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Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
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Travis fell in love with the perfect woman beautiful, understanding available 24 -7 there was just one catch she wasn't human binge all episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad -free right now on Wondery Plus Hey weirdos I'm Alina I'm Ash and this is Morbid you sounded morose I don't know why I'm not morose but it was also like I don't know it's kind of happy at the same time it was I I'm pretty neutral right now all right so maybe it was like half happy half morose and that's that makes a neutral yeah like I went into this I think like like in a pretty happy mood and then i looked back over this case
and i said oh it's gonna be a rough one oh yeah that'll happen on this show called morbid yeah this one's a little different today though okay so i'm going i this is shocking and very out of character of me but we're going back to the 1800s that's not different um i love to be there i just do be at the 1800s or b square yeah honestly that's what i always say nana's motto yeah i'm gonna get that tattooed on me but today we're gonna talk about the really really really brutal and awful murder of bridget cleary oh um this has to do with like folklore and fairy okay folklore in particular that's kind
of cool which sounds like it's gonna be like fun and whimsical and that like something will go awry eye and that's where it will get bad but really the whole thing just goes awry there's no whimsy involved in this at all that's a bummer yeah I thought there would be when I went into it but nope there's no whims but you know what we're gonna get through it together because this is a rough one and it's an important one to tell because Bridget Cleary was like a badass lady she was like she was like outside of the norm she was like very successful and independent like she She didn't need her man.
She didn't need any of that.
And that's why they killed her.
It was a problem. Yeah, exactly.
But I think this story gets twisted a lot to like be something it's not.
And it's like, no, I think like, I think she was just too badass for everybody.
But this is a story, like I said, of a truly heinous and senseless act of brutality and eventually murder.
But again, full of fairies and fae folk and magic at the same time, but none of it is whimsical.
Damn it. Rollercoaster ride.
So, the question here is, was Bridget Cleary really murdered out of fear of witches, fairies, or other, you know, fantasy monsters?
No. Or did her husband simply convince himself of this in order to commit murder for a more mundane reason, would you say?
Yes. Yes. I don't know anything about this yet, but already.
I was going to say, I don't have the information, but I like your answer.
Yeah. So, let's talk about Bridget first. first bridget boland was born in and i'm gonna do i've looked up these pronunciations because irish towns are hoo boy beautiful beautiful sounding but they don't sound the way they look yeah uh so she was born in ballyvedely okay county tipperary okay i'm so sorry everybody she tried this is like my ancestral background but i don't know what to do uh she was born Born on February 19th, 1869.
A Pisces. There you go.
She was the youngest born to Patrick Boland and Bridget Keating.
I want you to remember their names, especially Patrick Boland.
Does that sound familiar or no?
No, just remember the name.
Got it. Baby Bridget.
She grew up in an extremely rural Irish village.
You said rural good.
I did. Rural juror.
I was able to say it.
Yes. Yes. Ballyvaidley was only a little under 300 acres, which in the late 19th century had just nine houses and had a population of 31 people.
Wow, that's different.
A little rural, I would say.
Sadly, this was actually around a quarter of what it had been before the famine of 1845 to 49.
Now, given the time period in the very rural environment, I keep saying it right.
Look at you. So I'm going to keep saying it.
it's really hard to say in my opinion little is known about Bridget's family or her early life you know like we can only get so much from it everyone was focused on the potato of it all yeah exactly but according to Angela Bork who wrote the book The Burning of Bridget Cleary oh yeah a true story that's a little spoiler alert for you I guess so but it's a I recommend that book it's fascinating um she claims that the family lived in a tiny wood mud -walled thatched cabin across the street from patrick boland's sister mary kennedy okay remember that name too that is bridget's aunt um as the youngest
in the family bork notes that bridget was more likely to be indulged with education than her brothers were um because they were they kind of had to be relied upon to be help with like the farming with all the tasks of the day you know the manly stuff yeah so it's really it's likely that she was the only one in her family with strong reading and writing skills which was also kind of different for women at the time 100 and as she grew older her education would come to include again what were considered women's skills of the time like embroidery needlework the really important things but at the time
they were important because that's That's how she could make a living.
Because as an adult, she made her income as a milliner, which she made hats for women.
Oh, cool. There's also sources that say she was, call her a seamstress, but I think it was probably around the same kind of thing.
She was making, fixing, and creating clothing and hats and all that good stuff.
She was a multifaceted girly.
Exactly. And not only that, she's a young adult now.
She would use some of her income to send her father to help with his expenses.
yeah so she was out here making her own money through her own educational skills and sending that money to her father wow independent lady uh but and the timeline and the reasons are unclear but by the time she reached her late teens or early 20s um bridget's mother had passed away and some of her siblings a lot of them actually had either died or emigrated in search of work so she was kind of i don't know how her mother died but um she was kind of left with her father and they were really the only remaining members of the family in that area oh wow that's yeah it was really sad it just kind of like
family just dispersed in different ways now despite being very successful as a seamstress slash milliner people in the area often spoke of bridget being quote a bit queer which means she didn't fit in okay because you know they they basically kind of thought she seemed a little superior superior she was like knew more than them she was just confident i mean it still happens today yep like if you have any kind of confidence you're just a bitch like that's the way it is especially when it comes to being a woman exactly um she also had like an immodest style of attire a lot of the kind of modest
like yeah so she was she wasn't wearing the like up to the chin stuff she was letting the she said check out my deck she might have just been letting the tits flow free i don't know free the titty baby but either way she was she was very Very much set apart from the typical Irish country woman attire of the time.
Eh, fuck it. So I'm sure some people were like, bad bitch alert.
And then some people were like, she's a bit queer.
It was probably the women that were like, put your tits away.
I don't want my husband to see.
Exactly. And it's like, blame him.
Don't blame her. But in simpler terms, Bridget's success as a seamstress slash milliner and a merchant at that point already set her apart from her, at the time, very poor and rural neighbors.
right um but her difference was kind of underscored by the fact that she also was very open about her success like she was proud of herself oh so people hated that yeah people and again even now people want you to minimize it so it's like she's if she was out here today being like yeah i'm a badass like business lady i made this i made this damn dress look at it everybody's wearing it like people would be like calm down don't be so oh no finish oh no i was just going gonna say like don't be so you know don't don't be so outward with your success don't be so boss bitch it makes me think of the doja cat song
i'm a bitch i'm a boss oh there you go bitch and a boss that's bridgette to be quite honest triple b yeah boss bitch bridgette there you go i like it i like it um but she was brought up on a farm she was brought up in a rural area so she had like a good relationship with that part of her life as well she didn't totally neglect it she She didn't leave it behind.
She didn't pretend it wasn't part of her daily life because it was.
She was known to have kept chickens and she ended up supplementing her own income by selling eggs at the market.
She was a businesswoman.
She really was. She was just looking to make income any way she can.
Like you had to. Yeah.
So she was working as an apprentice at the market in the nearby town of Klonmel.
I think it is Klonmel.
This is when Bridget met her future husband, Michael Cleary.
I don't like him. He was a local cooper.
Cooper and nearly 10 years older than her.
He was already yeah so he was already established as a tradesman and they began you know courting each other I suppose and they ended up marrying like a short time later because you know 1800s of it all.
Yeah courting was like five minutes and you're like hey we should get married.
Yeah you know why not.
Let's have a kid. Now in hindsight people looked back at this relationship and were like they were a little of a strange pairing.
Like it didn't make a lot of sense.
Yeah it didn't make a lot of sense not Not just because of the age gap, which wasn't that big of a deal back then.
Right. It was, and, you know, depending on the age grouping, it's always like different.
