this pretty sweet pad and they're very well known in
19:39
Speaker 1: the village. They're very well known about the place because
19:42
Speaker 1: they're doing pretty well for themselves. They're both making money.
19:46
Speaker 1: And Bridget will she is by all accounts, fucking gorgeous.
19:53
Speaker 1: She is a stunner. And on top of the fact
19:56
Speaker 1: that she is deemed to be incredibly beautiful as pair
19:59
Speaker 1: of the societal standards of that time, she was known
20:03
Speaker 1: to wear fashionable outfits of her own design, So she
20:07
Speaker 1: would have been wearing the newer styles, she would have
20:10
Speaker 1: been designing things, and so she would have looked a
20:14
Speaker 1: little bit out of place compared to like most people
20:16
Speaker 1: in the area. She was gorgeous and she was serving
20:20
Speaker 1: her looks abs of fucking litly. You don't love your
20:24
Speaker 1: best life, Bridget Cleary. You make your own money, you
20:27
Speaker 1: buy your own clothes. But you make your own clothes,
20:29
Speaker 1: do your thing. Fucking yes. So the couple were not
20:34
Speaker 1: exactly inconspicuous. And another thing that the sort of local
20:38
Speaker 1: community whispered about was the fact that Michael and Bridget
20:42
Speaker 1: they were married for eight years and didn't have any kids,
20:47
Speaker 1: which I mean, there could be a number of reasons
20:49
Speaker 1: for that. Maybe he had a rectile dysfunction, maybe she
20:54
Speaker 1: had vaginousness. For all we know, the chemicals from coopering
20:58
Speaker 1: were messing with his gullies. Perhaps living apart for so
21:01
Speaker 1: long that when they did see each other it wasn't
21:03
Speaker 1: when she was ovulating, or maybe when he did visit.
21:07
Speaker 1: You know, sharing a cottage with your in laws doesn't
21:12
Speaker 1: really inspire a romantic liaison, shall we say? Yeah, it's
21:17
Speaker 1: hard to get horny when your in laws or parents
21:20
Speaker 1: are in the next room. I mean, I know the
21:22
Speaker 1: cottage walls are thick, but I don't think they're that thick.
21:25
Speaker 1: So for whatever reason, they just didn't have any kids.
21:29
Speaker 1: No kids, not a zilp zilch. Also, in addition, furthermore,
21:34
Speaker 1: they were friendly with one mister William Simpson, who was
21:38
Speaker 1: the caretaker of an evicted farm. Now, in general, if
21:43
Speaker 1: you were associating with someone who was, you know, who
21:47
Speaker 1: had taken the place of someone who had been evicted,
21:50
Speaker 1: or was caretaking the area of which people had been evicted,
21:56
Speaker 1: that was not a cool thing to do. You would
21:59
Speaker 1: definitely get the side eye for that one. So landlords
22:04
Speaker 1: again owned all the land, and farmers would rent out
22:09
Speaker 1: you know, like usually like a cottage and the land
22:13
Speaker 1: adjacent for farming, and you would pay the landlord for
22:18
Speaker 1: this privilege to rent the farm. But if you could
22:21
Speaker 1: not match those payments, or if he just wanted more,
22:25
Speaker 1: or if he just wanted to get rid of you,
22:26
Speaker 1: because he could because you didn't really have a backing there,
22:31
Speaker 1: because you know, the ruling class ruled, you know, so
22:35
Speaker 1: they could just evict you. And if somebody had, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: replaced you, they were shitty. If somebody was looking after
22:42
Speaker 1: it after you got evicted, they were also shitty, you know. So, yeah,
22:46
Speaker 1: they were friendship with William Simpson. People weren't really into that, no,
22:52
Speaker 1: And as we know, when you were different to like
22:55
Speaker 1: other people in your community, it's very easy for the
22:58
Speaker 1: gossip mouth to start Chary. And one of the rumors
23:02
Speaker 1: going about was Bridge Cleary was having an affair with
23:06
Speaker 1: William Simpson. I don't know. Is selling your eggs a
23:10
Speaker 1: euphemism that I don't know about? There she was Bridget
23:13
Speaker 1: Cleary out there selling her eggs to William Simpson, if
23:16
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? No, I really do not,
23:20
Speaker 1: not in the slightest And when Bridget was out selling
23:23
Speaker 1: her eggs, she would often pass through or pass by
23:27
Speaker 1: this fairy fort or a ring fort, which is like
23:30
Speaker 1: the stone circle, which was I want to say, kind
23:34
Speaker 1: of owned by the fairies or the fairy folk or
23:38
Speaker 1: the leshy Is she sorry? And they were not supposed
23:43
Speaker 1: to be disturbed, like there's tales of you know, someone
23:46
Speaker 1: cutting like brush away from the fort and then cutting
23:49
Speaker 1: their hand and dying, or someone trying to take stones
23:52
Speaker 1: to build a domen and the doman never standing, you know,
23:56
Speaker 1: kind of cursed bit. You know, it wouldn't really be
23:59
Speaker 1: called cursed, like that language specifically wouldn't be used. But
24:05
Speaker 1: it was like you don't fuck with a fairy four
24:07
Speaker 1: Like that's not something you do. The bridge It wasn't
24:10
Speaker 1: really like afraid of the fairy four, and she would
24:14
Speaker 1: often like spend time there, like she would just hang out,
24:18
Speaker 1: like after she was delivering her eggs and stuff, and
24:21
Speaker 1: you know, she would have to pass through it. I
24:23
Speaker 1: think on the day she fell ill, or that she
24:27
Speaker 1: was like visibly ill, the fourth of March, she had
24:32
Speaker 1: walked through to I think it was her father's cousins,
24:38
Speaker 1: and so she passed through the fort on the way there,
24:41
Speaker 1: and she came through the fort on the way back.
24:44
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly a quick jaunt either, because it was
24:46
Speaker 1: like two or three miles she had to walk, and
24:50
Speaker 1: it was bloody Baltic, so it was very very cold.
