Bridget Cleary Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Are you a witch? Are you are fairy?
Are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

Once I was young and fair to see
My wedded name was Bridget Cleary
I walked the roads to sell my eggs
The flowery paths of Tipperary

But on a day of pouring rain
I catched a chill and took to bed
All shivering from top to toe
A raging fever in my head

My kinsman, Jack Dunne, came to call
‘That's not our Bridgie, ' he revealed
‘A changeling, left by fairy folk.'
And so my dreary fate was sealed.

My husband to that charlatan,
Old Dennis Graney, ventured next
Who gave him secret herbs to use
A potion strong, from hidden text

They gathered round, my kinsmen brave
They held me down upon my bed
They forced their foulness through my teeth
Held a hot poker to my head

And as I lay and threshed about
They drenched the bed with human piss
A curse upon my cruel man
Whose lips in love before I'd kiss

He threw me down on the flagstones
And broke my skull, and cursed my name
And ripped the clothes from off my back
And then he put me to the flame


They wrapped me in a winding sheet
And buried me neth a boreen
And left me in unhallowed ground
As if my life had ever been

My husband sailed to Montreal
Strange was the love he showed to me
Now little children skip and sing
To keep alive my memory