The Murder of Bridget Cleary | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] you sounded morose I don't know why I'm
not 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 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 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 be square
yeah honestly that's what I always Elena's motto yeah I'm gonna get that tattooed on me but he said okay today
we're going to 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 and that's
where it will get bad but really the whole thing just goes awry there's no Whimsy involved it does at all that's a
bummer yeah I thought there would be when I went into it but nope there's alas 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 and he she was like she was like outside of the norm she was like very successful and
independent like she didn't need her man she didn't need any of that and that's why they killed me it was a problem yeah
exactly independent but I think the 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 um but again full of fairies and Fey
folk and magic at the same time but none of it is Whimsical damn it roller coaster ride so the question here was 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 yeah I was going to say you don't have the information but I like your answer yeah
uh so let's talk about Bridget first Bridget Boland was born in and I'm gonna do I've looked up these pronunciations
because Irish towns are who boy beautiful beautiful sounding but they don't sound the way they look yeah uh so
she was born in Bali vadley 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 on February 19 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 uh baby Bridget um she grew up in an extremely rural
Irish village you said you were real good I did rural juror I was able to say it yes uh Bali vaidley 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 a
little different little rural uh 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's really hard to say um 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 the burning of
a true story that's a little spoiler alert for you so uh 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 bolin's
Sister Mary Kennedy okay remember that name too that is Bridget's Aunt as the youngest in the family bork notes that
Bridget was more likely to be indulged with education than her brothers were 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 manless 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 because that's how she could make a living because as an adult she made her income
as a millionaire which she made hats for women essentially um there's also sources that say she
would call her a seamstress but I think it was probably around the same kind of thing she was doing a little bit of a
fixing and creating clothing and hats and all that good stuff it was a multi-faceted 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 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 in the timeline and the reasons are unclear but by the time she reached
her late teens or early 20s 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 really
yeah it was really sad it just kind of like family just dispersed in different ways now despite being very successful
as a seamstress 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
because she 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 [ __ ] like that's the way it is especially when it comes to being a woman exactly
um she also had like in a modest style of attire a lot 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 job she might have just been letting the tits Flow Free I
don't know free the titty baby but either way she was very much set apart from the typical Irish Country woman
attire of the time ah [ __ ] it so I'm sure some people were like bad [ __ ] alert and then some people were like
she's a bit queer it was probably the woman that were like put your tits away I just want my husband to see exactly
and it's like blame him don't blame her exactly but in simpler terms Bridget's success as a seamstress slash
millionaire 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 under scored by the fact that she also was very open about her success like she was
proud of herself she did people hated that yeah the people and again even now people want you to minimize it so it's
like she 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 sick of oh go finish oh no I was just
gonna say like don't be so you know don't don't be so outward with your success don't be so boss but yeah it
makes me think of the dojo cat song I'm a [ __ ] I'm a ball oh there you go that's Bridget Triple B yeah Boss [ __ ]
Bridget there you go I like it um 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 didn't leave it behind she didn't pretend it wasn't part of her daily life because it was yeah
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 yeah she really was she's just looking to make income any way she can and like you had to yeah so
she was working as an apprentice at the market in the nearby town of Clonmel I think it is Clonmel uh this is when
Bridget met her future husband Michael Cleary I don't like him uh he was a local Cooper and nearly 10 years older
than her she 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 according was like
five minutes and you're like hey we should get married yeah you know why not let's have a kid no in hindsight people
looked back at this relationship and were like they were a little of a strange pairing yeah it didn't make a
lot of sense not just because of the age gap which wasn't that big of a deal back
then right it was and and you know depending on the 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 well maybe not back then it did not um 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 shut off her differences even more and then the way
they went about things in their relationship which shouldn't be anybody else's business no to be quite honest
but she knows whatever again there's only like 30 people in this town so it's everyone's business apparently also what
the hell else are you gonna do I'm not that's the thing what do you got to do in their business oh I I'm 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 what happened uh but you know they're married now 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 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 I was gonna say do
you travel right who knows but Angela bork who had just named that book that everybody should read said in 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 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 right um but again while it's entirely
possible that there's a very simple a normal explanation for this rumors of course went quickly through the small
town what else are you gonna 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 so
they definitely had an affair is what you're telling me um so there was that and in court later
he would vehemently deny having any type of relationship with Johanna yeah I bet
he would um you know we don't know but there were also rumors that Bridget was not exactly
um 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
apparently an emergency man is a guy called in by Farmers to help save dying crops exciting so I still think it's so
easy it's exciting but like in a different way than I thought imagine if your crops were dying and then it would
be pretty exciting I'd be excited yeah but Michael Cleary would later tell reporters that he thought Bridget was
having an affair with the local farmer named Patrick power so there's a lot of just scandalous like Desperate
Housewives kind of thing going on here like this is Wisteria Lane is that what it's called yeah it is yeah this is
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 [ __ ] that's exactly they were like unfair yeah there it is now in the small village of
ballyvadly and nearby conmell I think it's cottonmouth I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong you're like my people so I
love you uh Bridget's socioeconomic status her Youth and her perceived arrogance could have been perceived
poorly by the rural population particularly women unfortunately women don't ever like each other yeah so Borg
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 okay 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 [ __ ] with them because he was also
married so they decided to be like well you two are [ __ ] 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 they were doers just because
they were doing well and we're open about it [ __ ] imagine if everyone that was doing well had an affair yeah
but yeah like I mean there are but like let me just work through that but 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 Solid Ground 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 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 A 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