24:54
Speaker 1: Snowuld fall on the previous day, and it hadn't you know,
24:57
Speaker 1: dissipated or dissolved. It was very much still there, so
25:00
Speaker 1: it was freezing cold. So she had gone all the
25:05
Speaker 1: way over there, all the way back, and when she
25:08
Speaker 1: got home she was cold, she couldn't warm up, she
25:13
Speaker 1: was shivering, and she complained of having a quote raging
25:17
Speaker 1: pain in her head. The next day she still isn't
25:21
Speaker 1: feeling better. So her elderly father, not her husband, her
25:27
Speaker 1: elderly father walks four miles to get the doctor. Like
25:32
Speaker 1: off he trots and unfortunately, for whatever reason, the doctor
25:36
Speaker 1: isn't able to visit until the following Wednesday, which is
25:40
Speaker 1: a week later to the next day. But the following Wednesday,
25:46
Speaker 1: a wee bit a timeline perspective for you. Monday, fourth
25:49
Speaker 1: of March, she comes back from delivering eggs. She's feeling ill.
25:53
Speaker 1: Fifth of March. Her dad, elderly dad, walks four miles
25:57
Speaker 1: to the doctors. The doctor isn't able to visit until Wednesday,
26:01
Speaker 1: the thirteenth of March eighteen ninety five. And it actually
26:05
Speaker 1: takes Michael Cleary going twice to the doctor to try
26:09
Speaker 1: and summon him to come over. So he does go
26:12
Speaker 1: twice during the period between the fifth and the thirteenth,
26:15
Speaker 1: and then finally on the thirteenth doctor arrives. And when
26:19
Speaker 1: the doctor comes, he takes a look at Bridget, He
26:22
Speaker 1: checks her up and he prescribes a medicine for her
26:24
Speaker 1: because she has nervous excitement and slight bronchitis. That is
26:31
Speaker 1: the official diagnosis from the doctor. Slight bronchitis. I mean
26:35
Speaker 1: the woman is bedridden, but okay, but doctor's side, he
26:41
Speaker 1: does provide a prescription. But Michael, he's not worried about
26:46
Speaker 1: the illness per se, because he's convinced that Bridget has
26:52
Speaker 1: been replaced with a changeling. But why was Michael Cleary
26:58
Speaker 1: convinced that fairies had stolen his wife and replaced her
27:01
Speaker 1: with a changeling. Well, I'm glad you asked, because I'll
27:05
Speaker 1: tell you. First of all, by passing through the ring
27:08
Speaker 1: for it or hanging out in it or whatever she did,
27:11
Speaker 1: she had disturbed it and therefore, you know, gained the
27:15
Speaker 1: ire of the fairies, who were known to kidnap children, babies,
27:20
Speaker 1: and of course beautiful women. But Michael had said that
27:25
Speaker 1: the woman in the bed was quote too fine, So
27:30
Speaker 1: she was more beautiful and more fine featured than his wife. Like,
27:35
Speaker 1: I mean, she probably lost weight in bed, so I
27:37
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a thing. That's not cool mate, Nope.
27:42
Speaker 1: But also he said that she was two inches taller.
27:46
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you shrunk, Maybe she was just
27:49
Speaker 1: wearing higher shoes. What. Okay, So he's convinced he's two
27:54
Speaker 1: inches taller and that she's prettier than his wife, or
27:58
Speaker 1: at least that's what he's telling the dog and her father,
28:02
Speaker 1: Patrick and well every fucking person who listened to him,
28:07
Speaker 1: so say it's his pal, his buddy, his homeboy, has
28:12
Speaker 1: absolute best day. Jack Dunn, who also happened to be
28:16
Speaker 1: Patrick Poland's cousins. He was Bridget's second cousin, and he's
28:20
Speaker 1: telling Michael, you know, you better act quick or the
28:23
Speaker 1: fairies will have Bridget forever. So this Jack Dunne, he's illiterate.
28:29
Speaker 1: He can't read or write, which is not uncommon for
28:32
Speaker 1: you know the time, but he is well versed in
28:36
Speaker 1: folklore and mythology, and he's and he's sort of known
28:41
Speaker 1: to have the gift of divination, you know, and he
28:46
Speaker 1: he's kind of a driving force behind this, or at
28:50
Speaker 1: the very least he justifies this belief. And so when
28:56
Speaker 1: the priest visits after the doctor, he I mean, he's
29:00
Speaker 1: not that worried. He administers last rites anyway because it's
29:04
Speaker 1: kind of expected of him. But he doesn't think she's
29:07
Speaker 1: gonna die. He doesn't think she looks you know, deathbed ill,
29:12
Speaker 1: bed Win and ill, sure, but not deathbed ill. So
29:15
Speaker 1: he does this anyway. And after this, Jack Dunn tells
29:20
Speaker 1: Michael that, you know, you really should have called for
29:24
Speaker 1: the fairy doctor. And this is the eighth day of
29:28
Speaker 1: her being taken by the fee and replaced with a changeling.
29:32
Speaker 1: And you should have called for the fairy doctor by
29:34
Speaker 1: the fifth day, because you know, Bridget, if you don't
29:38
Speaker 1: act now, like right now, she's gonna be lost forever,
29:44
Speaker 1: like gone. So he goes to see Gainny, who is
29:48
Speaker 1: the herbalist or the fairy doctor, and he creates this
29:52
Speaker 1: sort of concoction which is like herb steeped in new milk. No.
29:56
Speaker 1: New milk is the first milk that a cow produces
30:01
Speaker 1: after calving. It's very nutrient rich, it's very it's very
30:04
Speaker 1: good health wise. It's actually very good, very healthy, very nutritious.
30:10
Speaker 1: You know, it's full of the good stuff. So also
30:15
Speaker 1: the fey are said to like not be fond of milk.
