The burning of Bridget Cleary

Stories, some long forgotten, lie buried in the Irish Newspaper Archive…some 14 million pages to check! In 1989 the Tipperary Nationalist reported on the most remarkable incident which had taken place 104 years previous and was the then the subject of a play. It centred on the burning of a woman named Bridget Cleary in county Tipperary in 1895, reported as the last person in Ireland to be burned as a witch! If there was ever a Netflix series on an event in Irish History, this is it!

 Here the Nationalist explains:

THE NATIONALIST'TO PUBLISH SERIES ON BRIDGET CLEARY

NINETY THREE years ago, towards the end of March 1895 the disappearance in mysterious circumstances of a woman named Bridget Cleary gave rise to the apparently wildest and most alarming rumours in Clonmel and South Tipperary. The degree of public interest and excitement intensified as day after day passed with no news of her whereabouts.

Bridget Cleary was the wife of one Michael Cleary and the couple resided in a labourer's cottage in the townland of Ballyvadlea then a remote and isolated district a short distance from Cloneen, Fethard and between that village and Mullinahone and adjacent to the slopes of Slievenamon.

The most persistent rumour had it that Mrs Cleary had come to be suspected by some of her neighbours of "being possessed by an evil spirit and that in consequence of this conviction she had been subjected to remedial treatment

Inevitably the fact that the woman was missing and the rumours which surrounded her disappearance led to an investigation by the local police. From this there sprung a chain of sensational events which led to the horrendous discovery that here in South Tipperary had occurred one of the last, if not the very last witch-burning in Western Europe.

A play by Patrick Galvin, "The Last Burning" which is described as being loosely based on these events in Ballyvadlea focussed latter day attention on them when it was presented last May at the All-Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone and its production won the Premier Trophy. In his review of it in "The Nationalist" of May 6th last, the Editor and drama columnist, Brendan Long was highly critical of a work which he described as "imposing inexplicably upon the tragic facts a self-indulgent degree of lurid fiction which gravely distorts the historical truth. "It seems to me", he wrote, "that the limits of poetic licence are here most severely tested". The production of the play, the publicity which surrounded it and "The Nationalist" review were all factors in calling the subject matter to the intrigued attention of a senior RTE producer. Tommy McArdle, a Monaghan man from the Patrick Kavanagh country who before becoming involved in the professional theatre was a leading light in the celebrated Ballintra Players and had soldiered with Brendan Long in the Amateur Drama League of Ireland in which both were prominent participants. His interest whetted MacArdle had gone to the National Library to research the newspaper records of the day, later contacted Brendan Long and spent some time at "The Nationalist" Offices researching our files on the event, visiting the scene of the crime and making contact with locals who might be of help. One of these was South Tipperary Co. Councillor John Holohan, on whose lands at Ballyvadlea the remaining traces of the Cleary cottage may be found and whose late father went to school with the tragic victim, Bridget Cleary.

Brendan Long himself can claim a direct connection of a different sort with the affair. Much of his initial training as a young apprentice reporter with "The Nationalist" was under the aegis of the legendary Tipperary journalist John J. Halpin who in his own days as a cub reporter was one of "The Nationalist" team which reported the witch-burning trial at Clonmel Courthouse and who often was persuaded to speak about his personal memories and impressions of what had been the. most sensational case to have arisen in his lifetime in journalism.

The Editor recalls that years later and now many years ago he wrote a series for 'The Nationalist" under the title ' Famous Tipperary Trials" which proved so popular with readers that it was later followed with a second series "Tales From The Black Assizes". His subject matter was quite deliberately chosen from records of the earlier part of the 18th century. "I remember", he recalls, "the late Lieut Col Conniffe, then O.C. at Kickham Barracks quite unnecessarily offering me the friendly reminder that in Ireland 'a hundred years ago is only yesterday'".

Nevertheless during the period when the series were being published he was the recipient of quite a number of letters from readers asking for the inclusion of the Ballyvadlea case or, alternatively, asking that it should not be included.

The latter requests were quite unnecessary for this was some thirty years ago and he had no intention of including it at that stage in time. He recalls that the actual commencement of his research into the grim events and the court case which followed was sparked by a visit he paid in or around that time to the Holohan home in Ballyvadlea. It had nothing whatever to do with the case and was an interview of current news interest which concerned a brother of the now Councillor John Holohan, a Holy Ghost Father who was later to become President of Rockwell College. He remembers that he was walking through the fields with a member of the family and something in the topic of conversation caused them to pause. Suddenly his host said: "Do you know where you're standing now?" He didn't know but looking down could see a flagstone barely discernible under the grass. "That", he was told, "is the hearthstone of the fire on which they burned Bridget Cleary".

The years that followed saw, as opportunity afforded, fitful spurts of research which long since have resulted in a formidable pile of documentation.

MOST EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF CENTURY

"It was always in my mind", Brendan says, "that one day it would be appropriate to write a series on the case and with the advent next year of the centenary of "The Nationalist" it was obvious that since it was the most extraordinary court case of the century it would have to be featured in our planned Centenary Supplement which we intend to be a comprehensive review of the hundred years of the paper's existence".

The announcement on the front page of our edition of September 9th last that RTE has commenced filming of a new drama documentary on the burning of Bridget Cleary has in effect pre-empted that intention. Since the extraordinary and tragic _events which occurred in Ballyvadlea ninety-three years ago are to be the subject of an impending nationwide television series, "The Nationalist" will shortly commence the publication of a series by Editor Brendan Long, "What Happened In Ballyvadlea?"

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