The 'Changeling Murder' of Bridget Cleary
00:00 Looking for more shady and sinister stories, sign up to History Hit. You can join us to explore the tragic life of the Bronties or discover the chilling story of Burke and Hair. Plus, with your History Hit subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe to start exploring the past. Ireland. A woman is dragged towards the fire in her own home. She is held down as her clothes catch a light, her husband watching as the flames consume her. But he believes that the woman before him is not his wife at all. He believes that the fairies have taken her. You falling for this, because that's what they want you to believe, and that's what we've accepted for far too long.
00:55 How could belief in fairies lead to Bridget's murder at the very end of the 19th century? And do we buy the idea that the people who surrounded Bridget on her final day genuinely believed that they were saving her? This is a complicated history that all too often has been taken at face value. Well, we believe Bridget Cleary deserves better. So we're going to try to unravel the story from the history on the history on the first. this episode of After Dark. Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony.
01:37 Today's episode is an eerily modern tale. It's a really difficult history. It's one that is full of reputed folkloric beliefs and they do result in the death of a woman in 1895 in Ireland. That woman is Bridget Cleary. There's a nursery rhyme from this period that goes like this. Are you a witch? Are you a fairy?
02:00 Are you the wife of Michael Cleary? It doesn't quite work in an English accent. No, can you give it to us in an Irish one please? No, I'm not going to. But actually, as I was listening there, I was like that. Yeah, I was like, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
02:14 But I'm not going to do an Irish accent for you, so. Maybe at some point, this is not the episode for it, but at some point, I should get you to do that on the podcast just for the crack. That is never ever happening. That's pure cancellation territory. This is a difficult history This is a one that we've wanted to do for a really long time Isn't it?
02:34 And we've touched on it before But we kind of And we have had requests to go back to it and do it a little bit We have. It's been a popularly requested one It seems like a contradiction This is a true crime story It's a story that involves folklore
02:51 That involves fairies Let's start There's going to be a lot lot detail in here and there's going to be a lot of talking about the archive that we have for this, what that evidence can tell us what we can pick out, what we can pick apart from that. But I think let's start with the context that we need going into this. And we have spoken a bit on this show before about specifically Irish ideas of fairies. But can we start with that as a sort of a cultural touch point before we go.
03:27 into this very real history. I'm going to give you that and then I'm going to give you something else. But I think, yeah, let's start what the folklore is, right? That there are fairy beings who exist in the landscape, who hark back to a more ancient time, specifically the two of the Danin in Irish folklore. And they are this people who have gone underground.
03:57 And so they're sort of off the land in every sense. Absolutely. And you will find them in the water, in the trees, depending on the type of fairy that they are. And that they are mischievous. They can be, it can go from being mischievous but friendly to being downright diabolical. And they can really have this adverse effect on everything and everyone around them. physically what we tend to see they look like a kind of French medieval nobility, which is kind of ridiculous in itself. Well, and also interesting that this is a 19th century history and thinking about sort of medieval revival in Britain and Ireland in this moment in terms of
04:38 art, in terms of literature, that that medieval chivalric world is in people's imagination. You know, just as a sort of a side note to this particular. particular history. It's sort of not surprising that that's how they're imagined in this moment. They can, they can shape shift. That's going to become important to this story. There's this idea of the glimmer or the glamour sometimes it's called where they will appear as something and then maybe with the reflection of a light or with by candlelight or when a breeze comes you see it shake and shimmer and suddenly you start to see the real face of the fairy behind whatever shape they've taken.
05:21 And so they are, they are believed to be, let me rephrase that actually, they are reported to be this ancient belief system that people genuinely believe inhabits the land. And they are reported in folklore, in written and oral testimony, ancient in both cases. But here's the other side of it that I wanted to say to you. We are in the 1890s here, and this goes into the 20th century too. And one of the things that unsettles me, well, there's so many things that unsettled me about this is true, but one of the overall things is that this idea that people in Ireland, especially rural people in Ireland, at the end of the 19th century into the 20th century, are popping around the place believing in fairies willy-nilly.
06:18 It feels like a very English colonial viewpoint. I want to stick that out there throughout all of this. This is a story of belief and disbelief. And it's a story of how we might be able to, I'm starting to think, be able to manipulate stereotypical beliefs around certain cultures when we need to. There's a hint of me,
06:46 and I haven't heard anybody else saying this when they retell this story. But my skepticism is high alert in this in terms of the role that the fairy folk are supposed to have played in this. I want to give Irish people at the end of the 19th century, who, by the way, have just been through two generations earlier, a country-defining famine.
07:13 That's a very real bloody thing. And so we are not, an airy, fairy nation of, you know, fidly eye, bejaisa, bigara, fairy folk. Yeah. This is something that people are living their lives in very real terms, but yet that seems to have escaped from this story
07:34 and now we have a story of fairies. And when I was researching for this, it's just a fairy story. Well, it's a fairy story with a 21st century thing going, ah, but domestic violence. Now, domestic violence is here. This is a story about domestic violence. Undeniably so, yeah.
07:49 But it's still 90% a story about fairies. Can you imagine they believe this? I'm not so sure that that's what's happening here. I think, yeah, in terms of how this particular history has been remembered and rewritten, it is absolutely in terms of the belief in fairies, not the violence at the center of it, because this kind of violence has been happening since human beings existed, not to detract from the terribleness of it, but the murder. of women is not unusual across cultures and times.
08:22 This idea of belief in something supernatural and specifically in fairies in terms of this Irish context is what has defined this and how it's remembered. And I agree. I think we're going to kind of undermine that and interrogate it a little bit today. And I want to just also add on to that because you mentioned earlier about this kind of colonial idea of Irishness put on top of Irish people themselves, which is absolutely the case and absolutely true. And also if these are the type of people who believe in this kind of thing,
08:50 then we can't trust them to run themselves. Bear mind Ireland as part of the British Empire at this point as being essentially ruled from London. Nonetheless, I think we also need to address the ways in which Irish people themselves have then and continue to perpetuate that idea of almost a pre-colonial ideal in which fairy folk and the belief in the supernatural equal peacefulness and a real default, a real Irish default of magicalness.
09:26 We have to be aware that actually there's something going on there. I think one thing that stands out for me in this history, and we can talk about this as we go through, is the relationship to the landscape. And I think, you know, you've mentioned the Great Famine as defining generations of suffering and starvation, but also in terms of the relationship to the land itself. and the scars that are left in that landscape, the empty cottages, the roads, all of this that is coming into play. And I think what is interesting is that the version of the Irish landscape in this that is evoked in the moment and in the history, how it's been retold and retold,
10:10 sits uncomfortably with the 19th century Irish landscape as it is actually experienced by Irish people and I think it is both in the sort of colonial retellings of this but also in
10:25 the Irish people who are involved in the story that kind of create almost a veil across some of that reality for their own ends potentially we'll get into the event that we're going to talk about in a minute, but there's just one element of fairy belief that we need to nail down first.