Yeah, yeah. But I think they just didn't match. Like it didn't seem like he was very, he was very like understated.
He was very quiet. Modest. Very modest. And she was kind of the total opposite, which you could say could be like a nice balance and maybe it would work.
But maybe not back then.
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This also didn't really help Bridget's whole, like, she's a bit queer thing, you know?
Like, people would look at her and be like, and they were like, oh, and this is weird too, that she's doing this.
Like a stark contrast too, so it showed off her differences even more.
And then the way they went about things in their relationship, which shouldn't be anybody else's business, to be quite honest. She knows out of my beeswax.
Again, there's only like 30 people in this town, so it's everyone's business apparently.
Also, what the hell else are you going to do?
I'm not going to lie.
That's the thing. What are you going to do?
I'll probably be in their business.
Oh, I am up in their business right now.
So like I can't say anything, but I'm like at the time, I'm like, guys, come on.
Yeah, settle down. I'm being weird about Bridget.
But what happened? But they're married now.
Yeah. Yeah. And Bridget and Michael spent the first few years of their lives not living together.
That's a little weird, but like, whatever.
Like, whatever works for them.
Who am I to say what works in your damn relationship, you know?
Like, I'm like, whatever.
And, you know, Michael would, she lived at her parents' house with her father, and he would visit her on the weekends, like, stay at the house on the weekends.
So I don't know if it was, like, a work thing or if it was going to be traveling.
I was going to say, did he use traveling?
Right. Who knows? But Angela Bork, who I just named that book that everybody should read, said in those those days it was definitely because I was like I don't know was that not weird back then I don't know what was weird back then but it was unusual for them to live apart from each other like that wasn't an unusual thing yeah especially if they were relatively financially stable which they were so they were like I don't she's like I don't really know what that was about um but she says that Bridget may have had to nurse her mother at the time before she had passed away because we We don't know
the timeline of her death exactly.
It gets put into different years.
So this could have been during this beginning of their marriage, could have been when she was dealing with her sick mother.
And that makes sense that she wouldn't want to move out in the midst of that.
Yeah, it would make a lot of sense.
At the beginning, she just wants to stay in the house.
He's going to visit.
She's going to take care of her mom until she eventually died, which we don't know when.
But again, while it's entirely possible that there's a very simple and normal explanation for this, Rumors, of course, went quickly through the small town.
What else are you going to do?
Yeah, exactly. And there were many people who would later speculate that Michael had been having an affair with Bridget's cousin, Joanna Burke.
Damn. All of these names are going to come back later, by the way.
So they definitely had an affair is what you're telling me.
So there was that. And in court later, he would vehemently deny having any type of relationship with Joanna.
Yeah, I bet he would.
You know, we don't know.
But there were also rumors that Bridget was not exactly— Faithful.
Faithful to her husband.
In the weeks and months after her death, many locals said that they believed that she was involved with a local emergency man named William Simpson.
Well, he sounds more exciting, so how about that?
You know, it did sound exciting, but I looked it up.
Blomp, blomp. Apparently, an emergency man is a guy called in by farmers to help save dying crops.
Exciting. So exciting.
I still think it's so exciting.
It's exciting, but like in a different way than I thought.
Imagine if your crops were dying and then he came along and I'd be excited.
Yeah. But Michael Cleary would later tell reporters that he thought Bridget was having an affair with a local farmer named Patrick Power.
So there's a lot of just scandalous, like desperate housewives kind of thing going on here.
It is. Like this is Wisteria Lane.
Is that what it's called?
Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's this.
Still got to finish that.
you know she probably like showed one of them her ankle or something and they were like oh they're fucking that's exactly they were like a fair yeah there it is now in the small village of Ballyvaidley and nearby Conmel I think it's Conmel I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong you're like my people so I love you Bridget's socioeconomic status her youth and her perceived arrogance could have been perceived poorly by the rural population particularly women unfortunately Unfortunately, women don't ever like each other.
Yeah. So Bork suggests the independence and economic prosperity enjoyed by Bridget.
And, you know, this emergency man, William Simpson, also did well in his business.
They thought this could have been a jealousy thing that they paired the two of them together.
OK. Like they were both doing all right.
They were both pretty open about doing all right.
They had they were arrogant, you know, people didn't like it.
So they decided to fuck with them because he was also married.
so they decided to be like well you two are fucking like that's obvious and it's like no i think they were just like both doing okay yeah and maybe they talked every once in a while and were like you still doing okay that's awesome and people were like yeah it's definitely that that's annoying it's a bunch of busy bodies so i think that people do believe that that's why they became the subject of like a lot of slanderous rumors just because they were doing well and were open about it imagine if everyone that was doing well had an affair yeah a lot of fucking affairs around i mean there are but you're
like i mean there are but like let me just work through that let me work through that in real time now on the other hand it's also possible the rumors of michael and bridget's infidelity were kind of true so it sounds like he sucked so i mean you know yeah it wasn't great i don't think their marriage was was super awesome yeah i don't think it was on any round to be quite honest in the sky it was in a swamp but following him following her her death a lot was made of the fact that they were married for eight years at that time and they never had any children now now we would just go okay they made
that decision or whatever like that's just the way it is maybe they couldn't but angela bork points out in her book book that um that the church's influence on irish life at the time made it that it's unlikely that they were childless by choice yeah because at that time that wasn't a common thing to do to become come childless by choice so there might have been a biological or a medical reason for this um but people looked at it as something's wrong here yeah you know and it's not and it's something within you know within this marriage and not within their control outside of their control that's
stupid now and so there's like a lot of layers to this that just make it more complicated than just like wow you know fairies like it's like no there was a lot going on here but in his His testimony in court, Michael Cleary described his relationship to his wife saying, we were not great at all.
Oh. Well, yeah, I think we can realize that.
Yeah. And apparently in, like, in, you know, Irish parlance at the time, this means that not only did they not get along, but they were not in love with each other.
So this was pretty much him saying, like, we did not love each other.
It was a marriage of convenience.
convenience um it's pretty evident from michael's testimony that there was a lot of bitterness between them um it doesn't seem like michael liked the fact that she was like a strong woman and independent and didn't really rely on him for anything which is strange because it seems like she was already very well established when they got married she was that's the thing it wasn't like this was you know newsflash or like her business took off while they were married or something yeah and there was a lot of mistrust between the two of them because the town was always talking exactly there was also a lot
this complicated matters too that Bridget was surrounded by family in the village not you know not so much her brothers anymore her mom had passed away but like her aunts and uncles cousins her dad they were all there Johanna and Michael Johanna Michael had no nearby relatives at all oh so he was gel so exactly so in a culture especially at the time that encouraged large close -knit families this lack of one for him would have made him feel a little isolated and the fact that they most likely couldn't start a family themselves exactly so he was just kind of at the mercy of her family so he felt
it was definitely a powerless thing and he did not do well with feeling powerless and he didn't look at it like hey I've become part of this family so I should just be part of this family yeah he took it I think with him it was a lot of he didn't handle feeling powerless well most which is wild um some also he like wait a second but also this entire family and support system for Bridget took her side all the time when they would argue so I think that's a big Irish family yeah that's a big Irish family they're gonna be like fuck you Michael yeah uh but that probably you know teed him off as well
and you know when this is all taken together it kind of seems like their marriage was like a lot of conflict a lot of jealousy a lot of suspicion a lot of bitterness and a lot of one sided things.
It sounds like they were both very lonely in their marriage which is horrible exactly now and people could see that there was like anger and bitterness especially in Michael it wasn't outward but they could just sense it when they were around them um and because of this he was definitely more susceptible to some influence of the outside nature especially yeah like it was he was definitely looking for ways out of this and he wasn't looking for like a divorce a regular way out of this for sure well because divorce probably wasn't even like a word back then yeah it's like and it's like dude i think you
both both would have been fine if you both just went your separate ways here like you would have you You would have survived the society issues.
