Rating: 
Summary: Fascintating Comparison of Folk Religion and Modern Thought
Review: A wonderful book and incredibly fascinating 'mystery' of sorts. The Burning of Bridget Cleary is a master piece. Narrative being the writing medium Bourke used is acutally quite ironic, being that her book discusses the topic of narratives and their traditions in Irish Folklore. She made quite an interesting comparison between the 'old world' folk religion and the modern way of thinking in the late 19th century. A "murder" trial, according to British authority, but a "cure" to those who believed Bridget was 'with the fairies.' A very interesting arguement she makes, that no one is really innocent and no is really guilty. It also interestingly ties in other contemporary Irish history of the late 1800s: the Land Bill and the fight for Home Rule. An absolutely fascinating read! I would recommend it to anyone, especially those who love Irish History.
Rating: 
Summary: A doctoral thesis becomes a true-crime book...
Review: Angela Bourke admits in her "Acknowledgements" section of "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" that this book started out as doctoral thesis on "Fairy Culture". It shows. It also becomes a wearisome theme throughout what could have been an enlightening discussion of culture clashes in colonial countries.Bridget Cleary was an Irishwoman in her 20's, better educated than many, who was burned to death by her husband & family members after an illness lasting approximately 10 days. These facts are irrefutable. Unfortunately, Angela Bourke spends too much time extrapolating motivations, inner lives, & relationships from 3 generation-old gossip & her own theories as to the role of "Fairy Culture" in Irish rural life. According to Bourke, "Fairy Culture" was a system of metaphors & symbols used in a non-literate culture to communicate accepted behaviors & mores to listeners. What Bourke fails to take into account is that historically, Ireland was literate long before England was & continued to be the repository of written culture for both England & the Church until the 11th Century. Ireland's monasteries & teaching centers were considered some of the most learned in Europe thru most of the Dark & Middle Ages. Additionally, she ignores anthropological data that indicates legends of fairys were garbled memories of how the original inhabitants of England, Scotland & Ireland retreated when waves of invaders with more advanced technology (ie iron) invaded their homelands. They were pushed to the margins of inhabitable land, forced to hide during daylight, beg & steal for subsistance & generally do what they could to make life miserable for the usurpers (the Celts). Fairies did not start out as archetypical figures of the unconscious, but rather as historical, conquered people trying to survive in a colonized land, just as the Celts had to when the British came. Besides her long-winded improbable theories as to culture, Bourke also makes some astounding leaps of faith in describing Bridget Cleary herself. From the fact that Bridget was trained as a "milliner/dressmaker" & had apprenticed in the 3rd largest town in Ireland, could read & liked to dress well, the author makes the assumption that Cleary was a strong-willed independant modern woman who constantly ignored her husband's wishes & was carrying on an affair with a neighbor. There is absolutely no proof for these assumptions in any contemporary testimony; Bourke claims to have talked to locals whose grandparents remembered the events depicted. This seems a rather frail foundation on which to base a series of assumptions & claims. When "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" sticks to the documented facts of what daily life in rural Ireland was like for both the Irish & the British administrators it is fascinating. As a courtroom drama dealing with an early media sensation & class prejudices it is a telling bit of sociological history. It is when the author decides to be a detective into the hearts & minds of people long dead that it falls apart miserably.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant book for the dedicated
Review: Angela Bourke has given the world a meticulously researched, exhaustively detailed account of an event in Irish history that illuminated the state of Irish society at that time. Bourke takes the event of Bridget Cleary's awful death and the circumstances surrounding it and connects it with folk beliefs in Ireland and prevailing political and social climates of the time. Subjects as diverse as the English attitude towards the Irish, women's relatively independent position in Irish society, and the role of mythology in Irish life are explored in brilliant detail. This book is a pleasure to read for those truly interested in Irish culture, and introduces a number of excellent insights and historical tidbits. (My favorite was learning where the term 'hen' in reference to women came from.) A must read for those interested in Irish studies, as well as those involved in womens studies. If you are looking for a prurient murder story this isn't it-it is much richer. An interesting note to take is the difference between the Irish and American editions-the Irish cover features a picture of the house the murder took place in, and the man who committed it. The American cover has a beautiful young woman in a revealing nightgown...