10:48 And this is crucial to the story. And it's the idea of a changeling. Can you just talk us through that? I love the word, first of all. Like, it's such a great word. It's such a terrifying idea. Yeah. So a changeling is somebody who at lunchtime, we were here.
11:07 I went out to the loo. When I came back, you were still physically here. But over the course of this recording, there was something about you that either didn't sit right or seem right or whatever. And I was like, it looks like Maddie, but there's just something. Yeah, yeah, it depends on the day of the week. And it's like this is a fairy folk tradition that they come in and they switch or they take over or they possess. It's often babies as well, isn't it? Very often babies.
11:36 Yeah. And the reason behind that is interesting in itself because often it's supposed to help. to propagate the fairy population. So that's kind of bizarre as well. But what I also really want to pin down there is that those are folkloric beliefs. Every person in Ireland is not going around thinking. Because again, yeah, I have heard fairy stories growing up.
11:59 Of course I have. There is the whole thing about fairy forts. One is going to be mentioned in this story. But it's always said with a wink and a nudge. And it is. Yeah. Which is interesting. was I think, you know, if you come across on social media or you've ever Googled anything to do with Ireland and fairies,
12:15 the sort of outsider viewpoint is very much kind of not with a nudge and a wink and it's actually like, wow, they believe this. You'll see things about like, you know, oh, the Irish were building a motorway, but they had to loop around a fairy tree because they didn't want to disturb it and stuff. And, you know, this kind of, and I'm not saying that that belief isn't there and that that doesn't happen. Yeah, but there's a kind of, that's the pervasive narrative, I think, when it comes to this.
12:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, we get the fiddly eye thing, but I'm far more comfortable. Of course, I am, I suppose, in the kind of the lands of the land of saints and scholars than I am in this idea of Ireland because I think, I think it caricatures us in some ways or it can be used to.
12:59 But as we're, as, and this is my hypothesis, I think we might be seeing some of that in use by Irish people themselves, potentially. I think it's a question. Okay, so we have the idea of changelings. You know, and this is, just to say, this is a century's old idea. You know, we get it in a mid-Semite dream.
13:16 Shakespeare has this idea of, you know, a changeling boy who's stolen by fairies. And there's a sense as well in that kind of folklore that you can sometimes get the person who's been stolen back. Yes. Which is important. And that there's a kind of sacrifice to be made there
13:31 or an offering. And, you know, that's all going to kind of come into play. We're just going to go to a short break. And when we come back, Anthony, you're going to take us into this history and tell us who Bridget Cleary is. So Bridget Boland, as she is born, is born on the 19th of February 16, 1869, rather, in Bally Badley in County Tipperary. She is married to Michael Cleary. She's young when she married. I think she's 18.
13:58 And he's a Cooper and they get married on the 6th of August 1887. Oh yeah, she is. I did my maths there. They had been married for eight years, but they'd had no children. Now people use this as a thing of going unusual. That marked them out. And while it did, it's not utterly damning. It's not like it never happens or it never occurs.
14:26 No, and actually, I mean, one thing that I'm always kind of fascinated with in history is, you know, we often think on, we do family histories and things like that, that, you know, you have a clear line of descendant, especially if you have any Irish in your family, that there might be Irish Catholic big families, with lots of children. But actually, when you start to look into, particularly in the 19th century, actually, you know, the generations are blurred. Sometimes people might not have had their own children, but might be given other children to care for from within their family.
14:59 You know, if someone's sister has got 15 children, you might have one of them. you know, there's blurring of the lines and I think often even with families where there's no obvious childlessness, there will be more complicated things. So I think it is unusual, but it's not unheard of and actually, you know, infertility, if that's what they were faced with, is as common then as it was now. So as it is now. And people, again, it's this idea that there is a thought process in these modern, people's minds that the only cause for not having children would be something got to do with the fairies. Because there is this talk later that because she didn't have children, that's why the fairies were interested in her. But actually, we're dealing with relatively modern people
15:52 here. So I don't want to just dismiss their understanding of what's happening or even the fact that they would highlight this as that. But nonetheless, that is the situation. They don't have children. Most people in this society do, but it doesn't make them that much of an anomaly. Like, they have reference points for this. The other thing that's narratively often pointed out as an anomaly was the fact that Michael would work away, about an hour away from the village where Bridgett, where she lives. Now, they eventually end up living together before this story is out and we'll see them come together. And this is also held up as this thing going, oh, unusual, something marking the difference here. But I really want to point out,
16:33 particularly in a rural community. The idea of moving for work is not that unusual, particularly in a society that's two generations gone from a famine. Yes. So, you know, what's held up narratively as, wow, look at how strange they were. Look at how not-tipped-home. Yeah, their marriage was unconventional at the time, yeah. Certainly, it's not what everyone on the ground is experiencing.
16:58 But I don't think we should fall into the trap of going, there is some magical aura around this marriage before anything even happens because that's not representative of how Irish people would understand those dynamics within a marriage in the late 19th century. I suppose one thing that is potentially a little bit unusual about Bridges is that she has some economic independence from her husband, right? I wonder is it because the economic independence that she has is, and she certainly does. But again, I'm so suspicious of all of this now that it has me questioning everything.
17:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so... Sorry. No, no, no, go, go. No, okay. But she does make her money. So she, while Michael's working away, she sells eggs from her chickens.
17:47 She's trained as a dressmaker and a milliner. She's, you know, she's using a sewing machine. People are bringing her clothes to repair or to make. She has sort of carved out of space for herself in that community. she's offering a service. She is trading her skills for money. She is. And while Michael is not in the family home.
18:07 She is. And now ask yourself how unusual it might be for people in a rural community to sell eggs. Probably not that unusual. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now ask yourself how unusual, okay, it might be for a woman with a skill to enter dressmaking as that skill.
18:26 Now, she did own a singer, sewing machine. That's a valuable item of kit. It is more than a land labourer skill. So there is an education that's involved in that and an apprenticeship of sorts.
18:43 She has gone through that system. But it's not like other women weren't doing it. No, no. Being a dressmaker or a milliner is not uncommon. I think one of my ancestors at the end of the 19th century was a milliner and owned a little shop and she was married and had children. It's not necessarily unusual. But I suppose
18:58 I think what it does give me is a sense of Bridget as a sort of fully rounded person because I think so much has been stripped from her. So I think these details are important for establishing who she was. But I think they're vitally important because what I think has happened is in Free Ireland, with the Catholic Church being as important as it was. And we're talking post-1930s here. There was an idea that when a woman, not just an idea, a rule essentially, that when women got married, they did not work. But we don't have that luxury. It's not a luxury. It's an imposition in the 1930s.
19:36 But that's not necessarily the mind frame that's in operation here at this point. I mean, think about all the industries that are happening in London, in Birmingham, in Belfast. These are things that are. So again, I'm just wondering how many layers we've placed on top of this in order just to tell a good story as a point. to going, actually there was loads of women who were able to eke out livings for themselves because women are able to do that. What is interesting, I think, is that after her death, and obviously we are building to this, Bridget is described and remembered as being a little bit strange and a little bit on
20:11 the outside of things. We've got a quote here from March 1895 in the Cork Examiner, and this isn't a spoiler of what is going to happen in the story, but it describes Bridget. once she's dead, as having in life been a bit queer in her ways, and this they attribute to a certain superiority over the people with whom she came into contact. Her attire is not that of every woman in the same social plane. So there's a posthumous marking out of Bridget, as different, as unusual, as description here as being a bit queer, being uncanny in some way. I don't even buy it.