true almost 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 testimony in court Michael Cleary described his
relationship to his wife saying we were not great at all oh well yeah I think we
could we could realize that yeah and apparently um 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 women with each other oh so
this was pretty much him saying like we did not love each other it was a marriage of like 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 news flash
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 um 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 which is wild
um some also you're 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 fan yeah that's a big Irish family they're gonna be like [ __ ]
you Michael yeah but that probably you know teed him off as well of course 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 loneliness 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 they could 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 ah 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 because divorce
probably wasn't even like a word back then yeah it's like and it's like dude I think you both would have been fine if
you both just went your separate ways here like you would have you would have survived the society issues like we
didn't need to go here right now on the afternoon of March 4th 1895 Bridget walked home from her Bali vaidley home
about two miles to kilnamina hold on kill the Mana kill the Mana I wrote it out phonetically so I wanted
to make sure I said it right kill the Mana I hate when I do that and then I'm like I still can't say yeah my damn uh
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 was charging a business woman and you
didn't pay me last time I'm collecting these eggs uh but Jack wasn't there and his wife wasn't there either yeah I bet
they were so she decided to wait for one of them to come back because she said I'd make good on my [ __ ] leg I'm
bringing you eggs you're gonna 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 um and Bridget was apparently because remember we're just not one for 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 um even sitting by the fireplace it didn't do anything to warm her up and
according to Angela bork uh 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 uh in the days after this the
weather got warmer but you know the 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
um and during this time especially in rural communities people would come to your bedside people yeah you know all
the time like it was you were not going to be alone in bed um 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 Community um and one of those visitors was Jack
Dunn her her father's cousin her father's cousin so and this was also the man who she had gone to visit on the day
she got ill [ __ ] better have my money 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 their 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
ultimately it's Jack the quack coming they would have bad guys me immediately I would have been killed on impact on
him we're just like shunned into the woods it would have been fun I was gonna say which would have been awesome uh so
a report in the cork examiner um said it like this at 55 years old Dunn is an old man and is fairy ridden
he's learned apparently in incantations charms and spells and can tell ghost stories and fairy tales he is the he is
the very shinachi 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 shinachi yeah that's fun to say yeah and at the time when I read this I was like he sounds awesome
when I when you say that he sounds awesome but I can already tell that he's up to some [ __ ] [ __ ] yeah I'm gonna go
ahead and tell you he sucks yeah I saw that and the people here suck besides like Bridget yeah pretty much Johanna I
have her number yeah I have his number yeah Jack I was like you had promise in the
beginning but no he didn't though because he never even paid for her eggs that's true so [ __ ] him that's 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 folk tales and Superstition were treated very seriously
much more seriously than they were after um 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 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 Faye and [ __ ] yeah so like
let's go but like I don't know if they like overtake humans though I don't know I don't know about it I'm gonna sit over
here with my no knowledge of Faye 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 [ __ ] 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 I think exactly now again much of Ireland at this time was embracing the modern era so this was
this was weird yeah but I feel 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 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 could have been but in Jack Dunn's experience
Bridget Cleary had always been very well put together she was a merchant she was
a seamstress a business woman 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 um particularly after she had been near
his Ferry for it 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 why so like sir she sat in the damp cold
air we know what happened next to a ferry for it no according to him shut up 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 so wow like she didn't seem like herself
but coming from Jack they're like oh [ __ ] 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 in particular Michael Cleary um into a little bit of a
tizzy because he already had some thoughts I feel so real tizzy or a [ __ ] put on Disney 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 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 [ __ ] sick she had bronchitis she had pneumonia she was
just sick that was it but Jack Dunn was like nope there's 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 [ __ ] just
didn't want to pick up his egg tab that's true he just wanted that egg tub to remain honestly I think that's all it
lines up for for him and well and 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's like oh yeah that's
all [ __ ] 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 it your 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 face um like for example Bridget and Michael
Cleary had experienced um a period of uncommon Prosperity before she was ill and this was after her being at the
ferry for it so this indicated that she had maybe traded her health for wealth now I think she was wealthy before even
I think so too now also they'd been married for eight years they were remaining childless so some people
thought that that meant she had exchanged her ability to Bear children for economic Prosperity yeah
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 bridgeable and 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 in one of her legs is longer than
the other Faye you're a fairy get out of here you're a changeling that's and they would have said that if
you looked at your ass and would have said you're a changeling she's which 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 because I'm glad there were some people because at this point she wasn't seeming to be getting any
better so people were genuinely like what's going on here more 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 cream 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 because she was
neither poor or destitute but several days passed and Dr creene did not respond did not come to the home
because he was busy with the poor in the distance 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 be have an affair with the Emergency Man
um he sent one of his Maids because remember we're not porn destitute here his maids to Dragon to fetch father Khan
Ryan um and he did this which it kind of implicates that she was close to death and needed less rights yeah like why
else you know or at least needed a priest there to perform some sort of if need be stuff so like this this would
implicate that but that really wasn't the case now on March 13th so four days after he was first contacted Dr creene
finally made his way to the clearly house imagine just having to go find a doctor yeah come find you right like now
in his testimony later that he gave to the coroner later uh Queen 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 uh 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 hmm
and he keeps saying that she was very anxious very nervous probably because everyone's saying she's a [ __ ] 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
um 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 well there wasn't a lot to do about it right later in fact a
post-mortem examination said the coroner reported that the only evidence of illness was that her lungs
were slightly congested okay so it does indicate that um and but also I guess what what they were
