Macabre Tales of the Irish Supernatural

Event

1996-03-29

01:21:28

This is a lecture by Kenneth Nilsen titled “Macabre Tales of the Irish Supernatural”, where he discusses Irish Gaelic, plays a video of Gaelic speaking, and tells stories of superstitions, Lady Augusta Gregory, witches, Joe Heeney, Irish folklore, importance of baptism, and other tales to do with folklore and supernatural happenings surrounding the Irish.

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Held by Benevolent Irish Society

The speaker introduces himself and the lecture by quoting from Daniel Deeney’s “Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland”. The speaker notes that Irish and Scottish Gael speakers seem to have a connection to the “other world”. Because immigrants brought that connection with them, the speaker found that Nova Scotia’s Scottish Gael speakers have stories very similar to the stories of Irish Gael speakers.
The speaker introduces a video of the Irish Gaelic speaker Barkley Keeney from Boston who tells a story about a ghost.
The speaker plays the video.
The speaker explains that the story is one Keeney remembers from when he was about 15 years old. The story involves a man and his dog meeting a dark figure one night which the local priest tells them was the devil. The speaker also notes that Keeney uses the Irish word for “shee” or “little people”.
Today’s story tellers usually don’t have a personal experience like Keeney, but folklorists who collected stories a hundred years ago found many such firsthand experiences. William B. Yeats and Lady (Augusta) Gregory both collected folklore. Lady Gregory’s stories, or memorates collected from the 1890’s are contained in her book “Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland”.
The speaker highlights a chapter from Lady Gregory’s book about healers or seers.
Using Lady Gregory’s book the speaker introduces and then reads about Biddy Early from County Clare and her ability to cure illnesses. The speaker also highlights some of Biddy Early’s life.
The speaker introduces the storyteller Joe Heeney and explains that he has a recording of Heeney telling a story about another herbalist who lived near Clifden, Ireland.
Before playing the recording, the speaker explains that Heeney, considered the finest singer from Ireland, spent most of his life in New York City working as a doorman. Heeney told his story in Gaelic which the speaker translates.
The speaker explains that the Heeney is telling a story involving Herb Hag from Clifden and a man who was trying to build a house. She explained that he was building his house on a path that the “(word unclear) people” used and if the man left his two doors open every night his house would remain standing.
The Irish word for witch is “bean feasa” which means woman of knowledge including a special kind of knowledge. The speaker quotes from an account by Cotton Mather about an Irish witch in Boston in 1688. The account detailed how Mrs. (Goody Ann) Glover, was blamed for putting a curse on four children. The woman was condemned and hanged.
The speaker introduces white witchcraft. The speaker plays his video clip of Mary Joyce performing the spiritual tradition of the bonfire or the fire of bones on St John’s Eve. The speaker also explains how in 1973 Mary Joyce treated a young woman for a migraine headache and about a charm Mary had that came from a seventh child’s grave.
The speaker notes that sometimes a hand rather than hair or part of the clothing was dug up from a graveyard and used as a charm.
The speaker tells the story of taking a hand from a grave and using it as a charm to get extra butter when churning milk. The speaker shows the “Handbook of Irish Folklore” by Sean O’Sullivan containing 700 pages of questions and answers about folklore.
The speaker reads aloud questions from the “Handbook” involving taking skin from a corpse to be used as a charm including a love charm. The speaker notes that other love charms may be put in food or as in the Irish play “The Love Charm” in a cigarette.
The speaker explains that people may have an evil intent such as preventing a couple from having children. The speaker also tells how an infertile couple might sleep overnight in an ancient megalith shaped like a bed or for a woman to leave on her shoes.
The speaker points out that pregnant women were considered in danger not only for medical reasons but also from fairies when she became a mother for the first time. The speaker gives an example of protecting pregnant women and customs involving the husband during childbirth.
The speaker gives details of a strange childbirth custom recorded in 1942 by folklorist Seamus O’Duilearge involving burning a bundle of sticks when the mother is having her first child. The speaker notes the importance of a newborn being baptized, and the mother being “churched” or blessed after the birth of a child.
Side A ends Side B begins
Turning his attention to illegitimate children the speaker reads “Dead Children Return as Lights” from the book “Child Murderers and Dead Child Traditions” (: A Comparative Study by Anne O’Connor). The speaker reads a similar story from Nova Scotia. The speaker then reads a story about the Irish woman Petticoat Loose. Priests, usually young or “discarded”, are prominent in these stories found in both the Maritimes and Ireland.
The speaker ends with the idea that stories involving priests with special powers from a folklore perspective in both the Maritimes and Ireland should be collected. The recording continues with the audience asking questions and offering comments.