20:52 See, this is how sceptical I am at this. This is what I mean that there's... But they're saying it, of course, you're right. This is, you know, a post-death application of these things onto her. What I hear is she may be guilty of having a few notions, as we say in Ireland. She's like, I actually am going to put myself together, thank you very much. But why would she not? She's a dressmaker.
21:12 She understands style. She understands that. Being a bit queer, like potentially she sounds like she might be a little reserved, removed, or I don't know. but but no sin is being committed here from what I can say she's well dressed that seems to be all they're saying yeah her attire was not that of her social class god love her i mean stay in your place no so we have we have a woman who at the very minimal we can say earns her own money husband works away sometimes they're a smart independent 19th century woman in Ireland at the end of century yeah that's what i that's quite skilled um the next
21:51 beat, I suppose, then is that Bridget's mother dies and then her and Michael, her husband, are responsible for caring for Bridget's father, right? And this is where they come and live together because now they are able to have that house because it's intergenerational living. It's not unusual. Absolutely commonplace for the 19th century across Ireland and Britain. And so much of the world, and we're seeing so much of it now again, right? We're going to re-enter into that thing of of intergenerational living because of the economy and so many things
22:21 that are happening are going to echo this so it's not that unusual even for us now but yes this is where they become a household and where
22:29 we start to get the setting of three of them to get the same village right they're not moving far yeah yeah yeah yeah this is in their same village so she's still in her home village and the cottage
22:38 that they move into with Patrick Boland Bridget's father is said to stand within a supposed fairy ring fort and this is important. Is it?
22:52 Well... Yeah, see? Now, no, but and by the way, every time I say that to you, you are going from what the story is. Well, it's important in the story how it has been told so far.
23:03 And I just got really annoyed with this last night as if you can probably tell and over the course of looking at this because we have, not you and I, the generations of Irish people who tell this story and who know this story quite well. If you mentioned the name Bridget Cleary,
23:15 everyone will know what that means in Ireland. Well, they'll have a sense of it. I was saying to Maddie before we started recording this, can we, someone, and it might even be me, needs to go back to the primary sources in this, because I'm worried about the way in which we're telling her life and subsequently her death and how we may have sacrificed the history for the story
23:40 because that sounds great. But two things are contradictory here. Oh, her father's house that they're now living in might, and by the way, this is going to be a cottage, but it's a decent cottage, I will say that. It's a decent working class or peasantry cottage in Ireland. But it is, oh, it's built on land that was a fairy fort. But literally, five minutes ago, you said, and there's this concept that Irish people change the roads to make sure they're not going through ferry forts. But they've built cottages with it. But they're going to just plonk a cottage.
24:11 So which is it? Like, are we believing in them or are we not believing in them? Yeah, exactly. And also, when does that happen? Is everyone in that village talking about, God, the man that built on the fairy fort? Or is it, well, now that she died in this horrific way, his house is on a fairy fort. So I really think we need, she's due a revisit of the primary source material. So I want to keep that in mind throughout all of what we're about to discuss here because I'm getting senses of layers of lie on this, to be honest.
24:43 Yeah, absolutely. So just let's do a quick note on the sources that we're drawing on in terms of this, because you're going to take us in a minute through the days leading up to the murder and the murder itself. And the way we're going to do this is you're sort of going to tell a story as it has been handed down to us using the sources that are commonly cited. And then we're going to break it down a little bit and look at it in a bit more interrogatory detail. But the sources that we have, there's testimony from one of Bridget's cousins, Joanna Burke. Yeah. We're going to hear from her.
25:23 She's one of the key witnesses for the prosecution in the trial that is going to follow. Another source is the Irish Times, national newspaper on the ground reporting at the time. You know, hope we all used newspapers in our own work since the printing press began. So, you know, a sort of standard go-to source. And then another source, I mean, we're talking off mic about how many books have been written on this, actually. But one of the sources, sort of definitive books that was written on this case is called The Burning of Bridgett Cleary, which was published in 1999. And I think that's maybe quite an interesting moment in the zeitgeist in terms of Irish history for this story to have been revisited, actually. and so these are the things that we're drawing on in this discussion.
26:14 Let's move to this the point of this episode then and the murder that is very unfortunately coming. We have this set up. We have Bridget and Michael living together now after a slightly separate lifestyle while they both work in their different spheres. They're living with Patrick, Bridget's father, father in this labourer's cottage, the mother has died.
26:44 How do we end up with a crime being committed? The one thing to point out about the general setting of this what unfolds here is that the township within which this crime takes place, everybody knows everybody. So you're about to encounter names now and a network of people that become important to the events and the murder, but that are also the daily. people that all of these people are encountering just in the in the boring things of everyday life right so on monday the fourth of march bridget in her highly unusual and idiosyncratic way goes to sell her eggs to yes like totally marks her out for fairy possession to her father's cousin now bear that in mind too everyone's related not everyone i'm over exactly but but there's a lot of familial links in this township And it's a community in which everyone has stakes because of that. Yeah.
27:43 And she goes to Jack Dunn. Who's her father's cousin? He's her father's cousin. And delivers some eggs. Grant, we'll leave that there. Normal everyday activity. Normal everyday activity. It is March.
27:53 On her way back, it's cold, it's wet, it's rainy, there's some kind of a storm. And within a few hours of arriving, or a few days of arriving back, she's feeling terrible. She's caught some kind of a cold. She's down in the dumps. She can't get out of bed. She's just laid low. A few days later, Jack comes to the house. Again, initially, you might think, well, that's very convenient.
28:18 She was just in his house selling eggs. No, this is a community that moves within itself in this way. It's not, this isn't necessarily just narrative trope. He knows Bridgett. He knows her father, because he's his cousin. He knows Michael. He's also apparently very O-Fay with fairy folklore. And he says, kind of initially at least off the cuff, that's not bridgy or paraphrasing,
28:45 but something to that effect. That's not bridgy. That's not her. And okay, fine. There is a sense that maybe there's something a little because Jack is supposedly so aligned, Jack Dunn is so aligned with the fair evoke, that he suggests getting a herbal remedy of milk on pasteurized milk and some herbs to. help her get better.
29:11 So, hold on. So Bridget has taken to her bed because she's got a cold. Yeah. Her father's cousin has said, that is not her. That is a changeling. That's a fairy. We hear after the fact this. Yeah.
29:24 Now, he apparently hasn't said changeling yet. So there's the first one. But he said that's not Bridget. Yeah. He is going to say it's a changeling though. Yeah. Yeah. And this is accepted that.