trying to say to was they were like okay so she has congested lungs but there's 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 creane 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 yeah so I think he was pointing a little to
that that like there was some psychological stuff Happening Here um but they don't say it outright okay
now given the autopsy results it's entirely possible that crean's assessment was accurate
um 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 kilnament kilnamina um meaning that she kind of believed she
caught a chill down by the fairy Fort okay so she was at least mentioning that she was near a ferry for it 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 done 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 [ __ ] out and now she she like sold her ability to
have children so now she's probably sitting there and being like well it was near a ferry for it like what exactly
she's probably getting scared now like yeah this is deep-rooted folklore that she changed her whole life a child yeah
yeah it's like no matter what she's gonna be like [ __ ] is this real like is is this what is happening right yeah 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 um 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 uh 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
coming again yeah 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 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 [ __ ] that was happening before this so she doesn't
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'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 when you look at what
happens in the end you're like did she mean that but I don't know 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 distress and emotional stress that was referenced by Dr cream
was the result of Bridget's belief that Michael's Behavior had some sort of Nefarious intent but this wasn't him
caring and being influenced it was him wanting an end game here a means to him um 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 so Michael Cleary left the house shortly
after Dr Crane 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 rights wow so this is like shocking like they're
like [ __ ] 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 rights 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 um and was probably in very poor
lighting others were around everyone's in an emotional heightened state so all while Cleary reported Father Ryan as
having made dire predictions about Bridget's like impending death he never considered her to be
dangerously ill instead he likely administered last rights as a precautionary measure in case it did
progress and he couldn't get back there in time yeah and he wasn't but he didn't
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 [ __ ] sick right now so 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 creene
and Father Ryan saw Bridget clearey 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 um and while both men did what they could for Bridget green 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
last rights 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 crane 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 yeah it's like you could just have taken Dr
Green'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 say 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
exactly whichever you prefer yeah he he wasn't looking at it 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 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
unfortunately the premature last white rights reading by Father Ryan put that in
um 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 tizzy now acting under Jack Dunn's influence Michael Cleary went to the market and fettered to get several
herbs that he thought would improve her condition now after Dr Crane 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 [ __ ]
about Faye either like you're taking to you're 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 Gainey on the fifth day
so he's making reference to Dennis Gainey who is a local farmer and Herb Doctor 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 but done in Cleary we're 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 well done is essentially admitting he and the three other men violently forced
Bridget to drink the liquid he's just minimizing it into like it was tough on her but she also and it's like you
poured it down her throat and [ __ ] yeah and he's saying I caught her which indicates that she was 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 clary'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 [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] yes I told you no this is sad it's very sad it's [ __ ]
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 because Dunn was telling him if it went on the ground she could not be brought
back from the fairies what the [ __ ] 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 it 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 a well when was it the I think it was during the 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 [ __ ] yeah also remember these are her family
members yeah this is like her father's cousin 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 done hurt 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 the men 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 let like put me down and the men just ignored her and placed her body on
the grate above the fire of 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 great 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 da da I am the father of Pat Boland in the name
of God I'm the daughter of Pat Bowlen in the name of God and after about 10 minutes they removed her from the great
and put her back in bed gone the fact that she called him 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 [ __ ] shocking to the public
was that during this whole thing there were like nine 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 arriving 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 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 uh
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 she
he didn't see anything that indicated she was in danger like nobody was acting strange
um as he was leaving he asked whether Bridget had been given the medicine that Dr Green 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
um 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 fairy 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 um 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 [ __ ] up because
Michael clear is just eating her jam and drinking her tea and Michael Clary 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 gonna kill you like literally and Bridget didn't answer because she he's like will you just let
me in my [ __ ] jam and drink my tea like everyone leave me alone she did she became pissed she was like shut the [ __ ]
up and then Michael became enraged that she wouldn't answer 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 Boland holy [ __ ] like he didn't
put it in her mouth but he held it there at a very threatening this man is a [ __ ] 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 there's a sexual sadist act 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 he's gonna 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 um reported correctly but and 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 [ __ ] felt powerless and he snapped and decided to assert what he felt was a 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 he was looking for he wanted to dominate and he wanted to put Terror into her
that's what I 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 [ __ ] 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 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 like any of this it
sounds like he might have been more violent behind closing that's what I wonder if he it was all behind the
scenes and she she had previously said before this had even happened that he was trying to make a fairy effort 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
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 in Flames from the stick that he was holding from her face like fell onto her night dress and it
caught fire and engulfed her in Flames oh my God oh my God now this is where this is where I say
to me this sounds intentional because that right here you can go okay that seems like it went further than was was
maybe intended but Joanna Burke later testified that she that Michael Cleary grabbed a nearby Lantern and threw lamp
oil over her body before that before she caught fire like while her nightgown was
going up 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 is [ __ ] uh like are you kidding me and he was shouting 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 what so he was saying like she's a changeling she's a deceiver she was sent
