Bridget Cleary: "The Last Witch Burned in Ireland"

Unreal Irish Folklore

Witch trials came to an end after 1711. But in the decades that followed, hushed into small, catholic communities in the Irish countryside, fear of the supernatural was growing. And 1895 brought the most infamous execution of a suspected fairy ever to take place – the burning of Bridget Cleary in County Tipperary . . .

READ THE PODCAST SCRIPTSOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Main Sources

• The “Witch-Burning” at Clonmel – Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 4 Dec., 1895
• Belief in Fairies and Witches, in Five Years in Ireland, Michael J. F. McCarthy

Newspaper Accounts

• New York Times (1, 2, 3)
• The Pall Mall Gazette
• Bismark Daily Tribune

Other cases mentioned

• Witchcraft in Tipperary (1, 2), The Times, Sep 18, 1850
• Revelation from a Hamlet near Athlone, New York Times, March 22, 1896
• The Times, Tuesday March 10, 1896

MUSIC

• The Butterfly – Sláinte
• Capclear – Aislinn
• Evening Bells – Arnaud Coutancier
• Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral (Irish Lullaby) – Chauncey Olcott
• Lunassa – Aislinn
• Dark Alleys – Kai Engel
• Interception – Kai Engel
• Fragile Ice – Sergey Cheremisinov
• She Moved Through the Fair – Sláinte

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