30:19
Speaker 1: It's I don't know, may be equivalent to poison not
30:23
Speaker 1: to have them a folklore bit. And instead of giving
30:27
Speaker 1: his wife the medicine prescribed by the doctor, he wants
30:32
Speaker 1: to give her this new milk concoction instead. So news
30:37
Speaker 1: really starts to spread through like the village to the townland,
30:41
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of people are convinced that
30:44
Speaker 1: there's a fairy changeling in the house and it's not
30:47
Speaker 1: Bridget Cleary, and like a bunch of men show up right,
30:51
Speaker 1: So there are male cousins and other relatives and just
30:54
Speaker 1: sort of men folk appear. There are a couple of women,
30:58
Speaker 1: including I think Bridget's and her daughter, who are witnessed
31:03
Speaker 1: to this whole thing. And these men are quite literally
31:06
Speaker 1: interrogating the bedridden Bridget. So she's on our sick bed
31:11
Speaker 1: and they are poking and prodding and asking all these
31:15
Speaker 1: questions of her. And when Michael does return back with
31:19
Speaker 1: his hairby milk concoction from Grainny, this group of men
31:26
Speaker 1: physically restrain her. They pin her down as he forces
31:31
Speaker 1: the milk down her throat. And this whole event doesn't
31:35
Speaker 1: go unnoticed by the rest of the village because someone
31:39
Speaker 1: hears a male voice from inside the cottage shout take
31:43
Speaker 1: it which or I'll kill you. This is presumed to
31:46
Speaker 1: be like Michael Cleary, but yeah, he's shouting at that.
31:50
Speaker 1: When he's like forcing the milk down her throat, he
31:53
Speaker 1: force feeds her, and all of these men help because
31:58
Speaker 1: they all believe that this is an absolutely reasonable, insane
32:02
Speaker 1: thing to do. Pin women down, enforce her to drink
32:06
Speaker 1: harby milk, to banish the fairy changeling that kidnapped her
32:11
Speaker 1: when she was delivering eggs. This is what these grown
32:15
Speaker 1: ass men decided to do instead of giving her the
32:19
Speaker 1: medicine prescribed by her doctor. But this weird ass ritual
32:24
Speaker 1: isn't done yet, oh no, because pinning her down and
32:28
Speaker 1: force feeding her not quite enough. So in order to
32:33
Speaker 1: quote unquote cure her, they threw their own piss on
32:40
Speaker 1: her like they would just I don't know, I don't
32:44
Speaker 1: know if they used a cup or pot or whatever.
32:46
Speaker 1: They whatever they pissed in, and these men were just
32:51
Speaker 1: throwing urine on her. They were dousing an l women
32:57
Speaker 1: with their own pea Like I understand that mail. Urine
33:03
Speaker 1: is really good for keeping cats away. But apparently this
33:08
Speaker 1: was part of the necessary ritual to get the fairy
33:11
Speaker 1: changel into fuck off. But whatever, it's just okay. So
33:19
Speaker 1: after she was, you know, soaked with everybody's piss, they
33:23
Speaker 1: carried her to the fireplace and they held her above
33:28
Speaker 1: a low flame, so fires on. They are holding her body,
33:35
Speaker 1: her urine soaked body, above a flame, and they are
33:41
Speaker 1: like all the while they are shouting at her. They're
33:45
Speaker 1: like screaming away with you, come home. Bridge of Boland
33:49
Speaker 1: in the name of God, and are you Bridget Poland,
33:55
Speaker 1: wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God, because
33:58
Speaker 1: apparently I don't know the the fae changelings cannot lie
34:03
Speaker 1: about their name or something whatever. And people like show
34:09
Speaker 1: up and they hear her screaming and they see all
34:12
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff happen, but they're too shit scared
34:15
Speaker 1: to like get involved or intervene or stop what's going on,
34:20
Speaker 1: you know, And and they continue questioning her like well,
34:27
Speaker 1: they're you know, dosing her in pee and then holding
34:29
Speaker 1: her over the fucking fire and it's supposed to drive
34:35
Speaker 1: the fairy like out and throughout this Bridget is like
34:43
Speaker 1: they say that she is wild and deranged, which you know,
34:47
Speaker 1: I probably would be too if you were throwing your
34:49
Speaker 1: piss at me.
34:50
Speaker 2: Absolute gobshite, What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
34:54
Speaker 2: But anyway, after all this, they're like, Yep, she's cute.
35:00
Speaker 2: The evil spirits need to be like properly vanquished, though,
35:04
Speaker 2: so they call the local priest in so midnight that
35:08
Speaker 2: night they're like, she's cured. And the next morning they
35:11
Speaker 2: get the priest to come in and say mass perform
35:14
Speaker 2: a mass in the cottage as priests are wont to
35:18
Speaker 2: do in order to banish the evil spirits that were
35:23
Speaker 2: left in the house after.
35:27
Speaker 1: After you know, the fucking weird ritual shit. Now you
35:33
Speaker 1: think that would be the end of the story, because
35:35
Speaker 1: you know, that's weird enough in itself. However, on the Friday,
35:42
Speaker 1: Bridget gets up, she gets dressed, she's dicked out in
35:46
Speaker 1: her usual fashionable attire. Obviously, her cousin said this was
35:51
Speaker 1: for her to get some kind of sense of normality,
35:55
Speaker 1: a sense of self, you know, to be more like
35:58
Speaker 1: Bridget again. But Michael Cleary is still for some reason,
36:05
Speaker 1: even though she is deemed proclaimed cured either of the
36:11
Speaker 1: illness or the fairies, he still thinks that is not
36:17
Speaker 1: my wife. And so I am a bear face liar.