here that's not her you're gonna see her go like the the changeling go up the chimney and you'll see it okay that was
what he was saying when anyone tried to go in there to help her Michael was threatening them saying he would burn
them as well if he 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 yeah this way um 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
or remains oh my god um somebody 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 a fairy so now he's trying to say yeah 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 [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] yeah now Michael
Cleary collected his Bridget's remains in a bag and Patrick Kennedy helped him and they both took her to a new 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 sounds like that 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 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 and fairies in witchcraft like in the moments
directly after Bridget's death he kind of seemed to recognize that Jack Dunn was like 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's 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 of hysterical fear of changeling yeah
um and in fact but then it and 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 fairy Fort wow so no
everybody's like was that you know was that just for show or what was it because exactly you could look at that
either way like he truly believed it or that or that he was doing to maintain that
so as he was waiting the police were alerted to Bridget's disappearance by William Simpson you think they were
[ __ ] I gotta do I hope they were I hope they were he seems like you at least read
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 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 going back because I'm like oh no because
she couldn't have stood up to the men like they would have just 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 didn't seem like
a lot of people were do making great vast efforts to stop what was going on here which is very disconcerting but I'm
not gonna sit here and crucify anyone in particular except for the people who actually did the things exactly um but
based on the information provided by William Simpson um Burke and several others in the house
that night they did make nine arrests they set out nine arrested warrants um 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 Gainey the farmer and Herb Doctor Who prescribed the herbs Jack Dunn and Joanna Burke because again they were
there yeah 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 and dragon I got 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 because this was just wild um and it was reported as a witch
burning very like you know very sensationalistically yeah um but in the British press at the time
were were very eager to hold this up as evidence of you know how rural Ireland is so barbaric uh 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 con 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 Clone uh cloning I believe it is um at this time Dr creene and Dr w k
Heffernan provided the jury with details of the postmortem examination um so there was obviously extensive
burning and charring of Bridget's body but Dr creane 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 huh yeah so they don't know
where that came from or what happened maybe when they were forcing the milk downers possibly or that poker that he
held to her mouth or mouth did she did he do that at some point um they also reported that other than
the obvious burns the evidence suggested that Bridget had been perfectly healthy
when she died in 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 um so like her own father was charged with like that's just so like ugh this
is a very interesting no one helped her and the trial began in early July and you know everyone testified that it was
Michael clearly who was directly responsible for the death but the testimony from Witnesses were kind of
conflicting and contradictory at times too everybody's 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 I bet and during the prosecution's questioning of
Joanna Burke who testified about what happened on the night of the murder he jumped to 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 when he kept he maintained that and although he definitely attempted to
pass the blame on to Jack Dunn like he was like without jacked on I wouldn't have done this right
um and he was like it was because of his beliefs and fairies in 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 awesome yeah I mean he's
the one that [ __ ] lit her on fire and then threw lamp oil on her exactly and a
lot of people said the motive while a lot of witnesses said that he that Cleary's mind was going astray for sure
they said he definitely become somewhat hysterical they said they 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 have 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 Runaway 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
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 [ __ ] kidding me he threw the oil onto her as she was
already burning thank you uh I agree who the [ __ ] 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 Kennedy and William Kennedy were all found guilty of malicious wounding um
done sentence was sentenced to three years he needed more William and James Kennedy were sentenced to 18 months and
Michael Kennedy to six months um 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 relief release from prison Jack Dunn's reputation had uh plummeted into the
Earth's crust one would think he was seen as a laughing stock and obviously someone who was involved in creating
this hysterical hysteria yeah that led to the murder of an innocent woman 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 which is didn't Mary try to help her uh
I mean yeah but it was like too a little 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 the 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 but like this is happening in this house somebody needs to go stop
it but 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 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 place those those kind of hard steadfast somewhat archaic beliefs at the time
they placed them on an entire rural population in Ireland and just 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
gonna burn you at the stake if they think you're a changeling kind of thing um 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 little 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 um and again the Press coverage definitely and the trial really didn't
really entangle any of the true motive behind this but um 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 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 yeah 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 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 in like people should look at that as like what a bad [ __ ] but not like good fur you guys can just love
each other and live your lives 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 talking 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 bridgeable and 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 am the daughter of Pat Bowlen 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 had 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 two 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 imagine no and I think there's a lot of things we don't know that happen
behind closed doors before her death yeah I don't think Michael Cleary necessarily quote unquote
one insane I think sure you could say that he definitely did at some fell into some kind of Hysteria maybe but I think
he may have been on his way there before that no heard before the fairies even happened her death was about power
definitely had it who didn't have it and in this time especially Bridget 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 you know that's the unfortunately that's the that's the end
of it 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 it's a very interesting one he just went to prison and that was the last anyone heard about yeah I don't
know what happened to him after that I hope he died of 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 Menke 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 Minke does a really good job of telling stories and it 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 he does 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 it's very cool you should listen to it and go listen to it just shouting out
Aaron a Aeron a Ron all right well we love you and we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird
and that's where you kill your wife and then blame it on fairies because I don't
believe you Michael Cleary I think you're a giant [ __ ] an [ __ ] an [ __ ] giant an [ __ ] bye
foreign [Music]