29:37 So Michael in the household as the head of that family says, sure, I'll go and get this herbal milk remedy. Yeah. I mean, this is the story we have. And this is the story we have from witnesses at the time. But again, I'm going to want to question that a little bit further on when we come to the idea of the trial. Right. But yes, the summation is what we have narratively. Now, what I would just say here is there is a very long tradition in every country in the world of folk remedies.
30:12 What we now understand is folk remedies being used to treat everyday maladies like coals. So is heated milk and some herbs? It's like the only explanation that it has, they wanted it to be fairies. Or is it just a, we gave her some hot milk? Yeah, it's like having honey and lemon and your tea if you've got a sore throat or something, right? I just think we have to question it. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that they weren't full out 100% believe in fairies. I just think we've been retelling this story in the same way for so long. I'm now questioning everything about it. But anyway, she has this drink and Michael puts it together. So the husband puts it together.
30:51 This is said to be a fairy remedy, but she's not necessarily feeling all that much better. She's still taking it. And then Jack Dunn is supposed to have said, it is not your wife is there, you will have enough to do to bring her back. And this is where the idea of a changeling comes in. So he apparently lands the idea that Bridget's been switched. And to sort of deepen these suspicions, Bridget does become much more ill than a cold.
31:24 She's really quite unwell. And a priest is called, well, a doctor visits her. first of all. And then a priest is called and she's given the last rights in case she dies. So I've read a couple of accounts of this, right?
31:35 And some of them are slightly woolly. So it would be interesting to know a little bit more. On the first instance, yes, he goes to, Michael goes to a doctor, just to be, the husband goes to a doctor
31:46 to be like, come here and come and see her, she's not well. And that takes a bit of a journey to do that because they're not next door. And presumably a fee. Yeah, well, it will be a fee if he comes.
31:55 Yeah. Now, he initially doesn't come. He's like, I don't know, Why he says, he doesn't say no, but he doesn't come straight away. It takes them. I think it's a little over a week before he arrives to the house. In the meantime, yes, she's had a priest in.
32:07 Now, that'll be something that's a little bit more easily accessible. It doesn't come straight away either, though. So part of that you could read into it going, well, there's no need yet. Come back to me in five days if she's still unwell. This is also a time in which people are dying of TB very often. Pneumonia, as we would now understand it, is going to kill you. And so if she has these versions of these things, and we don't know, we don't get a chance to ever find out what is wrong here.
32:35 Okay. Because it's just said to be fairy that the last rights would be administered just in case. But there is also this thought that because the priest administer, I've heard it said, that because the priest administers the last rights, it subconsciously paves a path for, Michael and the other villagers to allow what happens to happen because she's already received the last rights. That's quite dark. That's really cool.
33:08 I don't know how true it is, but it's part of the lore. It's part of the story. Yeah. That is. Okay. That's quite grim, isn't it? Yeah. Okay.
33:17 So she, we had her on the 4th of March, which was a Monday going to deliver the eggs to Jack. Thursday, 14th of March now. She's still not well. there's more visitors to the house. There's an attempted visit now from Joanna Burke. So this is the person at the start of the episode that you said, we're going to hear testimony from her. So she comes to the house.
33:38 Again, she's local. She's Bridget's cousin. She's related to Bridgett. She's going to be related to a lot of other people who come into this story as well. But again, not unusual for the building. You know what I mean? They all have ties in one way or another.
33:49 But she is not allowed in. And according to her testimony, when she's outside, there's a commotion in the house. and she says she hears someone say, take it you bitch or you witch. Okay. So, and it being this fairy remedy of milk and herbs. So they are in some way trying to administer this concoction to her
34:13 to rid her of the changeling fairy. So by this point, it's probably worth saying narratively, as the story goes, everyone in that cottage is all in on believing Bridget is a fairy now. Yeah, if we are to take this narrative at face value, Can I also point out that people, other people in this house right now are Joanna's brothers. Okay, so hold on, so that we, inside the house, so Joanna's not allowed in. No, no.
34:39 But inside is Michael, obviously Bridget on Welling Bird. And then some other men, Joanna's brothers. Bridget's father's in there too, Patrick. And an unknown number of Joanna's brothers are in there as well, but it's a couple. We think it's about, it's a couple. I also have a feeling from accounts that there's other men in there too. Right. But we know that Joanna's brothers are some of those men.
35:01 Which is interesting and worrying this has already become a sort of male dominated space in which Bridget, who is unwell, is being treated and subjected to, you know, whatever is happening. Yeah. And it's, it is interesting, I think, that Joanna is told she's not allowed in. that it's not a, it's like who is policing that we don't, I don't see that in the narrative. And that's what makes me want to revisit these primary source materials. I mean, it feels to me as well as a sort of gathering of a council of men to deal with, you know, potentially if we are going to bind to the side of the changeling compared to, you know, Bridget, presumably traditionally in a community like this would have been attended by women if she was ill or dying. Sure. You know, once the priest and the doctor have come, who of course would be male.
35:53 that in childbirth and sickness, it's women at your bedside. So this is unusual that Joanna is not allowed in. I think that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a sort of isolating of Bridget as well, which is quite sinister. But in another way, that starts to poke other holes in this narrative that we've received going, well, it's not men by your bedside. So why isn't she allowed in?
36:19 What do you mean? It's not men by her bedside. As in like, it's not men by your bedside. if you're a sick woman in the late 19th century, you will have women like you're saying. So why isn't she? Yeah, so why are they're not, why is there not more of a female presence in what's going on there?
36:31 So she's been given the herb and milk remedy by Michael. And interestingly, narrative trope number one here, she's taken it twice. Yeah. They are trying to force her to take it a third time. As is the case in any fairy tale. And they're holding her down by her hands and her feet in order to force feed this milk into her as the story goes.
36:57 Okay. And of course that's the thing in, that's the trope in fairy tales as well, that if you are, changelings, I think, can't eat or drink in the same way as humans can. So there's, this is almost a test, right? And if she's rejecting it or can't actually take this medicine, then she's not human.
37:20 So, yeah, so we get this, we get this idea that she is being tested. Tested and also like physically restrained. That's the word I was looking for. That she's being restrained in this house. And then you get this irony, right? Which is Michael saying to her, are you Bridget Boland, the wife of Michael Cleary
37:47 in the name of God? Now, everything else has not been done in the name of God. As a matter of fact, it's explicitly running contrary to the name of God. So what are we playing at here? What is the belief system? What is the belief system? And I'm not saying it has to be monotheistic and it has to be very simple and straightforward. Sometimes these things are complex.
38:09 But also, you know, speaking those words and believing in the power of those words, but then they're also doing things like using fine. to threaten the so-called fairy. So they heat up a poker, don't they, in the fire, and threaten her with that, threatened to burn her. Also, is it urine that's thrown over her? Because it's believed that I'll make the fairy flee the scene. Yeah, absolutely.
38:34 So, you know, there's kind of powerful, what is essentially powerful spells being done? And then the speaking of Christian words is another kind of spell. And look how many times that was answered. She answered this once or twice. but she didn't answer it three times. Yeah. And again, this is just a trope of the fairy tale. Yeah, the trope of three.
38:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what's happening on the 14th. Things are pretty dire. If anything like this is happening in that house, we have transgressed significantly the laws and expectations of Ireland in the late 19th century. This is not what's happening in rural households up and down that country. No, no.
39:14 So even if there's nothing being shoved down her throat, even if there's no hot poker, even if there's no urine, and the account says there is, by the way. So let's take it at face value that all of that is happening. Even if that is the case, that's not, we are, we have well surpassed anything that's acceptable within the laws or the religion or the morals of this country. The social norms as well. I mean, literally just the fact that, you know, Janio is being brought out of bed and put back to bed by these men every time. Sorry, not Joanna Bridget. Let's move to the next day.
39:51 So we've been in the Thursday, so the 14th of March when, you know, John is hearing this sort of frustration as Michael's trying to get her to take this concoction. They're threatening her with the heated metal, with the urine, all of this. We move to the next day. This is when a priest is called. So if you can bear with me for a couple of minutes on this,
40:14 I'm going to take you through. almost everything that happens this night. According to the version we have. According to Joanna's version, which comes to inform the whole story, basically, right? I'll take you through each beat and then we'll come back to it at the end once we get to the initial conclusion, right?
40:35 So Michael Cleary has fetched a priest who performs mass in Bridget's bedroom where Bridget is lying, not in itself wholly unusual. That night, Bridget is dressed and she's brought to the kitchen. Joanna, her mother, Mary Kennedy, Bridget's father, Pat Bowland. Joanna's brother, Patrick Kennedy, are all there too.
40:58 So let me just give you that ensemble again. We have Joanna. We have Joanna's mother Mary. We have Bridget's father, Pat. And we have Joanna's brother, Pat Kennedy, along with Bridget herself, right? So we've got a pretty full house. Note there are women back in the fold now. To witness what's happening.
41:23 That in itself starts to become interesting. Joanna says, they were talking about the fairies. And Bridget said to her husband, your mother used to go with the fairies. And that's why it is that you think I am going with them. Ooh, interesting. Do you guys use the phrase, she's away with the fairies? Yes.
41:41 Yeah. So when that's used, I don't want to talk about in the context of the late 19th century, but when that's used now, we don't literally mean she's away with the fairies. But obviously it's harking back to a point where maybe there were folk beliefs that thought that that was the case. Yeah, or sort of absent behaviour or being not quite present, being... But also this. She was mentally unsound.
42:08 She had some form of mental disturbance. And now you think I have some form of mental disturbance too. just because you've seen it in your mother. I don't know. I'm offering it as an alternative. I mean, it sounds like an accusation against Michael, right? Of like, because in your family, you've experienced this, you're now projecting this one to me.
42:28 I'm just got a cold. I'm just not really well. And I will say there's Bridget's voice or supposedly, reportedly Bridget's voice, just saying cop yourself on. Yeah. Right? Like, that must mean something. Yep.
42:42 Michael then prepared three pieces of bread and jam, demanding Bridget eat all three. I'm going to predict now that she can only eat two. She can only eat two. Surprise, surprise. When she did not answer the third time that she would have the next piece of bread, he forced her to eat the third bit, saying if you won't take it, down you will go. This is what Joanna says. Okay.
43:08 He threw then, because she wouldn't or couldn't eat that, third piece, he threw her to the ground and mounted her with a knee on her chest and a hand on her throat. Swallow it, he said. Is it down? Is it down? So all we know, according to Joanna, is that Bridget says, leave me alone. You've lost your mind just because your mother wasn't well, doesn't mean I'm not. And then we witnessed some domestic violence. And then she's on the ground with hands around her throat being force fed bread. That's what Joanna's telling us. Okay. Joanna testifies that she heard Bridget's head strike the floor and then a scream.
43:45 Jesus. As you put, I mean, if your head has, and those are, you know, hard stone floors. Yeah, yeah. Michael grabs a hot stick from the fire and holds it close to her mouth. This is not my wife, Michael said. I am not going to keep an old witch in place of my wife, so I must get my wife back. those present are starting to become a little bit uncomfortable now. Joanna apparently says,
44:11 Mike, let her alone. Don't you see it is Bridget that is in it? Okay, and here we have the disbelief element coming in, right? This isn't just a community. They're like, oh, God, the fairies have arrived. There are people present significantly here, a woman, who is saying, what are you on about? Leave her alone.
44:31 And as far as Joanna's concerned, And she's just watching a scene of violence meted out by husband. Michael then strips the clothes from off his wife, except down to her chemise. Mary Kennedy, this is Joanna's mother. Rush to the kitchen where she saw Bridget Cleary lying on the hearth. Her clothing is now on fire. So something has transpired between, they think it was because, you know, the hot poker that they were holding to try and entice the fairy out. Right.
45:01 That cinders came off. Okay, so is that why Michael stripped the clothing off because it's become on fire? No. Is he doing this to sort of humiliate her and then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, I think that's a really good... Let's come back to that, actually.
45:15 Put a pin in that because that's really useful in terms of interrogating this testimony. Michael says, it is not Bridget, I am burning. You will soon see her go up the chimney. According to Mary Kennedy's testimony, Michael Cleary said, I believe she is dead. It is at this point that Mary Kennedy
45:34 saw Michael Cleary reach for the lamp from the table and drench his wife in paraffin oil until she was consumed with flames. This is what Joanna says. She was burning on the hearth. The house was full of smoke and smell. When I looked down to the kitchen, I saw the remains of Bridget Cleary on the floor
45:55 lying on a sheet. James Kennedy then testifies that he cried out to Michael, for the love of God, don't burn your wife. And Cleary replied, she is not my wife. She is an old deceiver sent in place of my wife. She's after deceiving me for the last seven or eight days
46:14 and deceived the priest today too. But she won't deceive anyone anymore. As I begin it with her, I will finish it with her. You'll soon see her go up the chimney. Two o'clock in the morning comes. Patrick Kennedy, Joanna's brother, then helps carry the remains of Bridget Cleary
46:32 who is now dead from the house in a sheet and buries them in a buggy area near to the home. That... Do you know what? There's not a lot of history now that gets me on this. After everything... Yeah.
46:47 After the topics we've covered. Yeah. I mean, I feel flawed by that. I want to talk about the fact that we have two families, essentially. in this house together, right? We also have a brother of Joanna who's giving most of this testimony
47:03 now become an accomplice to disposing the body. Do bear in mind we're hearing Joanna say that her mother and her brother both tried to say, don't do this to your wife, it is Bridget, this is the real person. And yet, her brother says,
47:22 okay, well, she have done it now, apparently. I might as well wrap the thingy. So that's one thing that I've just put out there for people to question that Joanna's not unbiased here. I think it's really useful that we have people to protect. She has people to protect. I think it's really useful if we have a woman's voice in this given the context of what's going on. I think it's good that she's saying, we have some testimony that's saying that some people don't believe what Michael is saying is what's happening. But at the same time, her brother's playing an active part in the disposal of remains.
