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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't miss the point!,
By "ceilteach1" (Cape Girardeau, MO USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story (Paperback)
This book is titled "The Burning of Bridget Cleary," and does recount the infamous case in 1895 Ireland where the cooper's wife falls ill and disappers, later to be found burned to death by husband and family. While this book does recount the crime itself in gruesome detail, it is not a book about crime. We must not forget the blurb on the back flap of the jacket to the book "About the Author." Ms. Bourke is a senior lecturer on Irish oral tradition and Irish Literature. This book is about the changing culture in Ireland during this time and how that produced the burning of Bridget Cleary. Namely, this changing culture is the conflict of traditional Irish oral culture and the English (and other western) rational culture defined by the written word. The treasure in this book is the author's cultural commentary and how this conflict sculpts those involved in this specific crime, and by extension, the modern Irishman and woman of the time. Using the Bridget Cleary case, Bourke provides insight into the larger cultural crisis occuring at the turn of the last century. The outcome of this case was a step in the process of reconciling the two world views to create the modern Irish culture and identity. This book will be mediocre if you are interested in the details of the criminal case and criminal analysis, the latter of which is mostly lacking. However, if you are interested in the wider picture of Irish identity, history of daily living in Irish or other cultures, or the history of thought and worldviews, this book provides a wonderful microcosm and is well worth your time to check out.
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lost Its Focus,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story (Paperback)
I don't usually read non-fiction (unless it is biography) but a friend recently gave me this book and it looked intriguing. In March 1895, in County Tipperary, Ireland, a sick wife, Bridget Cleary, was burned to death by her husband, aunt and four cousins, who then buried her body in a makeshift grave. This book, written by Angela Bourke, an expert in Irish oral tradition, details what probably caused those close to her to suspect that Bridget Cleary was a changeling and also what happened to her husband, Michael, in the aftermath of her burning.According to Michael Cleary and the other relatives responsible for Bridget's death, Bridget Cleary became ill with bronchitis and was then abducted by fairies who left behind only a changeling. This came after Michael Cleary had sought genuine medical help for his wife, then, convinced that Bridget had "gone with the fairies," conspired with a fairy doctor instead. Bridget Cleary, at 26, was definitely not the average 19th century peasant wife. She was more independent that most women of her time, both in her outlook and in her finances (she was a successful dressmaker), she was more educated, she was quite attractive and she spoke her mind. But probably most damning, at least in Bridget's day, was the fact that although she had been married for eight years, she was childless. To put it all in a nutshell, Bourke, who originally began this book as a part of her doctoral dissertation, believes that Bridget was simply too "strong-willed" to fit in with 19th century Tipperary society. The local traditions condoned the burning of witches and fairies and so, what better way to "control" Bridget than to burn her? Just get her out of the way. I can buy the reasoning above. Small, patriarchal, clannish villages were certainly not above taking matters into their own hands, and fairy lore has always been part and parcel of Irish history, but Bourke lost my vote of confidence when she went on to suggest that Bridget Cleary had had an affair with her neighbor, Michael Simpson. While there is evidence to suggest that Bridget Cleary would have been intelligent enough and talented enough and independent enough and out-spoken enough to pose a threat to her small community, there is absolutely no evidence (at least none presented by Bourke) to suggest that Cleary had an affair with Simpson. (Bourke suggests that Bridget found Simpson "more attractive" than her own husband. I contend that a woman as intelligent as Bridget Cleary apparently was, would not have committed adultery on such shallow grounds.) What the "Simpson affair" does do, however, is absolve Michael Cleary of much of the blame for Bridget's death. Whether Bridget Cleary had an affair of not, Bourke comes to the conclusion that Michael Cleary felt completely justified in the burning of his wife. The British, however, were not convinced and neither am I. By all accounts, Bridget was tortured and Bourke's recounting of this torture provide some of the most vivid writing in what is essentially a very dry and prosaic book. Michael Cleary, by the way, was found guilty of murder and received a 20-year sentence. As long as Bourke remains focused on Bridget Cleary, this book is rather compelling reading. It is when she veers off and begins to talk about Anglo-Irish politics, home rule and the Marquess of Queensberry that she become quite tedious. A PhD dissertation is one thing; a compelling book of non-fiction is another. I think Bourke made the mistake of attempting to combine the two and it simply didn't make for a very good combination. The Cleary case was a widely-publicized one and Bourke gives in to the rather fanciful idea that it even helped to defeat home rule for Ireland. After all, writes Bourke, a population as given to superstition and folklore as the Irish could certainly not be allowed to govern itself. To bolster her argument, Bourke notes that the libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry (who had accused Oscar Wilde of homosexuality), was going on in London at the same time as Michael Cleary was being accused of murder in County Tipperary. The Irish, Bourke points out, were seen, in the light of these two cases, as superstitious savages who were homosexual as well. I can't buy this argument for the defeat of home rule just as I can't buy the argument that Bridget Cleary had had an affair with Michael Simpson. Both "reasons" are too "pat," too convenient. And Bourke simply doesn't explore the other side of the coin. I have no doubt that Bourke attempted to be precise and factual, however. "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" includes 25 pages of notes taken from court transcripts, newspaper accounts and prison records. This book is titled, "The Burning of Bridget Cleary," and Bridget's story does make for some very interesting reading. The details of Irish peasant life and the fairy culture that was so ingrained in late 19th century Ireland are interesting and do help us to understand Bridget and her community. But when the book goes off on political and social tangents, it simply loses its focus and, I suspect, loses most of its readers. I wanted to read a compelling book about a mysterious "real-life" crime, not a treatise on Anglo-Irish politics. Had it been a political book I wanted, I would have chosen one far more comprehensive. Bridget Cleary was undoubtedly a woman who deserved to live, a woman who could have contributed much to her community. Her death was a tragedy and it deserves a sensitive and meaningful exploration. As I said above, as long as Bourke stuck to the subject of Bridget Cleary, this book was good reading matter. It is when she lost her focus and veered off into politics and social mores that the book became so much less than it could have been. Bridget Cleary was a fascinating woman and her murder deserves further investigation and remembrance. I just wouldn't recommend this book as a vehicle of either.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Are you a witch or are you a fairy? Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?",
By J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Burning of Bridget Cleary (Hardcover)
THE BURNING OF BRIDGET CLEARY catches the eye immediately with its eerie (hardcover) illustration of a ghostly woman floating in midair superimposed over a man's stern, shadowy face. Lovers of all things Irish will find this horrifying true story of the life and death of Bridget Cleary of County Tipperary particularly disturbing, set as it is in the bucolic Irish countryside of the late 19th Century.