36:22
Speaker 1: I am an absolute bear faced liar. I said that
36:25
Speaker 1: fairies are repelled by milk. They're not the crave milk,
36:32
Speaker 1: the crave milk. Ah fucking shit in Christ, right, So
36:38
Speaker 1: fairies crave milk. Yep. You know, sometimes you just fuck
36:42
Speaker 1: up and it's fine. So I mean, it's hard enough
36:46
Speaker 1: to drink milk when you do have any kind of
36:48
Speaker 1: flemy chesty thing, because it just kind of gets stuck
36:52
Speaker 1: there it's just not nice. But anyway, so if you're
36:55
Speaker 1: the relatives around the house, including her cousin Joanna Burke,
36:59
Speaker 1: and has made Bridget a cup of tea. And in fairness,
37:04
Speaker 1: who does love a week cup of tea? I mean,
37:06
Speaker 1: you're really missing out. You just don't have a week
37:08
Speaker 1: good cup of tea. But before Bridget is allowed to
37:11
Speaker 1: enjoy a lovely wee cup of tea, Michael demands that
37:15
Speaker 1: she eats three slices of bread with jam on it.
37:19
Speaker 1: So just jam and bread, bread and jam bread like,
37:25
Speaker 1: not like a sandwich, just like the bread or some
37:28
Speaker 1: jam slapped on top or maybe spread thinly. I don't
37:32
Speaker 1: know how well the man spreads his jam. So not
37:36
Speaker 1: only does she have to ingest three slices of jam
37:39
Speaker 1: and bread, but she also has to provide her identity
37:43
Speaker 1: to him thrice before she gets to enjoy a lovely
37:47
Speaker 1: we cuple and like at this point, there were at
37:50
Speaker 1: least ten fully grown, full ass adults in this cottage,
37:54
Speaker 1: right and they're sitting there. He's trying to make her
37:58
Speaker 1: eat bread and the cousins. I think the people are
38:02
Speaker 1: chatting about fairies, because of course they fucking are. Because
38:06
Speaker 1: some at least some of them are convinced that they
38:10
Speaker 1: got rid of a fairy changel it, right, an evil being.
38:14
Speaker 1: And while people are around having a wee chat, Bridget
38:17
Speaker 1: turns to her husband and says, your mother used to
38:21
Speaker 1: go with the fairies, and that is why you think
38:23
Speaker 1: I'm going with them. Effectively, the woman who was reportedly
38:31
Speaker 1: exhausted because you know she's she's probably still over the sickness, right,
38:37
Speaker 1: she's being badgered by her husband and exasperated, she turns
38:43
Speaker 1: to him and goes, the only person who's away with
38:48
Speaker 1: the fairies is your mother. Like, that's what she's saying.
38:52
Speaker 1: If this is a colloquialism that you don't get if
38:54
Speaker 1: it's not in your country, it basically means that someone
39:00
Speaker 1: who's away with the fairies isn't really in the same
39:05
Speaker 1: realm of reality as the rest of sort of mankind.
39:10
Speaker 1: You know, they're not really involved, they're not really there.
39:15
Speaker 1: You know, they're maybe a little bit I want to say,
39:20
Speaker 1: I hate to wear references, but a little bit like
39:21
Speaker 1: Luna Loved Good from Harry Potter, kind of wistfully, kind
39:27
Speaker 1: of away. Just their mind is somewhere else. That kind
39:32
Speaker 1: of thing. And Venezula probably was away with fairies. That
39:35
Speaker 1: feels like something that Luna would do on a holiday,
39:38
Speaker 1: like if we go to the Pixie Valley. Beye. She
39:44
Speaker 1: she basically told him that his mum was dodgy as fuck.
39:48
Speaker 1: I do love the fact that, after everything that bridget
39:51
Speaker 1: the ordeal that she's gone through over the past few days,
39:55
Speaker 1: she said, fuck that for a game of soldiers, your
39:58
Speaker 1: mother was away with the fairies. Fuck you effectively, right,
40:03
Speaker 1: I greatly appreciate that, like absolutely one hundred percent. So
40:09
Speaker 1: he's getting madder and madder, and he's like, what's your name?
40:12
Speaker 1: Eat the bread? Eat the bread, wench right, and she
40:17
Speaker 1: eats two slices of bread and she says her name
40:21
Speaker 1: like twice. She responds to his questioning twice. But you know,
40:25
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to eat this third slice of fucking bread.
40:28
Speaker 1: Maybe she's full, Maybe she's still not feeling great because
40:32
Speaker 1: you know, you held her over an open fire and
40:36
Speaker 1: you threw your piss on her, you know what I mean,
40:39
Speaker 1: doesn't really you know, invoke great? I don't know energy,
40:44
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's a situation. And he gets really fucking mad,
40:49
Speaker 1: like he goes ballistick. Right, So when she doesn't answer
40:56
Speaker 1: this like third time, she doesn't eat this last bit
40:59
Speaker 1: of bread. He physically forces the bread into her mouth.