Like, we didn't need to go here.
Now, on the afternoon of March 4th, 1895, Bridget walked home from her Ballyvaidley home about two miles to Kilnamanna.
Hold on. Kilnamanna.
Kilnamanna. Kilnamanna.
I'm going to go with that.
Kilnamanna. To the home.
I wrote it out phonetically, so I wanted to make sure I said it right.
Kilnamanna. I hate when I do that.
And then I'm like, why do you still go there?
And then I mean can't say it.
I'm like, damn. She walked to the home of her father's cousin Jack Dunn So another family member She had gone to the house to deliver eggs And get payment from previously Delivered eggs Because she's a business woman And you didn't pay me last time I'm collecting these eggs But Jack wasn't there And his wife wasn't there either Yeah I bet they weren't So she decided to wait for one of them to come back She said I didn't make good on my fucking eggs bro I'm bringing you eggs You're going to pay me for the last one.
Yeah, I'm not bringing you new eggs till you pay for the last eggs.
So I guess it was like sunny out.
It was nice out. But there was a deep chill in the air that day.
And Bridget was apparently, because remember, Bridget's not one to be very conservatively dressed.
She was underdressed for the weather.
So by the time she got back home, she was very cold, shivering, like very much had a chill.
Even sitting by the fireplace, it didn't do anything to warm her up.
And according to Angela Bork, the next day, Bridget woke with, quote, a violent headache and had fits of shivering and wasn't able to get out of bed.
Sounds like she has pneumonia.
Thank you. You're welcome.
In the days after this, the weather got warmer, but, you know, I think it was like just damp.
Like the earth was damp, which is not great when you're not feeling great.
And so it kind of made her worse, and especially if she had pneumonia or bronchitis or something like that, it probably made it worse.
Right. So she was in bed for like the entire week after that.
And during this time, especially in rural communities, people would come to your bedside.
People, you know, all the time.
Like it was, you were not going to be alone in bed.
And so she's bedridden and she got a ton of visitors.
And they came by to kind of help around the house, help with the cooking, you know, just to offer well wishes, just that kind of thing.
She's got a lot of loved ones around.
And one of those visitors was Jack Dunn.
Her brother? cousin her father's cousin so and this was also the man who she had gone to visit on the day she got ill exactly now of course at this time um and this time in this place like rural places like this they were a little slower to embrace scientific and technological changes yeah more than like you know they're urban countrymen sure sure so but by this but honestly even by those standards jack dunn was an outlier here like he was even further back in the evolution of like believing in science and technology okay um so he was as he's described in the book a man who might have commanded
respect in an earlier generation or a more remote place but who had become marginalized and isolated in an increasingly modern society so he's a guy who believes in all the folklore and he's you know the um the folk medicine and all that and he's staying very hard into that and not moving with the times so people were starting to see him as kind of like oh that's jack done jack the quack boom see you would have killed it back then oh my god she would have been out there being like oh it's jack the quack coming they would have killed me immediately i would have been killed on impact on impact or just
like shunned into the woods It's true.
Which would have been fun.
I was going to say, which would have been awesome.
So a report in the Cork Examiner said it like this.
At 55 years old, Dunn is an old man and is fairy ridden.
He has learned apparently in incantations, charms and spells, and can tell ghost stories and fairy tales.
He is the very Shannachi of ancient Ireland.
Now, I found out that that is what is referred to as just like a teller of old tales or legends.
A shunachi? Yeah. That's fun to say.
Yeah. And at the time when I read this, I was like, he sounds awesome.
When you say that, he sounds awesome.
But I can already tell that he's up to some fuck shit.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and tell you, he sucks.
I saw that in your eyes.
Most of the people here suck.
Besides, like, Bridget.
Yeah. Pretty much. Johanna, I have her number.
Jack, I have his number.
Yeah. Jack, I was like, you had promise in the beginning.
No, he didn't, though, because he never even paid for her eggs.
That's true. So fuck him.
That's true. True. Now, apparently Jack Dunn truly was a very rigid representation of cultural heritage and traditions that had all but died out after the famine.
Because before the famine, folktales and superstition were treated very seriously, much more seriously than they were after.
As is pointed out in the book, in another time, he again would be kind of an authority figure in the community and he probably was at one point but by the late 1800s he just became eccentric that's like he was kind of ridiculed for it so he was kind of thirsting for that time when he was the authority on things look upon me again yeah and there was also so the other thing that made him a target for mockery at this time was he held a genuine belief in fairies and their influence over humans jack and his wife apparently lived near what he referred to as a fairy fort that's a real thing and he was frequently
heard to say quote he heard the fairies outside his house every night and that sometimes they played hurling matches there jack honey now a fairy fort was apparently a prehistoric or pre -christian dwelling of some sort that had kind of been like taken over by nature and so it looked very super high fantasy and looks like a place fairies would live okay i'm not saying they don't personally no i think i believe in fey and shit yeah so like let's go but like i don't know if they like overtake humans though i don't know about it i'm gonna sit over here with my no knowledge of fey or fairy from the only
thing i know is what we talked about in our episode that we did yeah so i also know not to fuck with it even if it's not real so yep here i am i don't know anything i'm just out here reporting this yep uh but he truly believed in this and that fairy fort was was very real and that's what it was again it sounds awesome i'm into this sounds awesome until it's not exactly now again much of ireland at this time was embracing the modern era so this was this was weird to everybody like they were like you need to chill out um but a belief in fairies was also at the time kind of a means of explaining
explaining some part of life that didn't make logical sense right uh for example like if this man if a random man like your neighbor was known to have walked with a limp for his entire life and then all of a sudden he's gone for a short period of time and he comes back and he doesn't have that limp anymore uh anyone see a doctor no he did not they most likely would have said there had to be some magical explanation for this which again i don't know i wasn't in the 1800s But in Jack Dunn's experience, Bridget Cleary had always been very well put together.
She was a merchant.
She was a seamstress, a businesswoman.
She was independent.
She was confident. She was together.
So to see her so unwell and so, quote unquote, weak and bedridden and unkempt in her bed as well, particularly after she had been near his fairy fort in his home, had sat outside next to it, For a while.
It made him very stressed out, and he apparently cried out when he saw her.
That is not Bridget Boland.
What? So, like, sir, she sat in the damp, cold air.
We know what happened here.
Next to a fairy fort.
No, shut up. According to him.
Shut up, Jen. Now, if this were other, anyone else there that had said that, they probably would have interpreted that as just, like, a way to say she looks very ill.
Like, that's not her.
That looks, wow, like she didn't seem like herself.
but coming from Jack they're like oh shit that's not Bridge it was interpreted to mean that is not Bridget Cleary that is not Bridget Boland and it's this moment that likely started to seal the deal here because even though he wasn't looked at as an authority anymore him saying that with such like conviction I think at least set a couple of people if not one one in particular, Michael Cleary, into a little bit of a tizzy because he already had some thoughts, I feel.
A real tizzy or a fucking put -on tizzy?
Exactly. Now, in fact, the Cork Examiner later wrote, quote, Dunn's remarks set all the fairy machinery in motion.
So they fully were like, it's him.
He did it. But it's like, let's not take all the stuff off of the person who actually does it, and we'll get there.
Okay. So to a lot of people, Bridget was fucking sick.
She had bronchitis.
She had pneumonia. She was just sick.
That was it. But Jack Dunn was like, nope.