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Its Focus
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Fascintating Comparison of Folk Religion and Modern Thought
Review: In 1895, 26-year-old Bridget Cleary, who had caught cold and had a severe headache, took to her bed where she lived with her husband and her father in a cottage in rural Tipperary. A local doctor concluded that she had bronchitis. Her husband (Michael Cleary) however, goaded by a so-called "faerie doctor", believed something different.1 What he actually believed, as noted in newspapers of the time, tends to fluctuate between thinking she was a witch or thinking she had been kidnapped by faeries who had left a changeling in her place. In any case, he thought she was possessed.2 Convinced that a doctor's medicine was not curing her, he again took the advice of the faerie doctor and obtained herbs to banish the faeries and bring back his real wife. Then Michael Cleary, aided by several relatives, forced Bridget to swallow herbs that had been boiled in "new" milk (the first milk a cow produces after calving) and, while holding her over the kitchen fire, demanded that she confirm she was indeed Bridget Cleary. She was also was subjected to all sorts of other torture purportedly to banish the faeries, including having male urine thrown on her and having the group twisting her body to make the faeries leave it. Despite the abuse, Bridget had recovered sufficiently the next night after the herbal treatment to dress and sit in the kitchen and talk with a large group of relatives and neighbours. But her husband wasn't satisfied, and after not receiving the answers and compliance he expected from her, he flew into a rage and stripped her of her clothing, knocked her to the floor, covered her in paraffin oil and allowed her to burn to death while eight relatives - six men and two women - watched. Some of them remonstrated with the husband, who insisted that it was not his wife who was burning but a witch, whom he confidently expected to disappear up the chimney. When it became known that Bridget had 'gone missing', the relatives corroborated the husband's story, which was that Bridget had simply walked out the door and 'gone to the faeries.' Michael Cleary was seen for several nights at a local faerie mound, Kylenagranagh, weeping and supposedly waiting for Bridget to come back.3,4 However, on March 22, the police found Bridget Cleary's badly burned body buried eighteen inches under the ground in a swampy field a quarter of a mile from the Cleary cottage. Michael, Bridget's father, aunt and four cousins were arrested. Jack Dunne, the faerie doctor, would also later be arrested. ======
Footnotes: 1 Faerie doctors were humans purportedly endowed with powers of divination and healing from the faeries. 2 According to the kind of stories often told at firesides and wakes, certain illnesses were supposed to be the work of the faeries, who could abduct a healthy young person and leave a sickly changeling instead: herbal medicines and ordeals by fire were both said to be ways of banishing such a changeling. 3 Irish faerie legends say that a husband could get his wife back from the faeries if he ventured out to a fairy gathering place on a particular night and cut the cords tying his wife to a white horse there. 4 A faerie ring (also called a r??th, rusheen or s??d) is a mound of earth, often surrounded by rings of earth (ringforts or faerie forts) constructed in ancient times, most likely as dwellings or possibly for ceremonial purposes. Even to this day, they are regarded with superstition and many farmers will not plough over them.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but could have been much better
Review: In 1895, the United Kingdom was rocked by a news story out rural Tipperary, Ireland. On Friday, March 15, a woman was cruelly murdered by her husband, thinking that she was a changeling: a fairy exchanged for his real wife. How could such a thing happen in civilized Europe, on the cusp of the Twentieth century? In this book, Professor Angela Bourke, an expert on Irish oral tradition and literature, sets out to examine that murder. This book seems to fall naturally into two parts. In the first part, Prof. Bourke explains elements of the Irish fairy faith and folk beliefs. Then, using testimony given before and during the trial, she goes step-by-step through the occurrences of the nights in question, including what the participants probably thought, and why they did what they did. This part of the book is excellently laid out, is informative, concise, and gives a deep understanding of what happened. The second part of the book sets out to detail what happened during the trial and immediately afterward, and what it meant. Unfortunately, this part of the book seems to wander from subject to subject without any sort of organization. The author intended to discuss this trial and the Oscar Wilde vs. Marquis of Queensbury/homosexuality trial, and then link them to the defeat of Home Rule for Ireland at the end of the Nineteenth century. Sadly, though the three subjects are discussed, no linkage is ever demonstrated. So, let me suggest that this book is a mixture of good writing and bad. If you are interested in this subject, and no better book is available, I would still recommend you obtain this book. I truly enjoyed the first part of this book, and will probably be haunted by what happened to Bridget Cleary for a long time. [An excellent book on the Victorian fairy faith is Strange and Secret People by Carole G. Silver. I recommend that book highly.]