41:05
Speaker 1: Right and before I go any further, I'm gonna throw
41:09
Speaker 1: a trigger warning here aga a arga. That was a
41:14
Speaker 1: That was my impression of a siren for warning. You're welcome,
41:18
Speaker 1: by the way, it's very I know you're impressed. So
41:22
Speaker 1: uh yeah, there's gonna be uh description of abuse and
41:28
Speaker 1: assault here really and under murder just and you know,
41:34
Speaker 1: my one is given, but thirty thirty five seconds, maybe
41:37
Speaker 1: a minute, let's go for a minute. So he Michael
41:42
Speaker 1: is fucking ballastic at this point. To call him mud
41:47
Speaker 1: would be an understatement. He is levied to the point
41:52
Speaker 1: of derangement. So Michael Cleary has forced a slice of
41:57
Speaker 1: bread and jam into his wife's mouth and he fucking
42:02
Speaker 1: straight up yells at her, if you won't take it down,
42:06
Speaker 1: you will go. And then just as he said, he
42:10
Speaker 1: throws her onto the fucking ground, climbs on top of her,
42:15
Speaker 1: presses his knee against her chest, and grips his hand
42:19
Speaker 1: around her throat. He is screaming at her to swallow
42:23
Speaker 1: the bread, to swallow it down. And you know when
42:26
Speaker 1: she doesn't respond because surprise surprise. Sometimes it's pretty difficult
42:31
Speaker 1: to actually speak when someone is physically choking you and
42:35
Speaker 1: being irrational and reasonable. Michael Cleary grabs a fucking hot
42:41
Speaker 1: stick or a poker from the fire and holds it
42:45
Speaker 1: over her mouth, so he's got one hand round her
42:49
Speaker 1: throat and a hot, burning ember above her lips. Like
42:57
Speaker 1: what I remember as well, This entire room is filled
43:02
Speaker 1: with people. At least eight other people are in this room,
43:08
Speaker 1: at least eight of them, and none of them think
43:11
Speaker 1: maybe I should, you know, stop this man from burning
43:14
Speaker 1: his wife's face while he chalks her. So while they
43:18
Speaker 1: do absolutely nothing, mecho Cleary rips his wife's clothes from
43:23
Speaker 1: her body down to her chemise. He used this stick
43:27
Speaker 1: from a fire to light her chemise, and then he
43:31
Speaker 1: poured the oil from the lamp onto her. He was
43:34
Speaker 1: just dousing it with her because apparently she wasn't burning
43:37
Speaker 1: fast enough for him. He grabs an oil lamp and
43:41
Speaker 1: pours the oil from it onto his wife, who was
43:45
Speaker 1: still pinned to the ground. He sets her on fire,
43:49
Speaker 1: on fire, and while she is screaming and burning alive,
43:58
Speaker 1: nobody does a fucking thing. Nobody tries to put it out.
44:03
Speaker 1: Nobody tries to stop him nothing, and all the while
44:08
Speaker 1: Michael is just ranting and raving about how you know,
44:13
Speaker 1: it's a witch that's replaced his wife and he isn't
44:15
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, living in a house with
44:18
Speaker 1: a witch, and she's going to go up the smoke
44:21
Speaker 1: and the chimney and bridge overturn on a white horse.
44:25
Speaker 1: And it's not Bridget he's burning. It's not Bridget. He's
44:29
Speaker 1: burning because it's just this malevolent fairy changeling. And by
44:37
Speaker 1: the time he's stopped talking, Bridget is dead.
44:43
Speaker 3: And at this point the house is full of smoke,
44:47
Speaker 3: and the stench of a burning corpse fills the air.
44:54
Speaker 1: Like fat and oil and charred, skined, burnt hair. This
45:03
Speaker 1: stench from Bridget Cleary's charred remains lying on the hearth.
45:11
Speaker 1: And now this cottage full of grown ass men and
45:16
Speaker 1: at least one woman have to decide what the actual
45:20
Speaker 1: fuck are they going to do with Bridget and or
45:24
Speaker 1: the malevolent fairy changelings smoldering corpse. But of course, the
45:30
Speaker 1: only logical thing for them to do, apparently, is to
45:33
Speaker 1: remove Bridget's dead body from the house and bury it
45:40
Speaker 1: in a shallow grave. And this is where things get
45:43
Speaker 1: a little bit muddy because Michael decides to lock you know,
45:48
Speaker 1: Bridget's extended family inside the cottage, at which point he
45:53
Speaker 1: convinces her cousin Patrick to help him dispose of her remains.
45:59
Speaker 1: And in the days following this, Michael and a bunch
46:03
Speaker 1: of other people, a couple of other people, some other people,
46:06
Speaker 1: I don't know an exact amount, they are holding a
46:10
Speaker 1: vigil at the ring Fort, to the very ring Fort
46:13
Speaker 1: in Candergrat because Michael is waiting for his wife Bridget
46:18
Speaker 1: to arrive on a white horse to just trot gallop.
46:26
Speaker 1: What's that thing they do when they can in dance
46:28
Speaker 1: during the dressage, they do that thing. It's really cute.
46:32
Speaker 1: I'm doing a little movement with my fingers as if
46:34
Speaker 1: you can see it, but they do this wee like
46:36
Speaker 1: skippy thing. It's really cute. Horses do it. Anyway, It's
46:39
Speaker 1: in the Olympics. So yes, Michael Cleary is waiting for
46:43
Speaker 1: his wife Bridget to come forth on a white horse.
46:49
Speaker 1: And while he's doing that, rumors are whispers, you know,
46:55
Speaker 1: they're floating through They're floating through the town. Because some
46:59
Speaker 1: people who had been in attendance that evening felt the
47:03
Speaker 1: need to say that they had seen Bridget walk across
47:07
Speaker 1: the fields in her night dress with two men. Now,
47:13
Speaker 1: Bridget may have crossed the fields in her night dress
47:16
Speaker 1: with two men, but she certainly was not walking. But
47:20
Speaker 1: you know, this story goes out fourteenth of March. Off
47:23
Speaker 1: she was trotting away with two fellas. Oh, of course
47:28
Speaker 1: she was. You know what, She's like, the hussy hanging
47:31
Speaker 1: out with the man, slinging her eggs, you know how
47:33
Speaker 1: it is. But nobody sees her for quite a while.
47:40
Speaker 1: And this gets the attention of the r IC, which
47:44
Speaker 1: are the Royal Irish Constabulary, who were the you know,
47:48
Speaker 1: the current police force in Ireland at that time, and
47:51
Speaker 1: they were like ruled by the British, that's why they're royal.
47:54
Speaker 1: So you know, they get wind of this mysterious woman's
47:58
Speaker 1: disappearance that could you know, in foul play because two
48:02
Speaker 1: men were involved at least luring her across the fields
48:06
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And this gets the attention of the District Inspector,
48:10
Speaker 1: Alfred Joseph Wansbroo, and so he orders an extensive search
48:15
Speaker 1: of the area and on the twenty second of March
48:19
Speaker 1: they discover, you know, this shallow grave where she was,
48:24
Speaker 1: you know, basically dumped like it was very I mean
48:28
Speaker 1: it was found so quickly really, and that was when
48:31
Speaker 1: they started rounding up people. And I think it's like
48:35
Speaker 1: ten people who got arrested, all no Michael Cleary, Patrick
48:39
Speaker 1: poland four of Joanna's brothers, I think, Juanna herself, Joanna's
48:48
Speaker 1: mother and two other people. I guess there was there
48:51
Speaker 1: was a good a good chunk of them. So they
48:54
Speaker 1: all get arrested. And when this hits the news, it
48:58
Speaker 1: is explosive. It is everywhere, like there are papers printing
49:04
Speaker 1: this story in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, France. It was
49:10
Speaker 1: even heading Canada, in the USA and Mexico. They printed
49:17
Speaker 1: this story in peoples in Mexico like that's how farthest traveled.
