The Burning of Bridget Cleary - Softcover

Bourke, Angela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844139344 ISBN 13: 9781844139347

Publisher: Pimlico, 2006

Synopsis

The sensational story of the disappearance of a young woman from her home in rural Tipperary in 1895 and the discovery of her body in a shallow grave, burned and tortured. In this lurid incident, we witness the collision of town and country, of superstition and skepticism.

About this title

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

About the Author

Angela Bourke is the author of By Salt Water and Maeve Brennan: Homesick at the New Yorker. Born in Dublin, where she still lives, she has spent long periods in the USA, and has held visiting academic positions at Harvard University, Boston College and the University of Minnesota. A leading scholar in interdisciplinary Irish Studies, Angela Bourke writes in Irish and English, and makes frequent appearances on television and radio. She is Senior Lecturer in Irish at University College Dublin, The National University of Ireland, Dublin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1844139344
• ISBN 13: 9781844139347
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256