47:54 So I really think we need to be more interrogatory when we're looking at this story that just keeps getting handed down again and again and again because what you're losing, I don't think there's any doubt that this is happening to Bridget's body, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm suggesting for the moment. I'm suggesting we've become clouded
48:15 in what even they understood that was going on. Yeah, and the scene, the scene as Joanna gives it to us, is Michael in this sort of crazed state convinced that his wife has already died and that he is trying to rid himself of a fairy presence with everyone else in that scene going, what are you doing? Stop. Don't do that. I mean, look, it's so hard, isn't it? And Jesus, you know, it's so, it's so dark and it's so, so violent and poor Bridget. But, you know, how is it that Michael is able to do this in a room in a house full of people that he has enough opportunity to beat her to the floor,
49:08 to remove her clothes, to threaten her with a hot poker, and then to douse her in oil and set fire to her without anyone intervening? I have so many questions. And so all of that, there is enough people in that house if they are apparently saying, what the hell are you doing? If that's what transpiring that night, there's enough people in there to stop it.
49:32 So, A, why wouldn't they? B, I think you brought up a really good question. It hadn't occurred to me before, but when you did, I was like, huh, the sequence of events is that he tears her clothes off, leaving her just in her chemise. Then her clothing, we must assume it's the chemise, is set on fire and then the paraffine oil on top.
49:53 You asked the question, oh, is he tearing the clothes because they were on fire. But that's not the sequence we're told the narrative in. And so there you go, okay, so was it just the chemise that went on fire? Then when Mary Kennedy, Joanna's mother, comes into the kitchen, bear in mind, these houses are not multi-roomed. You might have two rooms, maximum. So what I'm picturing is like a low single-story Irish cottage. Is this correct? Like the sort of stone walls, maybe thatched on top, maybe time.
50:23 where there's like the long living quarters and then there'd be like a sleeping room as well. It's certainly what's described. I don't have a picture of it. I don't think anybody has a picture of it, but it's certainly what's described. And it would make sense within the vernacular of that type of house.
50:37 So there's a world in which some people may be in the other space, but it's not a large space. It's down there. It's meters of life. I can see you. Yes. You know what I mean.
50:47 They can see everything that's going on. So where then when Mary comes in, the testimony is there is a shes, cheat under the body now suddenly. So where's that come from? So there's just a few. Look, again, something here to me needs further investigation because, or investigation again, I think we're relying on an almost 30-year-old account of this.
51:11 And I don't mean to disparage anybody's credentials or anything. But as a historian, I have alarm bells all over the place with the received history we've gotten on this. And it makes me so, so super uncomfortable. Do you know what I would be really. interested to hear it would be like a murder detectives take on this scene if you were taking this testimony down from people who witnessed this. Yeah, I'm interested in the removal of her clothes down to her underwear. Did Mike, is there a world in which Michael accidentally sets fire
51:49 to her clothing when he's threatening her with the poker? that she's on fire and is trying to take the clothes off her, but she is already injured to the point of death. And he then tries to cover things up by throwing the paraffinole on her. Is that an accident? And then we get into this whole fairy element to try and make sense of it. But then also, I don't want to take the agency and the crime away from Michael. He's killed his wife. You know, the version we have that Joanna gives us. is that he's pinning her to the floor and doing this to her. I think he's in a frenzy.
52:28 I think even if the, even if the flame, the initial flames are accidental that have come from the poker or whatever, the addition of the power of an oil is just going an act of outright, deliberate violence, you know. I also think, I mean, the details of this is so, so grim. But, you know, Joanna talks about the house being full of smoke and smell, which I think is a really visceral, description. And there's no sense, I think, here of the time between that passing. And what I have here is the next sentence in her testimony. I don't know if there's more in between in the full transcript.
53:07 But then she says, when I look down to the kitchen, I saw the remains lying on a sheet. Have hours passed? Is this minutes? Well, it may be hours by then. But when her mother Mary sees the body instantly, it's now on a sheet. Nobody's mentioned a sheet before. So I can buy the sheet being there. The sheet is used to wrap the body and to bury it, by the way.
53:32 But like, why is it there when Mary Kennedy runs into the kitchen when she's hearing all this commotion? Unless they grab it off a settle bed or something, like it might just be in the kitchen. It might be too hand. But certainly the way Mary describes it, Joanna's mother, is that it's laid out on a sheet, already dead. She's already dead. So it doesn't add up. And then the way this testimony is received by us now, if I bring him into the next day, this doesn't make sense either.
54:01 Because what we're told is Bridget's disappearance is noted the next day. But she's been ill in bed. So she's been disappeared from public view for days anyway. And apparently the police, which is the Royal Irish Constabulary at this point, they investigate. But sure. From the next day. Why would they? Unless somebody goes and says, I know exactly what happened.
54:26 I don't know where the body is, but I heard this going on or whatever. So it makes it sound like people missed her and then an investigation was launched. But that can't be the case because it doesn't add up in terms of the logic of what's going on here. And it's not until the 22nd of March that her body is discovered. So hold on, she's, what day is she killed on the 15th? Yeah. She's killed on the 15th. So what's a week?
54:54 Yeah. So, I mean, this makes no sense. So she's, she's murdered. The next day the police launched an investigation. If that is the accurate timeline, they have obviously been tipped off. Must be. But it takes them a week to find her body. Now, this bit of the story.
55:16 about Michael and what his the mindset that he's in I find this deeply troubling and it's this for me is the question of the case because it rests on whether he really really believed that she'd been taken by fairies
55:32 or whether this is a lie and he has I mean he's murdered her either way but whether he meant to kill her not a changeling version of her as we have it and that is that in the intervening time
55:49 so between her death and the 22nd when her body's found he spends and again we have it in the story three nights thinking that she's going to come home and he waits for her at the ferry fort close to the body
56:03 is that right? Well yeah ish actually turns out I hadn't really thought about it like that but it is in the vicinity but everything's in the vicinity so this is at a spot called Kyle Negrana here's my other question. How many bloody fairy forts are we supposed to believe
56:19 is in this relatively small area? It's not that it's impossible for there to be numerous ferry forts and actually there can be a collection of fairer forts. It's not impossible. But like there was a fairy fort on her parents' house, the cottage land. There's a fairy fort where he's gone
56:32 to wait for her to come back now, apparently, for three days again. And then the fact that when it's a very kind of specific folkloric imagery, right, that he's expecting to see her, she'll emerge on a white horse, he will cut her free from the horse, and therefore she'll be rescued.
56:51 Like, this is, is this a man who really believes the specificity of this? Is he expecting to see his wife arrive on a horse, the wife he has set fire to? At this point with the information that I have available to me
57:03 through the narrative secondhand telling of this, I can't say for certain. We have to take it at face value. This is what we're being told. Exactly. So I have my doubt. But we start to get maybe, no, I was going to say we start to get a little bit more clarity, but actually maybe we only get more questions once a trial becomes involved.