49:22
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why it did go so
49:24
Speaker 1: far is because you know, the toy press. This was perfect.
49:30
Speaker 1: This is exactly the kind of thing they needed to
49:32
Speaker 1: help to really promote themselves as like the superior people.
49:37
Speaker 1: You know, like why should Ireland have home rule? If
49:41
Speaker 1: this is how you know the Irish act, you know,
49:45
Speaker 1: they believe in these silly superstitions. The thing about Irish folklore, though,
49:50
Speaker 1: is it's very much like improv comedy. Yes and yes,
49:55
Speaker 1: and that's why you get so much like Christianity, like
49:58
Speaker 1: at the end of Irish folklore stories. It's because yes,
50:03
Speaker 1: and because that was how they wove it in. Because
50:06
Speaker 1: all of the medicine legends and the tales, they were
50:11
Speaker 1: very much an oral or an oral like situation. You
50:14
Speaker 1: just told it to one another. Bards and poets would
50:17
Speaker 1: travel around and people would tell stories. It was just
50:21
Speaker 1: an oral history. Like that's why we know nothing about
50:23
Speaker 1: druids really, because those fuckers never shit down, not a jot.
50:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, but Irish folklore and medicine legends they
50:34
Speaker 1: were held in belief. When they were held in belief,
50:38
Speaker 1: they were held in belief alongside Christianity. So it was
50:44
Speaker 1: a very clever way it was done because it meant
50:46
Speaker 1: that you weren't pushing away all the beliefs of the people.
50:51
Speaker 1: You were integrating your belief system with theirs, and then
50:56
Speaker 1: slowly but surely you took over our kids. It's sneaky,
51:00
Speaker 1: but have fucking worked. AnyWho. This really worked like fucking
51:05
Speaker 1: amazing for the Tories because they were able to turn
51:08
Speaker 1: around and go ah, like at the Eddie in Irish
51:11
Speaker 1: believe it in oooh like myths, which you know what's
51:16
Speaker 1: really funny actually, you know when they say what it's
51:19
Speaker 1: like classy if you're rich, but trashy if you're poor.
51:24
Speaker 1: And it's belief in the supernatural, like at this point
51:28
Speaker 1: in time, because this is sort of the era where
51:32
Speaker 1: people are like believing in ghosts and they're doing seances
51:37
Speaker 1: and you know all that kind of thing, like that's
51:41
Speaker 1: very very big, and it's very big with the higher
51:43
Speaker 1: classes in England. But of course believing in something supernatural
51:50
Speaker 1: in Ireland is obviously wooh, it's obviously fake and sully
51:54
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, it's just very classiest
51:57
Speaker 1: and so yet this just gets pounded through the papers
52:04
Speaker 1: because it really it suits, it suits you know, the Crown.
52:10
Speaker 1: For you know, for Michael to truly believe that his
52:14
Speaker 1: wife was replaced by a evil, very changeling, and because
52:20
Speaker 1: of this ignorant belief, a man burnt his wife alive,
52:26
Speaker 1: murdered her because he believed in fairies. The Tories got
52:31
Speaker 1: to go on about how barbaric, you know, they were
52:34
Speaker 1: over in rural Ireland, and how the wild Irish still
52:38
Speaker 1: needed to be controlled and guided by the Crown and
52:43
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly roll themselves. You know. It was a way
52:47
Speaker 1: of just pushing home rule to the side. So nine
52:51
Speaker 1: people are arrested initially one person you know gets discharged
52:56
Speaker 1: and then another person is arrested, so in total, but
53:01
Speaker 1: they get rid of one right, So legal a stuff
53:04
Speaker 1: has happened in pretty sharpish. So between like the first
53:08
Speaker 1: and sixth of April, like the legal hearings are going about,
53:11
Speaker 1: which is why one person gets dropped and another person
53:13
Speaker 1: gets lumped in. But it's not until the third of
53:16
Speaker 1: July that the court is in session and there is
53:22
Speaker 1: so much going on with this case. They have photographs,
53:26
Speaker 1: they have testimony, they have the actual corpse of Bridget Cleary.