There is clear evidence here that she is a changeling, which is a human -like creature that's left behind by fairies after they stole the actual person.
This motherfucker just didn't want to pick up his egg tab.
That's true. He just wanted that egg tab to remain open.
Honestly, I think that's all it lines up for for him.
And one here's the thing to anybody around who he was not the last person there to believe this stuff.
It's not like it was totally gone and everybody was like, oh, yeah, that's all bullshit.
Why do we ever believe that in the beginning?
Like this is through generations.
People believed this stuff.
They still do today.
So it's like there were people there that still at least kind of believed in this.
And if he's sitting here going, I'm the authority, here's the evidence to suggest that you're swaying people who are already in a state of like, what the hell is going on?
so according to them her case checked all the boxes of a person who had been away with the fairies away with the fairies like for example bridget and michael cleary had experienced um a period of uncommon prosperity before she was ill um and this was after her being at the ferry for it so this indicated that she had maybe traded her health for wealth no i think she was wealthy before even i think so too now also they'd been married for eight years they were remaining remaining childless so some people thought that that meant she had exchanged her ability to bear children for economic prosperity
yeah as one does totally absolutely and finally jack dunn said several times that the creature in the bed had one leg that was longer than the other remember the creature in the bed is bridget boland and also people can have one leg that is longer than the other you absolutely can but he said this was proof that bridget had been changed after her interaction with the fairies.
I would just like to point out that your best friend Debbie is sitting here and one of her legs is longer than the other.
Faye. You're a fairy.
Get out of here. You're a changeling.
And they would have said that.
Jack Dunn would have looked at your ass and would have said, you're a changeling.
Witch. Witch. You're a witch. And while Jack Dunn ranted about, you know, she's a changeling, other members of the community were expressing serious concerns for her actual health.
That's good. I'm glad there were some people like that.
Because at this point, she wasn't seeming to be getting any better so people were genuinely like what's going on here well pneumonia back then i'm sure they didn't have a way to treat exactly like a good way to treat it now on march 9th bridget's father patrick boland walked four miles in the heavy rain to get the doctor dr william crean don't don't be too impressed by him um a physician who provided medical care to the poor and destitute which was shocking to me because she was neither poor or poor destitute.
But several days passed and Dr. Crean did not respond, did not come to the home.
Because he was busy with the poor and the destitute.
Probably. So Michael Cleary went to go get him, but was only able to leave word with a neighbor that Bridget was still very ill and they needed to see the doctor.
Was there no other doctor?
I guess he was the only one around that they wanted to talk to.
So a few days later, Michael returned again in hopes of finding the doctor, but he still couldn't find him.
Meanwhile, William Simpson, the guy that she was supposed to To be having an affair with, the emergency man?
He sent one of his maids, because remember, we're not porn destitute here, his maids to Drangon to fetch Father Con Ryan.
And he did this, which it kind of implicates that she was close to death and needed last rites.
Last rites, yeah. Like why else, you know, or at least needed a priest there to perform some sort of stuff.
If need be. So, like, this would implicate that.
But that really wasn't the case.
Now, on March 13th, so four days after he was first contacted, Dr. Crean finally made his way to the Cleary house after four days.
Imagine just having to go find a doctor.
Yeah, just go find him.
And he has to come find you.
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Now, in his testimony later that he gave to the coroner later, Crean said, I found her suffering, sir, simply from nervous excitement and slight bronchitis.
Okay. So Dr. Crean prescribed medication for Bridget, but he never followed up after the visit.
That's poor doctor -ship.
so he also didn't know if the prescription ever got filled or if it was given to her um as far as he knew and what he told the courts he said bridget was perfectly healthy she had a body of good physique and well nourished the only thing i can say is that she was awfully nervous and he keeps saying that she was very anxious very nervous probably because everyone's saying she's a fucking fairy well when you hear what happens to her later i'm like yeah probably um it's most likely that bridget had probably caught like a nasty cold on or around the time she was visiting Jack Dunn's house because like
she probably didn't get it there she was probably just developing it and I'm sure the cold didn't help the dampness and all that and that probably developed into bronchitis which likely went into pneumonia that's like pneumonia will knock you on your ass especially in the 1800s when there wasn't a lot to do about it right later in fact a postmortem examination said the coroner reported that the only evidence of illness was that her lungs were are slightly congested okay it does indicate that um and also i guess what what they were trying to say too was they were like okay so she has congested
lungs but there was all these other like symptoms that were coming out so what they're trying to do is kind of like be polite about it but like dr creen essentially wrote in his report when he saw her that basically whatever illness was plaguing her was likely something you know in the chest area but it likely could have also been like slightly psychological in nature because he was pointing to her her anxiety it sounds like you know that kind of thing that maybe she was suffering from some of that as well maybe whatever if it was pneumonia or bronchitis or whatever was going on that was also making
her nervous maybe she was okay she was getting kind of over over upset about everything and it was he probably Michael Cleary probably wasn't being like a great caretaker, so I'm sure she was also stressed out.
So I think he was pointing a little to that, that like there was some psychological stuff happening here.
But they don't say it outright.
Now, given the autopsy results, it's entirely possible that Crean's assessment was accurate.
And it actually seemed at the time that she was close to considering Jack Dunn's claims of like the changeling thing with seriousness.
So, that leads me to believe that there's definitely some psychological stuff going on right now, because she told her cousin Johanna that it all started when she, quote, took like a trembling coming by Kilnamenna, meaning that she kind of believed she caught a chill down by the fairy fort.
port okay so she was at least mentioning that she was near a fairy fort when this happened okay so if we really think about it like if we take a step back it's like okay yeah i think what i think happened was she was probably developing a cold anyway she was down there it was damp she sat out there tits out and she probably caught like a little more of a chill it probably developed into bronchitis pneumonia it was making her stressed out she's hearing jack dunn say that she's a changeling she's seeing all these people questioning whether she's really bridget boland laying in this bed which is probably
stressing her the fuck out and people are saying she like sold her ability to have children exactly so now she's probably sitting there and being like well it wasn't your fairy for it like what the fuck she's probably getting scared now like yeah this This is deep rooted folklore that she's heard since she was a child.
Yeah, it's like no matter what, she's going to be like, fuck, is this real?
Like, is this what is happening right now?
Now, it was unfortunately clear that after a week of being sick and the fairy talk on top of it, there was beginning to be that psychological toll.
She said she told her Aunt Mary Kennedy, I'm very bad.
And she said he's making he and she's referring to as to Michael Cleary.
he's making a fairy of me now in an emergency he thought to burn me about three months ago but if i had my mother i would not be this way and don't worry i'm gonna explain to you what she probably meant by that okay because when i first read it i was like come again yeah like um so bridget wasn't referring to jack dunn she's referring to michael cleary when she says he and that's her husband yeah yes um and according to angela bork to make a fairy of someone someone actually could also mean to isolate or reject them okay um so this is kind of implying that under the growing influence of jack dunn
michael cleary was starting to isolate his wife and blow her illness way out of proportion which was making it seem far worse than it really was and she also notes that the phrase he thought to burn me about three months ago implies that this wasn't the first time the couple had dealt with an argument or crisis like this okay so that there was some shit that was happening before this that she was kind of she doesn't actually mean burn her no they think at least that's what the that's what like is thought to be what she meant by that that's interesting because from the name of the book it sounds
like he does burn thank you because then that's the thing like nobody knows if that's because there is different ways to take that when you look at language and like what it was back then but then when you look at what you look at what happens in the end you're like did she mean that but i don't know and then what does she mean say because i can't really about her mom i think she's just saying if my mom was here like she wouldn't let this happen yeah like i i think that's part of it which is really sad basically the the distress and emotional stress that was as referenced by Dr. Crean, was the result
of Bridget's belief that Michael's behavior had some sort of nefarious intent, that this wasn't him caring and being influenced, it was him wanting an end game here.
