The Wild Irishman

by T. W. H. Crosland

“At one time during that horrible night the poor victim said, ‘The police are at the window. Let ye mind me now!’ But there were no police there.

“We now come to the third day, Friday, 15th of March. Six o’clock on that morning found Michael Cleary, the chief actor, Patrick Boland and Mary Kennedy in the house with the poor victim, when the two Simpsons and the two Burkes were leaving. Simpson says, ‘Cleary then went for the priest, as he wanted to have Mass said in the house to banish the evil spirits.’ This brings us back again to the Rev. Father Ryan, who says, ‘At seven o’clock on Friday morning I was next summoned. Michael Cleary asked me to come to his house and celebrate Mass: his wife had had a very bad night.’… Father Ryan arrived at the cottage at a quarter past eight, and said Mass in that awful front room where poor Bridget Cleary was lying in bed.…

“‘She seemed more nervous and excited than on Wednesday,’ he says, and adds, ‘her husband and father were present before Mass began, but I could not say who was there during its celebration.’ He had no conversation with Michael Cleary ‘as to any incident which had occurred,’ because he suspected nothing. ‘When leaving,’ he said, ‘I asked Cleary was he giving his wife the medicine the doctor ordered? Cleary answered that he had no faith in it. I told him that it should be administered. Cleary replied that people may have some remedy of their own that could do more good than doctor’s medicine.’ Yet, Father Ryan left the house ‘suspecting nothing.’ ‘Had he any suspicion of foul play or witchcraft,’ he says, ‘he should have at once absolutely refused to say Mass in the house, and have given information to the police.’…

“After Father Ryan had said his Mass and left, Mrs. Cleary remained in bed. Simpson saw her there at midday and never saw her afterward. His excuse for his presence and non-interference on Thursday night is that ‘the door was locked, and he could not get out.’ We find the names of still more people mentioned as having visited her this day. She seems, judging from the number of visitors, to have been extremely popular. Johanna Burke seems to have been in the house the greater part of this day. At one time she tells how Cleary came up to the bedside and handed his wife a canister, and said there was £20 in it. She, poor creature, took it, tied it up, ‘and told her husband to take care of it, that he would not know the difference till he was without it.’ She was ‘in her right mind, only frightened at everything.’

“At length the night fell upon the scene; and, at eight o’clock, Cleary, who seems to have ordered all the other actors about as if they were hypnotized, sent Johanna Burke and her little daughter Katie for ‘Thomas Smith and David Hogan.’ Smith says, ‘We all went to Cleary’s, and found Michael Cleary, Mary Kennedy, Johanna Meara, Pat Leahy, and Pat Boland in the bedroom.’ The husband had a bottle in his hand, and said to the poor bewildered wife, ‘Will you take this now, as Tom Smith and David Hogan are here? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!’ Tom Smith, a man who said ‘he had known her always since she was born,’ then inquired what was in the bottle, and Cleary told him it was holy water. Poor Bridget Cleary said ‘Yes,’ and she took it. She had to say, before taking it, ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ which she did. Smith and Hogan then left the bedside and ‘went and sat at the fire.’ Cleary told them that his wife, ‘as she had company, was going to get up.’ She actually left her bed, put on ‘a frock and shawl,’ and came to the kitchen fire. The talk turned upon bishogues, or witchcraft and charms. Smith remained there till twelve o’clock, and then left the house, leaving Michael Cleary (husband), Patrick Boland (father), Mary Kennedy (aunt), Patrick, James, and William Kennedy (cousins), Johanna Burke, and her little daughter Katie (also cousins), behind him in the house. Thomas Smith never saw Bridget Cleary after that. According to Johanna Burke, they continued ‘talking about fairies,’ and poor Bridget Cleary, sitting there by the fire in her frock and shawl, wan and terrified, had said to her husband, ‘Your mother used to go with the fairies; that is why you think I am going with them.’

“‘Did my mother tell you that?’ exclaimed Cleary.

“‘She did. That she gave two nights with them,’ replied she.…

“Johanna Burke then says that she made tea and ‘offered Bridget Cleary a cup.’ But Cleary jumped up, and getting ‘three bits of bread and jam,’ said she would ‘have to eat them before she could take a sup.’ He asked her as he gave her each bit, ‘Are you Bridget Cleary, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?’ The poor, desolate young woman answered twice and swallowed two pieces. We all know how difficult it is, when wasted by suffering and excited by fear, to swallow a bit of dry bread without a drop of liquid to soften it. It, in fact, was the task set to those in the olden days who had to undergo the ‘ordeal by bread.’ How many of them, we are told, failed to accomplish it! Poor Bridget Cleary failed now at the third bit presented to her by the demon who confronted her. She could not answer the third time.