The Cooper's Wife Is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary

By Marian Yeates, Joan Hoff, Alex Brown, et al.

Book Overview

On March 15, 1895, twenty-eight year old Bridget Cleary, a cooper's wife, disappeared from her cottage in rural County Tipperary. Immediately, strange and lurid rumors began circulating the neighborhood about what had happened. Some said she ran off with an egg seller; others supposed it was an aristocratic foxhunter who had taken young Bridget away. Swirling amid rumors was the barely whispered, but widely held, belief that Bridget had gone with no mortal man; rather, she had gone off with the fairies. The mystery deepened when seven days later her body was discovered, bent, broken and badly burned in a shallow grave. Within a few days, the unimaginable truth came to light: for almost a week before her death Bridget had been confined, ritually starved, threatened, physically and verbally abused, exorcised, and, finally, burned to death by her husband, Michael Cleary, her father, and extended family who confused bronchitis with a "fairy dart." They had all become convinced that "their Bridgie" had been taken from them and her fairy-possessed body left behind to deceive them. In The Cooper's Wife Is Missing, Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates make sense of this ancient, rarely publicized, ritual exorcism and explain how the incident went on to become a national and international incident. Set against a backdrop of renewed Irish nationalism, a Church crackdown on lingering pagan practices and the ongoing British humiliation of Catholic Ireland, the authors deftly map the dislocating anxieties that beset the rural peasantry in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Bewildered and frightened by the changes occurring all around them, pulled in all directions by their politicians, priests, landlords and English overlords, the Clearys were not alone in retreating to the relative comfort of pagan ritual. Drawing on first-hand accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, police records, trial testimony and a rich wealth of folklore, the authors weave a mesmerizing tale that touches upon magic, madness and mystery as it details, day by day, Bridget's ordeal and the resulting investigation. This is narrative history at its evocative best. It fascinates as it illuminates.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465030882
• ISBN13: 9780465030880
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The cooper's Wife is Missing: the Trials of Bridget Cleary.

The authors have set within a macrocosmic perspective of Irish history and politics; a microcosmic insight into the lives, beliefs and actions of a small community in late 19th century rural Ireland. Occasionally, but not often, the "blame the Protestant British" mentality beloved of some writers on Ireland brushed against the bias of this Protestant Irish Australian reader. Generally though, the authors are even handed in their assessment of events and do not push any one of the idiological elements that impinged on these troubling events in County Tipperary.

A Molehill Becomes A Mountain

In 1895 a relatively unimportant incident occurred in a rural part of Ireland that literally was used by the British to overstate the superstitions and backwardness of the the Irish nation thus depriving the Irish of any possibility of Home Rule at that time. Bridgit Cleary, the wife of a barrel maker was suspected by her friends and relatives of "conversing" with the fairies. Many of the rural people somewhat believed in spirits and thought that the fairies convened in a wood near the Cleary "residence". When Bridgit returns one night and does not look herself, they suspect she has been possessed by the fairies and is a changeling. Various herbs are tried in an attempt to "exorcise" Bridgit. When these fail the last resort is fire and Bridgit is held into the fireplace. She expires and all those present at the "exorcism" are put on trial. Indirectly, the Catholic Church is also "on trial" being held responsible for the superstitious nature of the Irish population. The whole experience becomes somewhat of an international news item propagated by the British for the aforementioned purpose. The group is found guilty and given various sentences. The most severe, ten years in prision, is placed on her husbandThis book is a wonderful review of the Irish struggle for independence. Irish patriots and sympathetic British statesman are depicted. The harshness of the British during famines is also underlined. On the lighter site, several fanciful tales regarding the faries are related. At the back of the book there is a very complete set of notes for anyone wishing to pursue topics in greater detail

The Cooper's Wife and the Whole of Ireland in 1895

The essential story is the one about the cooper's wife, one Bridget Cleary to give the woman her due, and her murder at the hands of her husband and relatives. Her death occurred at a "fairy trial" when she was suspected of being a changeling and no longer the woman Bridget Cleary. It ended in her death by burning and charges being brought against all the (Catholic) peasants present.The bigger story presented throughout this book is the story of Ireland at this point in time. The reader will learn much about Celtic folklore, the power of religion in people's lives, and, most importantly, the struggle for Irish nationalism that effected everyone's lives. Sometimes the side stories may seem forced onto Bridget Cleary's own narrative but it all still provides for an interesting hodgepodge of Irish history. A winding and long road of a read but always interesting.

good readin'

well written account of a murder ain the tun of the century ireland. tells not only of the murder but also of the history of the period. really interesting insight into rural ireland and the belief in fairies. a very good read.