The Burning Of Brigit Cleary

Front 1

Intro – Points

Back 1

1. The story
2. Fairy legends
3. General summary
4. Thesis

Front 2

The story of bridget cleary

Back 2

1. March, 1895 – Bridget was 26
2. Husband, Michael Cleary killed her, claiming she was a fairy changeling and not his wife
3. He was found several days later by a fairy fort Kylenagranagh supposedly waiting for her to come out
4. Rather than being charged with murder, simply charged with manslaughter (Bourke)

Front 3

Fairy Legends in daily life, outline

Back 3

1. By that time, most of the middle class adhered to more traditional Catholicism, according to Angela Bourke
2. Knowledge of the area – very much associated with their locality (Bourke)
3. Forts are small hills, circular forms in the earth
4. And those who believe in the forts believe that the fairies will take away normal, healthy people to these forts and replace them with sickly, cranky or otherwise disagreeable changelings (Bourke)

Front 4

Details about the middle class adhering more to traditional catholicism

Back 4

1. Seeking to distance selves from fairy legends in order to gain respectability for home rule (Bourke)
2. But that said, many of the lower classes still believed (Bourke)

Front 5

Details about fairy knowledge of the area

Back 5

1. Very much associated with their locality
2. In this case they had the Kylenagranagh fort
3. Oral knowledge – not written down – so told just coming out of conversation, as absolute fact with real people and locality
4. Some people try to distance themselves from them, others tell as absolute fact

Front 6

Details about changelings

Back 6

1. People taken are generally women and children
2. If they are returned, they are generally changed in some way

Front 7

General summary of the Bridget Cleary case

Back 7

1. May have been a straight up murder… but if that’s the case, then even so public response was mediated by fairy legends
2. And even if Michael Cleary himself was again, just murdering his wife, the fact that people present didn’t say anything even though disturbed speaks volumes
>> “Although some people present found it disturbing, they did nothing to stop it”
2. And/or his method of murder was informed by traditional fairy-removal methods
4. May have actually been an extreme action by a man who believed in fairy legends
5. And at the very least fairy legends provided a narrative that would be seriously considered given how integral these beliefs were to society

Front 8

Bridget Cleary Thesis

Back 8

Whether directly or indirectly, the story telling tradition influenced both the events and the aftermath of the Bridget Cleary Story

Front 9

The Event Itself – points to make

Back 9

1. Direct – The actions themselves were based in fairy tradition
2. Direct – Using the tradition as a metaphor
3. Indirectly – Bridget may have used this idea to taunt Michael

Front 10

The actions themselves being based in fairy tradition – outline

Back 10

1. The excuse: calling her a changeling
2. The treatment

Front 11

Based in fairy tradition – the excuse – details

Back 11

1. Neighbors and family said they saw her being carried away on a white horse and that she’d said that she would return at the Kylenagranagh fairy fort on the same white horse in a few days tims (Bourke)
2. Perhaps under pressure from neighbor John Dunne, called a doctor to ask what was wrong with her

Front 12

Based in fairy tradition – the treatment – details

Back 12

Included...
1. Pouring Urine on her
2. Force feeding her milk with herbs in it
3. Touching her with a hot poker
4. Ultimately lighting her on fire

Front 13

Using the tradition as a metaphor – outline

Back 13

1. By Bridget
2. By Others

Front 14

Using the tradition as a metaphor – by bridget – details

Back 14

1. She may have claimed to have been going with the fairies (Bourke)
2. Perhaps a way of asserting her independence or escaping a violent relationship (Bourke)

Front 15

Using the tradition as a metaphor – by others – details

Back 15

1. May have ben a metaphor for the fact that she may have been diagnosed with tuberculosis – stigmatizing disease, like AIDS today (Bourke)
2. In this case the tradition blurs between whether it is a euphemism or actually being used as an excuse
3. Was common practice in those days to legitimately blame bad situations on the fairies (Bourke)
4. She may have been having an affair herself, which he tried to justify by saying she was a changeling (Bourke)
5. Which ties into the fact that Bridget may have used this idea to taunt michael

Front 16

Bridget using the idea of being "gone with the fairies" to taunt michael – details

Back 16

1. “Going with the fairies” may have been used as an excuse for things like depression, unfaithfulness or neglect.
2. This may have been the case with Michael’s mom, and so Bridget was taunting him with the fact that that was her excuse for whatever she was doing
3. And this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back – she had gone too far

Front 17

The aftermath – outline

Back 17

1. Directly: Perception of the case
2. Indirectly: Newspapers
3. Ultimate result

Front 18

Perception of the case – details

Back 18

1. Attribution to fairy legends made people view it more as a representation of a romantic Irish past – sort of mysterious, misty, full of legend (Burke) (use of ame Erin instead of Ireland, for example)
2. Yeates, and others, big proponents of this “romantic celticism”
3. And then there were local people who actually did believe that this was what had happened and told people the story of how she had been carried away and would emerge on a white horse at the Kylenagranagh fort
4. This may have influenced the outcome of the case
5. Used to make Bridget Cleary seem like a helpless woman – something of a damsel in distress

Front 19

Newspapers – details

Back 19

1. Used talk of fairy legends to achieve an end of some kind
2. When Bridget Cleary first went missing, The Clonmel Chronicle reported that local people were willing to believe that she had “gone with the fairies” (Burke).
3. The Nationalist, representing the emerging Catholic middle class, striving for home rule, used this as an opportunity to affirm that their readership did not believe in such stories and so made themselves seem more sophisticated and less stereotypically backward (Burke)
4. The timeliness of this case meant that it was heard far beyond its community and became a dialogue of gender and social relations in Ireland

Front 20

Ultimate result – details

Back 20

1. Use as a defense, however shaky may have been what kept Michael from hanging
2. But also made everybody involved look perhaps even worse because not only were they torturing a helpless woman, but also they were blaming it on what seemed like outdated superstitions and so everybody blamed them for making the whole country look bad