The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story [Paperback]

Angela Bourke (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In March 1895, Bridget Cleary became ill. Her husband, Michael, and a number of neighbors and relatives became convinced that she was a fairy changeling and tortured her to death. This grisly true story forms the basis of Angela Bourke's outstanding narrative The Burning of Bridget Cleary, in which the whole context of this "crime" and its punishment is sparely and powerfully laid out. Bourke's style, judgment, and eye for detail are superb. There are scenes in this book of appalling vividness--in particular, the chapters concerned with poor Bridget's end. The closed room, the men yelling questions at her, trying to force her to eat herbs boiled in milk (if she could eat them, then she might be the real Bridget and not the changeling), manhandling her; "lifting her body and winding it backwards and forwards, yelling, 'away with you; come home, Bridget, in the name of God!' while slapping her." On March 14, they held her over the fire to drive the spirits out, and on March 15, Bridget's husband set fire to her nightgown, throwing lamp oil on her to make the fire burn more fiercely. "She's not my wife," he told the assembled people. "You'll soon see her go up the chimney."

This is a chilling story, one that stays with you, creepily, long after you have finished reading. Like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, it seems to open itself to a wide variety of interpretation, and Bourke's balancing of old-world superstitious Ireland against the new rational nation about to be born is expert. These events may be a hundred years old, but they come over as frighteningly contemporary. --Adam Roberts, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

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 coldAwhich 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 menAincluding MichaelAand 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 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141002026
• ISBN-13: 978-0141002026
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #258,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lost Its Focus, April 6, 2002

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.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A great story poorly serviced, October 29, 2000

By	Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Burning of Bridget Cleary (Hardcover)

The murder-by-torture of the cooper's wife Bridget Cleary at the hands of her husband and family members, who thought she was a fairy changeling, would seem to be almost entirely resistant to narratorial ineptitude. The 1895 incident in rural Tipperary seems to distill all of the fin-de-siecle British Empire's obsession with darkness and horror at the margins of its own civilization, and the story in and of itself should make a rattling good read. Angela Bourke, however, seems utterly incapable of telling a good story: there is little narrative logic to her recounting of events and background historical materials, and she repeatedly refuses to make transitions between the micro-history of Cleary's death and the surrounding wider issues of the day. As a result, the fascinating implications of the murder and its aftermath (with respect to gender, nationality, sex and even race) are often ineptly presented, and the story itself becomes dull and uninvolving.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A FASCINATING TALE, BUT OFTEN TEDIOUS, October 17, 2000

By	Gerard T. McGuire - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning of Bridget Cleary (Hardcover)

Having more recently taken to reading works of non fiction, I figured this would be a worthy read. True crime, folklore, and Irish history all come together in a tale from the end of the 1800's. The story centers around Bridget Cleary, a middle class wife of cooper Michael Cleary. She takes ill and with the help of some locals her husband becomes convinced that she has been abducted by fairies and what he sees is a changling and not his wife. The "cure" for her predicament in the eyes of Irish folklore is nothing short of torture and her husband eventually kills her by setting her on fire.

Ms Bourke does an outstanding job of relaying the legends of the fairies in Ireland at the time. She also convincingly shows how Michael Cleary may have been acting out of rage rather than superstition. She goes on to detail the arrest and trial of Michael as well as many members of Bridget's own family who aided Michael in his fairy cure. The events of the crime were used by the English as fodder for their criticism of the Irish and the Irish desire for self rule.

Whereas Ms. Bourke is commended for her attention to detail it is also the reason that the book has some slower spots. She at times painstakingly details the setup of the policing in Ireland as well as political movements that were pertinent to the story. She goes well beyond what is necessary to provide the reader with information. While it does not severely damage the book as a whole, it does hamper the overall presentation of certain chapters.

This book is a worthy read for anyone interested in Irish Folklore, Irish History, or even those who enjoy True Crime but are tired of the same old stories.