On March 15, 1895, thirty-five-year-old Michael Cleary murdered his wife, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary in their home in Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary. While terrible, the murder was just the last act in a series of bizarre atrocities committed against Bridget, whom her husband would later claim had been taken by malevolent fairy folk and replaced with a changeling.

More shocking, however, was that the barbaric act hadn’t been committed by one man alone, but by a group of rural men, including family.

Was Bridget Cleary really murdered out of fear of fairies? Or had Michael Cleary just convinced himself of as much in order to commit murder?

References

Bourke, Angela. 1999. The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story. London, UK: Pimlico.

Freeman's Journal. 1895. "Strange death near Clonmel." Freeman's Journal, March 25.

Irish Times. 1999. "Burning Bridget." Irish Times, August 7: B24.n.a. 1917. The Tipperary Witch Case. Toronto, ON: McGill University.

New York Times. 1895. "A with burner sentenced." New York Times, July 6: 5.

—. 1895. "Not witches, but fairies." New York Times, April 22: 4.

Ruxton, Dean. 2016. "The story of the last 'witch' bruned alive in Ireland." Irish Times, November 24.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Bridget Cleary was murdered by her husband, influenced by folklore, after being accused of being a changeling, highlighting themes of power and gender dynamics.

Key points

Bridget's Independent Spirit. Bridget Cleary was a successful and independent woman, ahead of her time.
A Marriage of Convenience. Michael Cleary's relationship with Bridget was marked by suspicion and bitterness.
Bridget's Illness Begins. Bridget walks home and falls ill, suffering from shivering and headaches.
Jack Dunn's Folklore Beliefs. Jack Dunn is portrayed as a man clinging to outdated beliefs about fairies.
The Changeling Accusation. Jack Dunn claims Bridget is a changeling, causing panic in the community.
Father Ryan's Last Rites. Father Ryan prepares Bridget for death, raising questions about her health.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was a millionaire, which she made hats for women essentially.

Highlighting Bridget's success as a businesswoman.

5:36WatchSep 1, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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