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating story
Review: In early March 1895 in Tipperary, Ireland, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary catches a nasty cold and is bed ridden from her illness. Not to long after becoming ill, Bridget disappears without a trace. Most of the townsfolk in this isolated, rural village believe that the fairies claimed Bridget as one of their own. The few that did not believe that felt that something possessed Bridget's body and that the real Bridget would soon reappear. Amidst all this superstition, the real Bridget lies in a grave, having been burned to death by her husband, Michael and nine of his friends and neighbors. All ten of them strongly felt a demon had taken control of Bridget's body. Michael is arrested for killing his wife and ultimately sentenced to twenty years in prison. THE BURNING OF BRIDGET CLEARY is an excellent taut recounting of a real event that shook Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century. Spin doctors in England and Ireland used the brutal murder and the superstitious beliefs of the co-conspirators to political advantage in the debate over a free Ireland. Showing a deft touch for historiography, author Angela Bourke provides a nineteenth century look into why a village killed one of their own and how that seemingly remote case impacted twentieth century events in Ireland and England. This non-fictional book is worth reading by fans of historical novels as well as those readers who enjoy a real chronicled event. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Lost Its Focus
Review: My guess is that this book was birthed by sheer accident. Angela Bourke, rummaging around for material to examine in her explorations of Irish folk mythology and life ways, stumbled upon a particularly gruesome domestic homicide committed in a small Irish village in the 1890s. At this point, she was confronted with a dilemma -- set aside the story of Bridget Cleary to focus on more pertinent research into folk myth of the era or set aside her scholarly research and write a straightforward account of Bridget's life and death? Unluckily for the reader, Bourke declined to do either and instead cobbled together this slim and ungainly volume.
She deploys one of the more annoying rhetorical devices in any scholar's repertoire -- repeated assertion, the notion that if she states that something is so enough times, then it will be so. This is exactly how she storms the mountain to plant her thesis -- Bridget Cleary died because her neighbors and husband were a bunch of superstitious louts -- victoriously at its crest. Fortunately, she also provides the narrative evidence that shows she herself knows what weak ground she's standing on. She can't tell the story of Cleary's murder in one coherent narrative, because if she did, it would clearly be seen for what it was -- a vicious assault by an enraged spouse motivated not by fear that his wife was ensorceled (sorry, couldn't resist) by the wee folk, but by resentment of her unwillingness to subordinate herself to him.
So, instead we get a book where the sad, horrifying, hair-raising death of Bridget Cleary is parceled out in thin slices wrapped with copious amounts of Bourkean analysis of what folk legends poor, rural Irish Catholics believed near the turn of the 20th Century (my guess, judging from my own family's experience, is that the primary belief among these desperate souls was they were better off getting the ... out of Ireland). And despite her obvious attempts to show compassion and understanding for the principal characters in her story, she still comes off sounding as smug and dismissive of the Irish Catholic peasantry as the English Protestants who ran the island at the time.
Paradoxically, I'd say read the book for nothing more than the fact that it will remind you how combustible and deadly domestic violence can be. You might want to pass over the shamrocks and fairy rings, though. They provide an interminable and lamentable distraction to an otherwise powerful tragedy.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't miss the point!
Review: This book is titled "The Burning of Bridget Cleary," and does recount the infamous case in 1895 Ireland where the cooper's wife falls ill and disappers, later to be found burned to death by husband and family. While this book does recount the crime itself in gruesome detail, it is not a book about crime. We must not forget the blurb on the back flap of the jacket to the book "About the Author." Ms. Bourke is a senior lecturer on Irish oral tradition and Irish Literature. This book is about the changing culture in Ireland during this time and how that produced the burning of Bridget Cleary. Namely, this changing culture is the conflict of traditional Irish oral culture and the English (and other western) rational culture defined by the written word. The treasure in this book is the author's cultural commentary and how this conflict sculpts those involved in this specific crime, and by extension, the modern Irishman and woman of the time. Using the Bridget Cleary case, Bourke provides insight into the larger cultural crisis occuring at the turn of the last century. The outcome of this case was a step in the process of reconciling the two world views to create the modern Irish culture and identity. This book will be mediocre if you are interested in the details of the criminal case and criminal analysis, the latter of which is mostly lacking. However, if you are interested in the wider picture of Irish identity, history of daily living in Irish or other cultures, or the history of thought and worldviews, this book provides a wonderful microcosm and is well worth your time to check out.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Research and Reconstruction
Review: This is a very well-written book. It involves an actual case of the burning of a young Irish woman in an attempt to drive out "fairies". Bourke has researched the lives of the principles and reconstructed the events conscientiously. This is an interesting view of another culture in another era (1895 Ireland). Worth reading, but in the end there is no way the author can get to the bottom of the motivations of those involved. In the end you may be left a little disappointed by this aspect of the story.
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