Visitors to Ireland will be aware of what author Angela Bourke calls "townlands." An inexact term, it describes rural places that are not on any map. Certainly not towns, nor even villages or hamlets, these places consist of a few adjacent farmsteads and perhaps a freestanding house or two, set off from other such places by fields, and perhaps by a large boulder carved with the name of the place. Populated by only a few families, who living cheek-by-jowl for hundreds of years are interlinked but independent, such places exist "there but not there," a reality which has informed the Irish mind and character for generations. Ms. Bourke, a lecturer in Irish history, uses the death of Bridget Cleary as a paradigm for cultural change and disruption. Bridget Cleary died in 1895 because the "modern" Social Darwinist linearly organized, scientific, English-speaking and aggressively concrete universe of the late Victorian era butted heads with the "traditional" non-linear, symbological Gaelic-speaking world it was supplanting. At first glance, Bridget and Michael Cleary would seem to have been thoroughly "modern." Both Michael and Bridget were educated and literate. She was a trained dressmaker who owned her own Singer machine. He was a tradesman, a cooper, who worked in a large commercial brewery. For their time and place they were affluent. They lived in the newest and most modern house in Ballyvadlea, a place in the south riding of County Tipperary. There were a few disquieting elements in their lives. They were childless after six years of marriage, the focus of much stigma in staunchly Catholic Ireland at the time. They were close friends with William Simpson, the despised local "Emergencyman" or landlord's agent, a Protestant. Ballyvadlea, though only a few miles from the modernized town of Fethard, still had a percentage of primarily Irish-speaking inhabitants amongst its small population. Bridget was contemporaneously described as "very pretty" (the local collective memory nowadays describes her as "sexy"), and stylish (she made her own fashionable clothes and wore gold earrings). She was also described as "stubborn" and "headstrong," probably a difficult and somewhat vain young woman. These traits could not have endeared her to the people of Ballyvadlea, mostly her rustic relatives, among whom she had grown up. There were also backbiting whispers that the attractive, engaging Bridget might have been having an affair with the handsome, dandified William Simpson, a rumor which, even if untrue, would have caused outrage in their spouses, both of whom were older. In March 1895, Bridget caught a cold which soon developed into a serious respiratory infection. The odds are that today's modern medicine would have stopped the illness in it's tracks. Antibiotics not having been discovered, the Clearys were forced to rely on an assortment of patent medicines, and sought the aid of the local Health Service Doctor, a notorious drunk, who did not come when called. In the interim, the untreated Bridget became more and more "demanding" and "excitable." This is understandable, considering that any minor illness could become a life-threatening condition very easily in that time and place. Bridget was no doubt frightened at the possibility that she might die. Unfortunately, Michael Cleary's father passed away suddenly at this point, adding to the overall level of tension in the house. The five days the doctor stayed away allowed Bridget's illness to run rampant. Finally arriving, he prescribed some medication and went on his way. When Bridget did not improve, Michael revisited the doctor, a confrontation which ended in a shouting match. Disgusted, Michael chose to visit the local "quack doctor" (traditional herbalists were so called because of their association with farmyards). When the quack visited Bridget, whom he knew well, he reacted to her appearance and behavior by saying, "That's not Bridgie!" a comment which soon convinced the locals that the woman in the sickbed was not Michael Cleary's wife but a fairy changeling. Bridget Cleary's "treatment" then degenerated into a kind of exorcism, which involved forcing her to ingest various foul decoctions of herbs, dousing her with unspeakable liquids, subjecting her to ongoing verbal and physical abuse, the drawing and twisting of her body, and the infliction of pain by various methods in order to drive away the changeling. In the end, her husband immolated her. The contemporary press leaped on the lurid tale of "The Tipperary Witch Burning" with as much interest as the story would excite today on any media network. Bridget's death made headlines throughout the world. Ms. Bourke argues convincingly that the horrified reaction of the Great British public to the "primitive" mentality demonstrated by Michael Cleary (and by extension in the British mind, all the Irish) was a major element in defeating the Ireland Home Rule bill then before Parliament. Bourke is also convincing in demonstrating that the burning of Bridget Cleary had more than just political ramifications. It was a pyrrhic victory of the timeless and magical world of ancient Irish traditions over the regimented modern world of the emerging twentienth century. It was specifically a patriarchial act: The men of that traditional world acted to punish a young woman who had stepped beyond the invisible but very real bounds that constrained females in their culture. It is telling that the people of Ballyvadlea let the British authorities themselves bury Bridget, a lifelong neighbor and relation. Now remembered mostly in a Tipperary children's rhyme, THE BURNING OF BRIDGET CLEARY is a fascinating look at a world in the midst of transition.
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