A means to an end, yeah.
And that she's referring to possibly the idea that they had been in that argument or crisis before and that he had possibly tried to get rid of her.
That is a possibility.
Like, who knows if it means exactly that.
That's terrifying. clarifying so michael cleary left the house shortly after dr creen and he was still away that afternoon when father ryan actually ended up coming to the house and he got back just as father ryan was leaving now according to cleary's testimony he went by father ryan as he was leaving and this is when he was informed that bridget was very weak and that the priest had already prepared her for death by giving her her last rites wow so this is like shocking like they're like shit and in the days following later after Cleary was arrested later um a lot was made of father Ryan's assessment
of Bridget's health as so dire that he had to give last rites um especially because Dr. Crean's opinion was that she had a bad cold that turned into pneumonia and she was like why is she suddenly on the on death's door um but Bork explains in her book that as a Catholic priest who took his vows very seriously, Father Ryan's vow of celibacy, quote, forbade him to have any more dealings than necessary with women.
So it's unlikely that he spent even more than 20 minutes with her and was probably in very poor lighting.
Others were around.
Everyone's in an emotional heightened state.
So while Cleary reported Father Ryan as having made dire entire predictions about Bridget's like impending death he never considered her to be dangerously ill instead he likely administered last rites as a precautionary measure in case it did progress and he couldn't get back there in time yeah he didn't he wasn't gonna have to come back because she's a woman exactly he's like I don't want to spend any more time with women than I have to so he probably did it like just in case she seemed pretty fucking sick right now so like Like, I'm just gonna do it so that it's there.
Yeah. But Michael Cleary took it as like, she's dying.
So, when Dr. Crean and Father Ryan saw Bridget Cleary that day, because it was on the same day that they saw him, both men recalled her being way more emotionally upset and agitated than physically ill.
Because she probably had her husband talking about hitting her.
Yeah. Killing her. Yeah.
And this was supported later by testimony from friends and family who visited that same day, that it was way more emotionally upset than physically upset.
set um and while both men did what they could for bridget crean gave the prescription and told them to fill it and give it to her and ryan did the last rites and prayers and all that good stuff which probably upset her even more if she's thinking that she's feeling better and then this priest is giving her last rites like jesus yeah they literally but they kind of didn't give michael cleary the answer he was looking for so it was kind of like it was just kind of dr crean saying yeah it seems like it's bronchitis pneumonia like take this prescription I'm sure she'll be fine and then father Ryan being
like no she seems like you know she seems pretty sick I just did this just in case that's very all of that is very unclear so it's like you could just have taken Dr. Crean's word for it but like who am I um but Michael Cleary took it as like this is very ambiguous so he looked over to Jack Dunn and was like you know what Fay it is that seems more likely or did it just seem simpler now while most of those who saw bridget in the days just before her death remarked on again her her agitated emotional state far fewer seemed to notice michael cleary who was deteriorating into like a madman in the at this time
like he was becoming more and more wild with his his thoughts with his actions because he's hanging out with the quack jack yeah exactly or jack exactly whichever you prefer yeah he he wasn't looking and it soon became clear that he was not going to look to traditional medicine to help his wife he was not going to fill that prescription he was not going to give her the medicine oh no which probably would have just helped her she probably would have gotten out of bed in a couple days and that's probably what he was hoping would not happen exactly and then fortunately the premature last West White
writes reading by Father Ryan.
Set things over the edge.
Put that in. And again, they were on the same day.
So they're back -to -back things on the same day, which just sent him into a different realm.
A tizzy. Now, acting under Jack Dunn's influence, Michael Cleary went to the market in Fedderd to get several herbs that he thought would improve her condition.
Now, after Dr. Crean and Father Ryan had left, Dunn had chastised Michael for waiting so long to take action.
He was like, I can't believe you even had these two men in here.
Like, why are you having a medical doctor in here?
He doesn't know anything about Faye.
And why did you have Father Ryan in here?
He doesn't know shit about Faye either.
Like, you're not taking the right action.
Okay. Yeah. He said, it is not your wife in there.
This is the eighth day and you had a right to have gone to Ganey on the fifth day.
And I'll tell you who that is.
So he's making reference to Dennis Ganey, who was a local farmer and herb doctor character who had a very strong belief in fairies and folklore just as strong as jack dunn um so later that evening they went got the herbs from him and they gave bridget the first dose of those herbs and i'm going to explain to you in a little bit how they gave her those herbs now the following day the herbs didn't seem to have any effect on bridget's health they weren't helping her which wow uh but dunn and cleary were going to go ahead with their full plan they were not willing to accept this.
And that afternoon, Jack Dunn, Michael Cleary, and two other young men gathered in Bridget's room with a glass of milk.
They put the herbs in there.
They mixed them up.
And in his testimony in court, Dunn said, quote, the four of us caught her and I had her by the neck.
It was very hard on her to take it.
So while Dunn is essentially admitting he and the three other men violently forced Bridget to drink the liquid, he's just minimizing it into, like, Like it was tough on her, but she took it.
And it's like you poured it down her throat, you piece of shit.
Yeah, and he's saying I caught her, which indicates that she was running.
That she was trying to get away from them.
So I'm like, there's way more to this story of what they were planning to do to her.
Oh, and it gets worse.
Because as they were forcing her to drink this milk with herbs in it, William Simpson, who she was accused of having the affair with, the emergency man and his wife, as well as Joanna Burke and her mother.
Told you. They all came to the Cleary's front door and were coming to visit Bridget.
But Michael Cleary refused to open the door at the time so they could just hear what was going on inside.
And from the bedroom, they could hear a man's voice shouting, take that, you rap.
And then they were banging on the door being like, let us in.
No one was coming. So they just could stay out there and try to get in the house.
But they were hearing the whole thing.
And they said a moment or two later, they heard another man shouting, take it, you old bitch, or I'll kill you.
Oh my god. Yeah. So four or five minutes later, Michael Cleary just walks up to the front door and lets everybody in.
Hey, everybody, welcome.
Nothing to see here.
And this is when they stepped in, they were like, what the fuck?
And they said as soon as they stepped in, they heard another man shout, away she go, away she go.
And later, William Simpson would tell the court that Cleary had claimed the house was full of fairies and that he had only opened the door to force the fairies out, not to let them in.
what the fuck yes i told you now this is sad it's very sad it's fucked up and sad i don't think they thought she was a fairy yeah i really don't think they thought she was a fairy really brutal now when simpson finally william simpson made his way into the bedroom he said he found the men aggressively restraining bridget who was struggling and jack dunn was pouring the hot milk and herb mixture down her throat oh my god like forcibly and as bridget was struggling michael cleary held his hand over her nose and mouth to make sure she swallowed it oh because dunn was telling him if it went on the ground
she could not be brought back from the fairies what the fuck so the simpsons would later learn that this was actually the third time that they had administered the herb mixture in this way this was the third time they had forced down her throat and they're forcing milk down her throat when she has bronchitis or pneumonia oh and it gets worse because during um when was it the i think it was during the uh second time the time before this one uh she had actually sustained a burn on her forehead because jack dunn struck her with a hot fireplace poker in order to force her to drink the mixture what the fuck
yeah also remember these are her family members yeah this is like her father's cousin does it?
Now, throughout the force feeding of the herb mixture, the men gathered around the bed were repeatedly shouting at her, are you Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God?
Okay. And when she wouldn't, or should I say couldn't, answer them, because remember, they're forcing hot milk with herbs down her throat and hitting her in the head with hot pokers.