57:22 And we're going to take a break now. But when we come back, we'll get into some of the details of that trial. Anthony, nine people, including Michael, are charged with Bridget's death or offences related to the death. And of course, the Royal Irish constables that have been sent to find her, have found her body. and the coroner rules that inevitably she has died from burning. What does this trial look like and how does the legal system at the time make sense of this narrative that Joanna and others give? So those nine people are taken up, as you say. These are the people who are in the house.
58:10 Who are in the house. The jury has shown the body before burial. And remember in Ireland we like to bury those bodies officially relatively quickly. Is that unusual for the jury to be showing the body? Is that on the prosecution's side to really make sure it makes an impact? It's unusual given the time span because this has happened in the middle of March. We're now in April. So weeks have passed now.
58:38 I mean, it may sound speedy to us and it is relatively in terms of that coming to trial. But we're working in a slightly different system here. We're also working in a rural Irish system that's not necessarily jam-packed with murder cases. So this can come relatively quickly, but certainly within reason, Bridget would be in the ground almost a day or two after she had died if things had transpired normally. So it's unusual in that respect. I mean, certainly we know that in the 18th century, 17th century, bodies were, bodies thought to have been murdered were put on display. But we're talking within hours and days of the incident. This is weeks later now.
59:13 Okay. Anyway, they see the bodies, which is obviously very helpful in them seeing the extent of the violence that is meted out on her. The testimony that is key to this is Joanna's. And that's the testimony that we've been hearing throughout this. And it's testimony that's corroborated by, guess who, Joanna's brothers. Now we're talking about four brothers, by the way. Do you remember I mentioned, I've mentioned two of them before?
59:39 And now we have four standing trial. Now we have four Kennedy brothers. So we should say that five of the nine defendants, the nine people who are in that house, are charged with murder, including Michael, of course. No. Oh. Manslaughter. Manslaughter. And that is because the defence successfully, you could argue, uses the idea that he believed that his wife was a fairy, and in which case that distorted belief led him to unwittingly.
01:00:12 murder his wife. Unwittingly, doing a lot of her relifting. And Mr. Justice O'Brien said that this showed a moral and religious darkness in the mind, not just of one person, but of several. And so we have
01:00:28 those convictions, not of murder, but of manslaughter coming. And this is where I get severely suspicious because Fairy commutes this sentence from murder to manslaughter as far as I'm concerned. He ends up getting 20 years penal servitude, which is longer now than you get for manslaughter,
01:00:49 a murder charge now is 21 years, right, or something. And he then emigrates and has a whole other life in Canada. Oh, gosh. So if your name is Cleary and you live in Canada, start checking your family background. I don't know if he had a further family. But as well as Michael, we have seven others who are convicted. So I mean, so this is really interesting to me, right?
01:01:10 because in the version that we have from Joanna, actually, Michael is doing the murder. He does everything to bridge it himself. Sure. Other people are witnesses and help dispose of her remains. But the version that we have, and the quote that you gave from the judge, this idea that there's a darkness in the mind,
01:01:34 not just a one person, but of several, that this is some kind of community hysteria, this is some kind of, you know, rural folkloric belief gone astray. This is kind of folk horror territory of like these, you know, oh, these rural Irish people who they haven't been able to control themselves and they've got carried away kind of thing. The fact, that fact, the sort of framing of that as a communal activity and the fact that Michael is not convicted of murder,
01:02:04 it's, yes, it's this fair, this, this, sense of the fairies that has commuted that sentence, but also there's a sharing around of the blame there that I feel deeply uncomfortable with. Joanna has seen this man pin his wife to the floor and set fire to her, essentially. And Mary has. And Mary has.
01:02:23 And Joanna's four brothers. Yeah. And Michael and Paddy, Patrick Bowland has seen it too. Bridget, you're telling me Bridget's own father was there and didn't intervene. So I don't know the ins and outs here. but I ain't buying this story. You know what I mean? And I want to know the ins and outs.
01:02:45 And I think we've actually been, we've denied Bridget the ins and outs because we've, instead of actually prioritising what the crime is here, we have, and I don't just mean me and you, but I mean generations of Irish people and now people around the world
01:02:59 have actually made a subconscious decision to go, this story is more interesting if we really concentrate on the fairies and the fact that they believed fairies and blah, blah. I think what is missing from the version that we have are the details of the relationships
01:03:14 everyone in that house that night had with one another and that really it's not of course this is our conclusion inevitably but it's not the supernatural element that is of interest here or even useful I think even if that was Michael's belief
01:03:33 and the belief of other people present even if that was the case even if we take it at face value Michael really thought his wife had been taken by the fairies, if he did this, she'd come back to him. If we put that aside, what happened that night depends on the complicity of people, not just in terms of fairy belief, but in terms of allowing Michael to do that, allowing that to happen to Bridget. So what does the relationship with all those people look, with Bridget look like? presumably she is crying out for help in this moment. She is ill.
01:04:08 She is incapacitated anyway. She's weakened. She needs defending. That doesn't happen. And she has been up until the night of the murder, she has been isolated. She has been brutalized. She's been bullied. Someone has come and given her the last rights.
01:04:26 I mean, this is, if she, we don't know what illness she had. we don't know if it's a cold, if it's pneumonia, if it's, you know, actually, you know, something much more serious that she didn't realize she had and it just reached a fever pitch literally, you know, in that moment and maybe her, she was about to die of natural causes. We don't know. But I think the fact that the priest is called, what seems very early on in the story, it feels like there's a decision made within that community around Bridget that she is going to die one way or the other and that death has come to that house and when it doesn't happen naturally it is enacted by the people in it.
01:05:16 I think the human element here, the human motivations, the whether it, whether it is belief in something, whether I don't know, it's, there's so much missing. This is such a, I mean, such an angry. enraging history, but it's despicable. Of course it is. But it's also so frustrating with this historical distance and with the archive that we do have. And I think you're right that then there's a need
01:05:48 to go back to the primary material actually and really study this because that there is not enough information about the people in this house. There is ample opportunity within this narrative if we're receiving for Bridget to be saved. Can I give you, can I proffer a hypothesis based on nothing at all? But this is what I wonder if this didn't happen. Okay.
01:06:17 I don't wonder if Michael, the husband, killed his wife and nobody was there. He shared that detail with the Bolans, with Joanna's family who I want to know how close they live. I want to know what the, she's a cousin. So there's a reason for her to be in and around this area. He shares the detail with, oh, my wife was wayward. I ended up.
01:06:45 I did a terrible thing. I killed her. And then the family and the community self-polices and concocts something that they are going to say, we're going to have to explain why she's gone. And this is how we're going to do it for whatever purpose. Now, I know that, well, why would you go to Ferry? I know that doesn't make sense.