53:33
Speaker 1: So five people are indicted for the murder of Bridget
53:37
Speaker 1: and this is Michael Cleary, her dad, Patrick Boland, Mary Kennedy,
53:41
Speaker 1: James Kennedy and Patrick Kennedy. But like all nine involved
53:45
Speaker 1: were indicted on charges of wounding right, and this was
53:50
Speaker 1: because of like all the ritual stuff they did to
53:54
Speaker 1: her like before death. Some might even go as far
53:58
Speaker 1: as to call it torch because absolutely bloody was AnyWho right,
54:04
Speaker 1: So we know that witness statements are you know, unreliable,
54:08
Speaker 1: but you know, you put all them together, you're going
54:10
Speaker 1: to find the truth in there somewhere. And there's all
54:13
Speaker 1: these like conflicting testimonies and you know, bits we overlapping in,
54:17
Speaker 1: some bits aren't adding up and making sense. But it's
54:20
Speaker 1: Joanna Bark's testimony, the cousin and that of her ten
54:26
Speaker 1: year old daughter Katie, which is seen as the most
54:30
Speaker 1: true of the events. Like what she says, nearly everybody
54:35
Speaker 1: agrees with, like even other people who are you know,
54:40
Speaker 1: witnesses or well our you know, defendants. Really it's like
54:45
Speaker 1: they're most of them are agreeing with, you know, her
54:49
Speaker 1: perception of events. And on top of this, and you
54:52
Speaker 1: know the cremscene photographs and photos of the area and
54:58
Speaker 1: probably the chard mark on the ground where her body
55:00
Speaker 1: once lay. The jewry were also led into a storage
55:06
Speaker 1: building where Bridget's body was being held for burial, so
55:11
Speaker 1: they were able to look upon her body and see,
55:15
Speaker 1: you know, the entries that she sustained. They were able
55:18
Speaker 1: to see, you know, all the shit she went through,
55:22
Speaker 1: and you know, be really really aware of how much
55:26
Speaker 1: those women fucking suffered, Like they could see she had
55:29
Speaker 1: been tortured, you know, and this basically set stuff in
55:38
Speaker 1: stone for you know, all of the defendants. So like
55:42
Speaker 1: you've got all these people who are indicted, but not
55:45
Speaker 1: everybody is charged with you know, like hard labor. It's
55:51
Speaker 1: just the men really. So you've got Patrick Kennedy basically
55:57
Speaker 1: the Kennedy brothers. So you've got Patrick Kennedy who gets
56:00
Speaker 1: five years of hard labor, Michael Kennedy gets six months,
56:05
Speaker 1: James Kennedy eighteen months, William Kennedy eighteen months, Patrick Boland
56:11
Speaker 1: gets six months because he's an old man. They're like
56:14
Speaker 1: a bit much. And John Dunn gets three years. So
56:19
Speaker 1: John Dunn gets more because you know, he influenced this.
56:24
Speaker 1: Patrick Kennedy, you know, helped dispose of the body and
56:27
Speaker 1: it was effectively how much you were involved in, you know,
56:31
Speaker 1: this whole torture and murder situation, how much you got.
56:37
Speaker 1: So Mary Kennedy is somehow involved, but we don't really
56:40
Speaker 1: know that much about it. That would be I think
56:42
Speaker 1: Joanna's mum or, I think it's Joanna's mum or. It's
56:47
Speaker 1: the No, it has to be because she's old, right, yeah,
56:51
Speaker 1: so because she is frail, because yeah, it's because of
56:56
Speaker 1: age and frailty is the reason given that why she
56:58
Speaker 1: doesn't get any hard labor. So she should have been,
57:02
Speaker 1: you know, charged and given it sentenced to ours labor.
57:07
Speaker 1: That sentenced hard labor, to hard labor. Jesus Christ, I
57:11
Speaker 1: can't speak today, And that should have been the case,
57:14
Speaker 1: that should been, it should have been done. But again
57:18
Speaker 1: old and weak, and she's lady, old lady, can't be
57:22
Speaker 1: doing that. And then we get to Michael Cleary. So
57:26
Speaker 1: Michael Cleary, he's really fucking lucky because the charges get
57:30
Speaker 1: moved from murder down to manslaughter because you know, murderer
57:37
Speaker 1: is like a premeditated or an intentional killing, and it's
57:41
Speaker 1: manslaughter because he didn't believe that he was killing his wife.
57:47
Speaker 1: He was killing it. Fucking very changeling. Oh so, Michael,
57:53
Speaker 1: he is sentenced to twenty years of hard labor is
58:00
Speaker 1: like penal servitude. You're in prison and you're I don't know,
58:05
Speaker 1: minu labor and shit, lots of hard stuff, very hard
58:09
Speaker 1: in the body, very you know, psychologically detrimental. Really and
58:15
Speaker 1: luck you're still even though he's sentenced to twenty years,
58:19
Speaker 1: he gets out in fifteen and then he buckers off
58:23
Speaker 1: to Liverpool for a bit before emigrating to Montreal. So
58:27
Speaker 1: you know, there could very well be people in Canada
58:32
Speaker 1: there are descendants of Michael Cleary because he got out
58:37
Speaker 1: of prison and he was able to start a new life.
58:41
Speaker 1: Was it good, was it bad, We don't know. But
58:44
Speaker 1: he got the opportunity to do that. Bridget did not
58:48
Speaker 1: because of him and a bunch of men. Like at
58:52
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it was mainly men who
58:53
Speaker 1: are involved in this. And so some people think that
58:58
Speaker 1: the reason this happened was, you know, from a brief
59:02
Speaker 1: psychosis and that he was convinced, you know, that his
59:07
Speaker 1: wife was possessed or had been replaced, and you know,
59:10
Speaker 1: he had to do this. He was seeing things, you know.
59:14
Speaker 1: You know, there's also the thought that maybe he genuinely
59:18
Speaker 1: believed in this stuff. I do not subscribe to either
59:22
Speaker 1: of those theories. I know you're surprised. Yeah, I am
59:27
Speaker 1: convinced that Michael was mad that Bridgett had made a
59:32
Speaker 1: life for herself, that she had decided being married to
59:35
Speaker 1: him wasn't the be all and end all of her existence.