Dunn was heard to say, make down a good fire and we will make her answer.
Oh, my God. Now, finally, when the fire was burning, and it was burning low, the men got Bridget off the bed and carried her towards the fire.
Now, she has been abused, but she is fully conscious and aware of what's happening, so she started to yell for them to give her a chance.
Because I'm sure she's like, just, I don't even know what you want from me.
Like, just put me down.
And the men just ignored her and placed her body on the grate above the fire, at the kitchen fire.
Oh, my God. and william simpson later told the court she gave no evidence of being in pain she did not scream and it's like probably because she was in shock i would assume now she's crumpled up on the grate over the fire and her father is there by the way and her father looks at her and says are you bridget boland wife of michael cleary in the name of god and this is when she spoke and she said i am dada i am the father of pat boland in the name of god i'm the daughter of pat boland in the name name of god and after about 10 minutes they removed her from the grate and put her back in bed oh my
god the fact that she called him dada yeah it's important also makes me think of your kids yeah it's important to note that among the things that made this story so fucking shocking to the public was that during this whole thing there were like 9 to 13 people in the house who witnessed and participated in all of this and at no time did anyone do anything to stop it or help her horrific so she lay in bed and she's writhing in pain she's mumbling incoherently because now she's essentially been like beaten and at this point she's writhing in pain she's a mess and the men around her were described in court
later as being more relaxed than ever including her own father what the fuck and william simpson later told the court they were satisfied that they had their own which implies that they believe their actions were successful in that they had magically returned Bridget to her body.
Okay so then why did they need to go further?
So the following morning Michael Cleary went to see father Ryan and explained to him that Bridget had a very difficult evening and he was hoping that the priest could come pay her a visit.
I like how he describes it as a very difficult evening.
Okay. And at some point during the night apparently Bridget's clothing had been changed and her body cleaned so there was no obvious evidence of her abuse.
Father Ryan said mass in her bedroom and then left and he later told the police that Bridget appeared definitely more nervous and overexcited than she had been previously but he said that he didn't see anything that indicated she was in danger like nobody was acting strange.
As he was leaving he asked whether Bridget had been given the medicine that Dr. Crean had prescribed.
He was like, you know, she doesn't seem great.
So like, did you give her anything?
And Michael replied, people may have some remedy of their own that might do more good than doctor's medicine.
And he was like, okay.
Incorrect. And the rest of the afternoon was spent by various visitors stopping by to check on her.
And later that evening, Bridget apparently was feeling a little stronger.
And she got out of bed by herself, dressed herself and sat by the fire with a neighbor, Tom Smythe.
When Smythe asked how she was doing, though, Bridget seemed very agitated and told Smythe that she was, quote, middling that he was making a ferry of her now in an emergency, which, accusing her of being a changeling.
Now, Bridget's anger was, like, very clear that day towards Michael.
Like, she was very angry, very upset.
Many of the visitors remarked on it later.
They said they could very much tell that.
and that evening apparently Joanna Burke Patrick Boland her own father Mary Kennedy her aunt James Boland uh which I believe is a cousin and Patrick um or no excuse me it's James Kennedy excuse me and not the DJ uh James Kennedy and Patrick Kennedy who were um her cousins they all sat at the table with Bridget and Michael and she was served some bread and jam with some tea and she ate two pieces of bread and then Michael Cleary, which you know she's sitting there being like, honestly, everyone, shut the fuck up.
Because Michael Cleary, she's eating her jam and drinking her tea and Michael Cleary says, are you Bridget Cleary, my wife, in the name of God?
Oh my God, I'd be like, yes, I'm your goddamn wife, but not for long because I'm going to kill you myself.
Literally, and Bridget didn't answer because she's like, well, you just let me eat my fucking jam and drink my tea.
Like, everyone leave me alone.
She did. She became pissed.
She was like, shut the fuck up.
And then Michael became enraged that she wouldn't answer her and forced her to eat the third piece of bread.
Oh, my God. And then threw her to the floor.
In front of her entire family.
Now, Joanna Burke, I will say, was screaming for him to stop.
Okay. But didn't...
I mean, nobody intervened here.
Everybody was just, like, yelling.
Michael then stripped his wife of all but her nightgown and took a flaming stick from the fire, held it near her mouth in a threatening way, and was telling her to declare that she was Bridget Poland.
Holy shit. Like he didn't put it in her mouth, but he held it there in a very threatening way.
This man is a fucking sadist. And immediately what I thought something immediately, and Angela Bork seems to also agree in her book, that the details of this part of the crime are reported like that, that this is how it went.
But there's a sexual sadist aspect about this that I think is underplayed and I think wasn't reported upon as much. The fact that he stripped her down in front of everybody and then - And then holding that to her mouth.
Yeah, I don't like that.
Like he's going to shove it into her mouth.
It's like there's something about that that seems way more sadistic than anybody's given it credit for.
And I think Angela Bork is kind of pointing to that too, being like, I don't think this was reported correctly.
But in also each of these like attacks on Bridget were seeming more like at this point not to kill her, but to put some kind of terror into her and dominate her.
That seems to be, this motherfucker felt powerless and he snapped and decided to assert what he felt was an unbalance in his relationship is what I think.
He said, are you Bridget Cleary, wife of Michael Cleary?
He wanted her to say, yes, I am.
I am your wife. That's what he wanted to hear.
He was looking for, he wanted to dominate and he wanted to put terror into her.
That's what I see that as.
just wanted to beat her down it certainly feels that way it doesn't feel like he's sitting here acting out of love and compassion or anything like that in some kind of you know disillusion that he's you know some kind of hysteria I think that plays into it because he was in a state but I think this is more about him feeling for a long time less than in his marriage and he decided to assert it this way which is unbelievably fucked up yep um now this escalated very quickly the scene of violence um according to witnesses they said it was awful and they also said this was really scary to witness in general
but also that that Michael Cleary before this was a very unassuming man.
He was quiet. He wasn't outwardly violent.
He wasn't loud. He wasn't abrasive.
He wasn't any of this.
It sounds like he might have been more violent behind closed doors.
That's what I wonder, if it was all behind the scenes.
And she had previously said before this had even happened that he was trying to make a fairy of her.
Yeah, and it's like, hmm.
Because he became so enraged during this that he knelt on her chest and she was begging him to stop.
Oh, my God. And nobody knows, and I'm not going to speculate because I was not there.
Nobody knows if what happened next was the intended end here.
But what happened was he was holding that stick that he had taken out of the fire.
Yeah. And he's kneeling over her very menacingly.
He's trying to terrify her.
He's trying to hurt her.
He's trying to assert dominance.
He is hurting her. And flames from the stick that he was holding from her face like fell onto her nightdress.
and it caught fire and engulfed her in flames oh my god now this is where this is where i say to me this sounds intentional because right here you can go okay that seems like it went further than was was maybe intended but joanna burke later testified that that michael cleary grabbed She grabbed a nearby lantern and threw lamp oil over her body.
Before she caught fire or after?
No, like while her nightgown was going up in flames.
He ignited it even more.
He ignited it more.
That's why, like, and after this, you can absolutely say that he intended for her to die.
Wow. Because he didn't help her.
He threw the lamp oil on her.
The fire grew very intensely.
and mary kennedy her aunt ran to help her but michael stopped her and shoved her to the floor oh my god now she then that he shoved them all out of the house and trapped bridget in the house locked the door and put the key in his pocket witnesses are yelling for him to help his wife like everyone there is like help his fucking god like are you kidding me and he was shouting she's she's not my wife.
She's an old deceiver sent in place by of my wife.