01:07:12 But maybe a solicitor introduces that as a potential way to save everybody. Because we also have a Boland who's now disposed of the body on the day of the murder. And so what, but also why if the Boland, are outraged by this as they supposedly are. Do they not offer up the location of the body the next day when supposedly the RIC are looking for her? It ain't adding up. And we become too blinded by the romanticism
01:07:46 of these fucking fairies. Yeah. That we were just like, oh, fairies. And this is what these people believed. Bullshit. And it's the confluence there of the quaint Irishness as we've been sold. certainly from an English point of view,
01:08:02 and then the dark horror of this and we're like, oh, interesting collision, that's fascinating. I, yes, all the way through this, I was thinking she is already dead before she's burned. I know the coroner says it's death by burning. Oh, I see what you mean, right? Yeah, yeah.
01:08:17 But I think there's a world in which she's dead before she's set on fire. Has she died of natural causes? I mean, unlikely because then why would they need to dispose her in that way? But, you know, she has been brutalized in the days before. She's been threatened with a red hot poker and all sorts of things. She's being forced to drink things.
01:08:35 She's being held down. Have they, have that she's been thrown to the floor? Has she been killed accidentally? And then this has been agreed upon that they will do this. I think there's some kind of agreement going on here. I... In the community like. Something I would like to know were we to set a modern police force to investigate this is
01:08:58 where does the burning actually take place? Is it in that house? Is it at the place of burial, in fact? Would the late 19th century police actually be able to tell that? Did they even ask or did they just take it? Yeah, exactly. Because do remember that the RIC were taken from the community, but at this time, this is after Land League,
01:09:20 they are the Royal Irish Constabulary, they are not a trusted unit within... Royal doing the clue there. Exactly. So there's a world in which this community doesn't feel in any way obliged to tell the RIC and therefore the legal system what has happened in their community in that cottage. Just this might be obvious to you, but a question, so thinking about when this goes to court and the justice who presides of this, the jury, the authorities that are dealing with this in the legal system, are they predominantly British? are they Irish? And where does the
01:10:01 in terms of it happening on the island of Ireland which it does where does that line lie at this particular moment in time? Yes and I suppose what I'm what my question is
01:10:11 is in terms of the fairy element of this is this put forward as a defence strategy because those in authority will buy it and go of course these rural bumpkins
01:10:24 believed this and of course course they did like we the the English or the civilized we don't believe yeah exactly the urban that all of that we we wouldn't believe this but of course they do so it's entirely plausible and has this is this narrative a way of covering up something real that has happened something far more insidious and that actually it is offered as a defense strategy clearly it works because Michael is not convicted of murder. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:11:00 That's what I mean. And I can't answer that question for you definitively, but I certainly have my suspicions about it. And maybe there's one thing to just finish on in terms of how, you know, Ireland, it's only what? The Easter rising is 1916. So, you know, we're talking 20 years later, and then independence comes 22.
01:11:21 So, you know, this is within the same generation that these events are involved. important is this case then in terms of the debate around Irish home rule, around getting the Brits out? Not directly but passively as in what you're saying like
01:11:37 well they can't be trusted to rule themselves. Look what they do if they're left to their own devices. But I want to highlight something that happened on TikTok recently which I think seems... That's not what I thought you'd say. No, I know, I know. And it's not related in one sense. But there was this this woman who was on Irish TV, a folklorist and she went on Irish TV
01:11:54 and she said, the position of women in pre-colonial Irish society was so lauded and so free and so liberated that that's one of the things that we lost when the British came over and they whatever else and there was a huge outcry of this going of course that's the case and whatever else and then there was a brilliant historian on TikTok
01:12:16 and I was watching this going I can't say a thing about this and there was a brilliant historian on TikTok Irish historian based in Ireland called Amy and she point by point dismantled the seven ways in which women could be oppressed in marriage alone in the ancient Irish, in the Celtic Irish traditions. And I think the idea of ancient belief systems are so often used in opposition to the idea of colonial oppression of which, of course, it was oppressive, it wasn't a good thing for Ireland, it didn't go well with us.
01:12:51 You're not taking away from that. No. No. But at the same time, those two narratives feed into each other in really oppositional ways. And it's not beyond Irish people to just default into using it when it's convenient to say that colonialism is bad. Or to say that actually within your legal system that you've set up for me, I might find a way out of this. I might have something to say because I'm altered in my belief system. And actually the whole community is somehow altered in this.
01:13:25 But at the same time, we have everyone else apart from Michael saying she's not a fairy Egypt, apparently. So are they more guilty than Michael is? Also, if we were to, sorry, and we're going to have to finish it because we're going on forever. But also, the only words we reportedly have of Bridgett's are, you think that I'm away with the fairies because your mother was reportedly away with the fairies. Does that hint at potential mental health or psychosis problems or something in Michael's family? Oh, I tell you what it does tell you is it's generational misogyny, the treatment of women seeing them as being away with the fairies rather than viewing them as potentially having some kind of like dealing with any kind of mental illness. But instead thinking these women are they're magical and uncanny and we can't understand them and they're a pain in the ass. But equally maybe Michael if his mother did have some kind of mental.
01:14:16 illness, maybe Michael does too. And he's a mad fucking egot and this is just what we're left with. So I don't, it actually angers me that we smoke screened this in this. And I think Irish people have done that by the way. You know, I really do. And I just wonder how deliberate. And that's why that smoke screening has been. And I really do want and feel really compelled to go back into those original sources
01:14:39 because we rely too much on this 1999 book, I think. And I don't know enough about it to really pick it apart. And I'm not saying it doesn't. deserves to be picked apart, but it needs to be questioned because this doesn't add up. That will be your next book. It can't be, but I think I should look in. If I don't, somebody should, because surely to God that woman deserves some bit of clarity around what's gone on here. It's absolutely, this is batshit.
01:15:07 It's a really unsatisfying history. There are just too many questions left and answered. and there's a woman at the centre of it who's been utterly destroyed physically and in historical terms. She's been erased from the world in every meaningful way. And a version of events has been put in her place
01:15:34 that isn't satisfactory, that doesn't hold up to scrutiny that leaves a lot of questions. Thank you for sharing this with me though. It's a, I think, you know, you mentioned at the top of this episode, that it's a history that's very familiar to people in Ireland. And I think it's certainly famous outside of Ireland, but it's not a story that I knew the details of.
01:15:58 I feel angry. Yeah. And I will say every retelling of this now is very much like, oh my God, poor Bridget. Like this is term. Everything doesn't. Nobody's saying anything beyond that in their retelling. I'm not the first person to be like, I'm outraged.
01:16:12 by this. Everyone's outraged by this. But I just think we've relied too much on the smoke screen and we've settled into the smoke screen way too much and accepted it as because it's uncannily appealing, but I don't find it appealing. And I think the reaction you're having is that you don't find it appealing. It's a good story. Yeah. But it's not the whole truth. Yeah. I just we're either sophisticated thinkers in a modern world or were fiddly eye okay I don't know things aren't that easily black and white but like come on it's I'm not buying it
01:16:48 Maddie finished this episode before I get myself into trouble with everyone in Ireland well if you want to hear more Irish history if you want to hear more about actually Irish stories around the folklore around fairies no I don't want to do it But the extent of it, how it might pervade into historical moments, what impact it might have had. I would be interested to explore this is a question a little bit more. You can get in touch with us at afterdarkathistryhit.com.
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