59:40
Speaker 1: She was independent, she was self sufficient, she had you know,
59:45
Speaker 1: financial security, and she wasn't relying on him. She dressed well,
59:52
Speaker 1: she was beautiful, and you know what I'm gonna say,
59:56
Speaker 1: she was out of his leg She was too good
59:58
Speaker 1: for him, and he detested, nay despised the fact that
1:00:04
Speaker 1: she dared to be independent. He wanted to be, you know,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: as men of the era aware, he wanted to be
1:00:12
Speaker 1: the man of the house, but she didn't need him
1:00:16
Speaker 1: to survive, and I think that pissed him off. I
1:00:21
Speaker 1: think the fact that she was, you know, a modern
1:00:24
Speaker 1: woman and was you know, making her own way in
1:00:27
Speaker 1: the world, and he just his fragile masculinity just couldn't
1:00:32
Speaker 1: handle that shit, and so he used this as an excuse.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: It's why he didn't give her medicine. It's why he
1:00:41
Speaker 1: was not the first person to go to the doctor.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: And I think when the doctor hadn't arrived over the
1:00:47
Speaker 1: next couple of days, the other people had come forward
1:00:51
Speaker 1: and probably gone, you know, why haven't you know, gone
1:00:54
Speaker 1: to the doctor, you know, to get your sort of
1:00:56
Speaker 1: your wife. And I think that's where that came from.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: I think that's why he and went to make it
1:01:01
Speaker 1: seem as though he was, you know, a great husband,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: when in fact, he was just hoping she would die.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: And then when she got better, you know when she
1:01:16
Speaker 1: recovered from this illness, he was so pissed off and
1:01:21
Speaker 1: the fact that she had insulted him in this house
1:01:24
Speaker 1: full of people in front of you know, the very
1:01:29
Speaker 1: men who had helped him pin her down and force
1:01:33
Speaker 1: milk down her throat. He was weak, he was shitty,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: and he emasculated himself. And that's what he did in
1:01:42
Speaker 1: his mind to the point where he had to assert
1:01:46
Speaker 1: his dominance the only way he knew how, which for
1:01:49
Speaker 1: some reason is fucking murder. And then he got to
1:01:53
Speaker 1: go off and live his own life. I don't care
1:01:56
Speaker 1: what shit he went through in prison, because he killed
1:01:59
Speaker 1: his life. He set her own fire after choking her. Like, no,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: not even a little bit. Don't even feel sorry for him. Meanwhile,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Bridgick Cleary was buried in Cloning Cemetery by ric by
1:02:20
Speaker 1: police officers because most of her family were in prison
1:02:26
Speaker 1: and as such were unable to attend, and like because
1:02:30
Speaker 1: he had one referred to her as a witch on
1:02:34
Speaker 1: at least two occasions, and b he had you know,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: burnt her alive. That is where the concept of bridge
1:02:43
Speaker 1: It being like a witch comes from. Even though she
1:02:46
Speaker 1: didn't do any of the regular witchy stuff. Like, you know,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: go ourt with the devil, or you know, curse all
1:02:51
Speaker 1: the arseholes in town. But anyway, so ends our story
1:02:58
Speaker 1: of Bridgick, clear the last witch burned in Ireland. So
1:03:04
Speaker 1: what did we learned today? Apparently men are willing to
1:03:09
Speaker 1: kill the waves because she won't eat a piece of toast,
1:03:13
Speaker 1: and that the Tories have happily used tragedies to push
1:03:16
Speaker 1: forward their own agenda since the eighteen hundreds, and so
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that is the end of the tale. If you like
1:03:25
Speaker 1: today's story, please please, please please please rate and review
1:03:28
Speaker 1: five stars on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: You know, you know, it doesn't matter what you say
1:03:35
Speaker 1: in the review. You could like literally say anything. You
1:03:38
Speaker 1: could tell me your favorite type of witch. You know,
1:03:42
Speaker 1: you can tell me if you could make a potion,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: what could a potion it would it be? You could
1:03:45
Speaker 1: literally tell me your favorite sandwich, or you could say
1:03:48
Speaker 1: mean things about me. It doesn't matter. I mean, I
1:03:51
Speaker 1: do love compliments. I'm not gonna lie. But you know,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: anytime you write something in the review and helps bist
1:03:58
Speaker 1: it so five stars. If you put an on less
1:04:00
Speaker 1: than five styles, it really demotes it. But it would
1:04:04
Speaker 1: be super super helpful. If you would just rate and review.
1:04:07
Speaker 1: I said all that very fast. I'm very sorry. I've
1:04:10
Speaker 1: got a very sore nose and I'm quite tired now.
1:04:15
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: I think lots of other places. TikTok, I want TikTok.
1:04:26
Speaker 1: I'm on. I haven't actually posted much recently, but yes, yes,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: I actually have to show you my crowns. I got
1:04:36
Speaker 1: these fucking corgeous crowns from Sweet Weee. You can go
1:04:41
Speaker 1: into the website and use code Katie ten Katie I
1:04:44
Speaker 1: E ten one zero and get a ten percent disc
1:04:47
Speaker 1: on crowns. You may as well use it somebody better.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: I'm all for discounts. Use discounts. Woo. We're in a
1:04:55
Speaker 1: cost eleven crisis. Anytime you can save money as fantastic.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: I also want to dedicate this podcast to my friend
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the Bearded Badger from Bearded Badger Storytelling, who review time,
1:05:11
Speaker 1: not review time. No, those words are wrong. Recommendation time.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: It's been a long day. I'm so sorry. Recommendation time
1:05:21
Speaker 1: for listening. We have Bearded Badger Storytelling. Listen to that podcast.
1:05:26
Speaker 1: It's brilliant, right proper folklore. It's it's good. It's really good.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Also told by a man with a big, bushy beard
1:05:35
Speaker 1: like a wizard. How can you not love that? For watching,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna recommend Evil Dead, the original version. It's
1:05:46
Speaker 1: one of my favorite horror movies if you you know.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: But if you're not into like horror or you know,
1:05:52
Speaker 1: the undead, you could watch hooks Pocus too, why not.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: I'll leave you to recommendations one spooky one Halloween came,
1:06:01
Speaker 1: but not spooky. And for reading, I am going to
1:06:05
Speaker 1: suggest my friend Susie Edge's book Mortal Monks, So if
1:06:09
Speaker 1: you haven't read it, it's so good. I like pre
1:06:11
Speaker 1: ordered it. It's if you want to know about Gore
1:06:16
Speaker 1: and you know horrible ways that monarchs died. It's really
1:06:23
Speaker 1: it's really a cup of tea, you know what I mean.
1:06:25
Speaker 1: It's so good. It's so good. But with that, I
1:06:29
Speaker 1: shall bid you farewell. It's been I need to sleep, honestly,
1:06:35
Speaker 1: Adios au Revoir of ware is it? My friends? Bye
1:06:39
Speaker 1: bye