And he said, as I begin it with her, I will finish it with her.
You will soon see her go up the chimney.
So he was saying like, she's a changeling.
She's a deceiver. She was sent here.
That's not her. You're going to see her go like the, the changeling go up the chimney and you'll see it.
That was what he was saying.
When anyone tried to go in there to help her, Michael Michael was threatening them, saying he would burn them as well if they attempted to help her.
And she's just laying on the floor on fire at this point?
And he's in the house with her?
Yeah. Okay. Now, Bridget died this way, and nobody knew what to do.
It just completely stopped at this point, and Mary Kennedy, her aunt, wrapped the body in a sheet and left the room.
Didn't know what to do.
and when she came back she found that michael had put bridget's body in the fireplace to try to destroy her remains oh my god um she said nobody going to get a policeman exactly now she said the house was full of smoke and smell she later said uh yeah now later when they were all in the kitchen again michael cleary said she's burned now and god knows i would never do it but for jack dunn i would never have forced my wife into the fire but for jack it was he who told me my wife was is a fairy so now he's trying to say that's not me jack told me to do it it's like nah dude you let your wife on fire
and struck her way before that you fucking piece of shit yeah now michael cleary collected his um bridget's remains in a bag and patrick kennedy helped him and they both took her to a nearby churchyard to bury her on consecrated ground that night cleary forced all who were involved to swear that they would never talk about what had happened It sounds like that didn't work out.
And if anyone asked, they were told to say that Bridget had gotten dressed that evening and left the house, and they just didn't, never saw her again.
She disappeared. Oh, yeah, she just, like, walked away with pneumonia.
Now, throughout the entire thing, what's weird about this, and what makes you say there was more to this than just, like, somebody who was caught up in hysteria, Michael Cleary was pretty ambivalent when it came to his beliefs in fairies and witchcraft. Like in the moments directly after Bridget's death, he kind of seemed to recognize that Jack Dunn was like.
Was a quack. Had like a lot of rhetoric that he was spewing and that he was saying, well, that's what led me to do this.
Like it's already placing the blame.
He was kind of taking his own belief out of it, which is wild considering the length he is claiming to have gone to rid her of this changeling that had taken over.
So it's like, to me, I'm like, you're conflicting your own reasoning here.
And you're making it more obvious that there was a lot more intention behind this than just a hysterical fear of changelings.
Yeah. And in fact, but then I say ambiguous because it's going back and forth because there's that.
And you're like, I don't know.
You're telling me that you really don't believe that stuff.
And it was Jack Dunn who set you up on this.
but then for three nights following her death michael was said to have waited on kilnamana hill for her to return from the ferry fort on horseback because that's what the legend said was that after you kill the changeling the real human will return on horseback from the ferry fort wow so now everybody's like was that you know was that just for show or what was that because exactly you could look at that either way like he truly believed it or that he was doing it to maintain that so as he was waiting the police were alerted to bridget's disappearance by william simpson you think they were fucking
i gotta do i hope they were i hope they were he seems like you at least tried um but then also a day after that joanna burke went to the police and told them that she was disappeared i was mad at her earlier because like you were in a face i know you were leaving and i didn't mean to but i just didn't know how to stop it so it just happened you know um but justice for joanna it's true now the police spent a lot of days looking for her um and i mean by the same coin nobody stepped in and helped this or stopped the abuse like yeah there was a lot here for joanna i'm i'm i'm going back because i'm
like oh no because she couldn't have stood up to the men like they would have yeah i think and again i wasn't there so i can't sit there and say that joanna didn't try to do something exactly it It didn't seem like a lot of people were making great, vast efforts to stop what was going on here, which is very disconcerting.
But I'm not going to sit here and crucify anyone in particular except for the people who actually did the things.
Exactly. But based on the information provided by William Simpson, Burke, and several others in the house that night, they did make nine arrests.
They set out nine arrest warrants on March 21st. and Michael Cleary and all his co -conspirators were arrested for the assault and murder of Bridget Cleary.
Now that included Patrick Kennedy, Dennis Ganey, the farmer and herb doctor who prescribed the herbs, Jack Dunn, and Joanna Burke.
Because again, they were there.
The following day, March 22nd, which was a week after her murder, Bridget Cleary's remains were discovered.
They were buried in a shallow grave on the grounds of the Abbey in Drangon.
She must... I can't imagine Yeah, it must have been really bad Now, the news of this whole thing spread very quickly It actually made its way to London, the United States Like, very quickly I believe it Because it was just wild And it was reported as a witch burning Very, like, you know Very sensationalistically Yeah But in the British press at the time Were very eager to hold this up as evidence of, you know How rural Ireland is so barbaric which it's not great um and you know the irish papers were equally quick to blame the murder on folkloric beliefs of the irish peasantry ignoring the fact
that very few of the people involved would have been considered peasants at all yeah so it was a lot of misrepresentation a lot of sensationalism reporting that came out of this the day after the arrests a coroner's inquest was held in clonin i believe it is um at this time dr crean and dr wk heffernan provided the jury with details of the post -mortem examination um so there was obviously extensive burning and charring of bridget's body but dr crean and dr heffernan also found an abrasion on the inner side of the lips at the right side of the mouth and the tongue at the side was slightly lacerated
oh yeah so they don't know where that came from or what happened maybe when they were forcing the milk down her throat.
Possibly, or that poker that he held to her mouth.
And didn't end up in her mouth.
Did he do that at some point?
They also reported that other than the obvious burns, the evidence suggested that Bridget had been perfectly healthy when she died.
Wow. And the cause of death was attributed to shock caused by burns.
Oh, my God. Yeah, which is even more horrifying.
On April 1st, 1895, all nine defendants were brought before the magistrate and charged with maliciously wounding Bridget.
Michael Cleary, Patrick Boland, Mary Kennedy, James Kennedy, and Patrick Kennedy were also charged with murder.
Wow. So, like, her own father was charged with, like, that's just so, like, ugh.
This is a very interesting case.
No one helped her. And the trial began in early July, and, you know, everyone testified that it was Michael Cleary who was directly responsible for the death.
But the testimony from witnesses were kind of conflicting and contradictory at times, too, too.
Everybody was saying something different.
And Cleary would, would shout out in the middle of the court a lot.
He would have a lot of angry responses, outraged responses.
One paper described him as having a wild kind of look in his eyes during the whole thing.
Yeah, I bet. And during the prosecution's questioning of Joanna Burke, who testified about what happened on the night of the murder, he jumped, Michael Cleary jumped out of his seat and shouted, I can't listen to it any longer like he had nothing to do with it when it came time for him to testify he just kind of confirmed though what the witnesses had said explaining that based on what he was told by jack dunn he and his neighbors he made sure to include them had attempted to drive out the changeling with herbs and fire believing that in doing so he would cause the changeling to flee and return
his wife to the bed.
That's what he kept.
He maintained that.
And although he definitely attempted to pass the blame onto Jack Dunn, like he was like, without Jack Dunn, I wouldn't have done this.
Right. And he was like, it was because of his beliefs and fairies and witchcraft, not me being an awful person.
I didn't believe it, but I did burn my wife alive.
Everyone else, though, tried to minimize their role and just pointed right at Michael Cleary and said it was all him.
Yeah. I mean, he's the one that fucking lit her on fire and then And threw lamp oil on her.
Exactly. And a lot of people said the motive, while a lot of witnesses said that Cleary's mind was going astray, for sure.
They said he had definitely become somewhat hysterical.
They said they believe that may have made him more susceptible to this whole fairies and changeling rhetoric that was being spewed. Now, even after all the testimony that had been heard, though, it remained unclear what exactly happened.
like how did this go here like it got here so quick what happened but it sounds like it just happened so quickly that's the thing it was like a run away runaway train um but what was clear to the jury was that although Michael Cleary had been the one directly responsible for the death there were others whose participation and influence had definitely contributed to the outcome like Jack um even the judge in the case felt that murder was in an inappropriate sentence sentence and reminded the jury that um they alone had the right to recommend a sentence of manslaughter which they chose to do in the end
are you fucking kidding me he threw oil onto her as she was already burning thank you uh i agree who the fuck doesn't understand that concept michael cleary was sentenced to 20 years in prison that's it yeah um yeah joanna dunn patrick kennedy james James Kennedy and William Kennedy were all found guilty of malicious wounding.
Dunn was sentenced to three years.
He needed more. William and James Kennedy were sentenced to 18 months and Michael Kennedy to six months.
Michael Kennedy definitely obviously received the harshest penalty, which he should have. But while so many others may have avoided the lengthy sentence, that doesn't mean like jail sentence.
That doesn't mean they got out of it.
don't worry because um they definitely got it when they got out of prison good upon his release released from prison jack dunn's reputation had uh plummeted into the earth's crust one would think he was seen as a laughingstock and obviously someone who was involved in creating this hysteria that led to the murder of an innocent woman was he like chased out of town pretty much and mary kennedy her his um her aunt bridget's aunt avoided prosecution for her role in the murder but when neighbors learned about the details of what had happened um and that her sons were also involved they burned the kennedy
house to the ground to make sure they couldn't return holy shit which is didn't mary try to help her i mean yeah but it was like too little too too late i don't i mean i think people heard a lot of stories and i think there was there's a lot of like unclear parts of this like when when the whole herb mixture was being force -fed to her when she was being violently abused during her illness who was there right there were some some of them were there right and they didn't stop it it's like you're that's guilty man but because somebody could have gone to the police somebody could have gone to somebody
even like this is happening in this house somebody needs to go stop it like go do something and nobody did um so on its face it definitely sounds like a sensational story of murder motivated by kind of outrageous beliefs at the time um but it's kind of more complicated than that because it has a lot to do with where and when it like it really has to do with like the time and place yeah less about like the reasoning i guess like it's it's it's strange there's so many layers to this one you know what i mean yeah definitely like the press at the time also was a wild part of the story because as particularly the british
newspapers at the time because they were using it yeah they made a lot of the folkloric beliefs that were involved like they really went to those and they kind of placed those those kind of hard steadfast somewhat archaic beliefs at the time they placed them on an entire rural population in Ireland and just used it.
When it seems like they were on their way out.
Yeah and they used it to portray these people as very superstitious very antiquated very like wow they're just going to burn you at the stake if they think you're a changeling kind of thing and at the time it was also like this kind of language was used like fairy language and witches and kind of folkloric language was used in Ireland a lot.
Yeah. But it also was used metaphorically not so much like for real you know like um as like Bork points out in her in her book that um the term gone to the fairies can absolutely be used in the literal sense and it was used in the literal literal sense but in Bridget's case it was likely referring to having an affair or stepping out of the house kind of thing um and to like make a fairy of me like Bridget said doesn't mean that you know making me like he's making people believe I'm a fairy it's isolating her like we said from others and you know making people treat her like she's sick and rotten
like something that you don't need to be around and again the press coverage definitely in the trial really didn't really untangle any of the true motive behind this but Angela Bork's book suggests that the language and circumstances of those involved might be where we can find the keys to what happened here it sounds like she says Michael Cleary had no relatives close by and says for over a week his wife his wife's relatives had been in and out of the house shaking their heads and making dark insinuations about her condition a suggestion that she was away with the fairies was a serious reflection on him
in their marriage so that's all to say that Michael Cleary was already an outsider he already wasn't surrounded by his own family.
He had come from another county, which meant he didn't have a lot of social support here.
His wife had a huge social and familial support network.
And he took it all away from her.
And she was also independent.
She supported herself.
She didn't need him.
She didn't need to rely on him, which is all great.
And, like, people should look at that as, like, what a bad bitch. But not them.
Like, good for her.
You guys can just love each other and live your lives.
But there was no love there.
Nobody needs the other one to live.
You know what I mean?
Like, you're just doing this because you care about each other.
But there's the other part where, like, there was all these rumors of her having an affair and him having an affair and all their marriage talk and all that stuff.
He was being very, you know, feeling very powerless at the time.
And so they kind of feel like that was likely the real motive was the feeling of powerless and wanting to dominate her, wanting to take back that power, wanting to be the man of the house.
you're my wife you're not this you know and you'll answer to me you will answer to me when i ask you to say who you are you say you are michael cleary's wife right you don't say you are just bridget boleyn you are my wife and i bet because she answered when they wanted her originally to say you're the wife of michael cleary she said i'm the daughter of yeah and of her father i'm the daughter of pat boleyn and i bet that's the only thing she would really answer and that in in and of itself is so telling yeah that one almost forced into a fire she still wouldn't say that she was his wife yeah and then
you have the other side of that with jack dunn being this other piece of the puzzle where he was also feeling powerless and feeling like he was not the authority anymore because he believed all these archaic folkloric things and he used to be the authority and these things would have made him powerful and would have made him somebody that everybody came to to find out what was going on he doesn't have that anymore another feeling of powerless and it's really scary to think about but it's true that that could that could have absolutely been part of this that it's too unfortunately two men in a time
when men are supposed to have all the power and all the influence and all the the handhold on the the home and they didn't or they felt they didn't and so they decided to assert it in a very violent and horrific and tragic way i mean jack there for lack of a better term added fuel to the fire absolutely physically and theoretically yeah i mean it's very clear that bridget's death was not simply about fairies no and i think real or imagined no and i think there's a lot of things We don't know that happened behind closed doors before her death.
Yeah. I don't think Michael Cleary necessarily, quote unquote, went insane.
I think, sure, you could say that he definitely did at some point.
Fell into some kind of hysteria.
Maybe. But I think he may have been on his way there before that, before the fairies even happened.
Her death was about power.
Definitely. Who had it, who didn't have it.
and in this time especially Bridgette clearly had achieved stuff that most rural you know women at the time in Ireland especially wanted and were striving towards she was successful she was independent she was powerful she I mean she was going to Jack Dunn's house to collect some payment because she gave you the goods like it's like you she was on it she was like a business lady yeah and she was murdered for that yo that's the unfortunately that's the that's the end of it no like that i think that's really where it all boils down to fairies are no fairies here and it's wow a really sad story but a very
interesting one he just went to prison and that was the last anyone heard of yeah i don't know what happened to him after that i hope he died a brutal death yeah just saying just saying just saying and i think wow um i'm trying to think because i remember hearing about this story a long long time ago i've never heard this one i think aaron mankey did it on lore oh in one of the early lore episodes i think so if you if you were interested by the story and you want to hear a different telling of it aaron mankey does a really really good job at telling stories.
He does. You should go listen to it, just because he rules so good.
And he has a new podcast, doesn't he?
He does. Yeah, you posted about it on Instagram.
Yeah, he has a podcast that he just launched recently called That's Just Weird. And it's like a family -friendly thing, but it's also like, and it's short.
It's short little like bite -sized episodes.
I think they're like 17 minutes.
And he just talks about like weird phenomena, weird history, weird news, and like you can listen to it with your kids.
okay cool i want to check that out i haven't yet it's very cool you should listen to it and go listen to it just shouting out erin aaron aaron all right well we love you and we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird and that's where that you kill your wife then blame it on fairies because i don't believe you michael cleary i think you're a giant an asshole an asshole an asshole giant an asshole bye If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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