Irish Independent, 5 Dec. 1919; Freemans Journal, 4 Dec. 1919; Connacht Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920. 149 (Nov. 1995), 368. But even if the threat of a malediction did not shape someones behaviour in the way you had hoped, the evil prayer still had value. Reproduced with permission. Imprecating servants, labourers, soldiers and sailors were to be fined a shilling, and everyone else two, with escalating fines for subsequent offences and non-payers pelted in the stocks or whipped.21 Beyond the legal crackdown, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century churchmen sermonized and wrote tracts attacking not just common swearing but also the very near akin yet much graver habit: the monstrous cuftom of cursing.22 Mostly it was Protestants who spoke out, during moments of evangelical revival, but not exclusively. The relationship is revealed in the timing. Although the union with Britain was still in place, many of the Catholic movements great causes had been won, from emancipation in 1829, to control over most state-funded schools, and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869. ), Albions Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (New York, 1975), 303. CC BY. ), Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland. May Gods curse and my curse light down on her every day she rises, a mother from Ballybay cried in 1911, on the woman she blamed for spoiling her relationship with her adult son.74 Many maledictions, however, were horribly detailed and gory. Imprecations like: the curse of my orphans, and my falling-sickness [epilepsy], light upon you, which a woman from Athlone pronounced in court, on the people prosecuting her for theft.2 Or: the curse of God and the curse of the flock be upon any men who vote for Higgins, repeatedly bellowed by a priest from County Mayo, during a fractious election campaign.3 Or: may the curse of God alight on you and your family throughout their generations may the curse of Gods thunder and lightning fall heavily, prayed by a farmer from Limerick, on the landlord who had evicted him.4, Those maledictions were uttered between the 1830s and 1850s. Other cursers stood up high, on rocks above island shores for instance, as policemen and bailiffs sailed away. Like rulers elsewhere, early modern Irelands politicians and senior churchmen repeatedly tried to quash the foul habit, as part of a general attack upon ungodly speech, which in turn fed into a wider civilizing mission that historians have termed the reformation of manners.20 The Oaths Act of 1635 was ineffective so more strenuous efforts were made in 1695, when Irelands parliament again outlawed both profane swearing and cursing those two detestable sins. In 1960, for example, in the little town of Elphin in County Roscommon, Martin OConnor threatened a shopkeeper with the blacksmiths curse during a row about money.83 The blacksmiths curse persisted in Ireland, but at a low level. It only worked on people who deserved it: evildoers, killers, cheats, betrayers and so on.34 When we do not deserve the curse we would not heed it; the curse of the wicked never availed, a farmer from County Mayo explained in 1834, when asked about the eerie topic.35 Unjust curses would not just miss their targets. Cursing was rife in nineteenth-century Ireland because many people valued it, not only poor peasants and beggars, but priests, parents, and others needful of influence and consolation. 1935) documented a vast sphere of life, from cooking to clothes, and cursing too.13 Even so, historians have largely followed the narrower agenda of the earlier generations of folklorists, by studying Irelands fairies, banshees, witchcraft, the evil eye, supernatural healing and calendar customs, along with newer oddities like the black magic rumours circulating in 1970s Northern Ireland.14 Irelands curses have been ignored despite the fact that there is a vast academic literature about cursing elsewhere, from ancient lead malediction tablets to imprecations in Anglo-Saxon legal documents to curses in contemporary societies. 119, 507. (London, 1902), i, 310; Dublin Weekly Register, 11 May 1844; Dublin Daily Express, 20 Apr. Ancient Roman Curses 1. St Brigids stone, Blacklion Co. Cavan. 1890. It all came out. To take a few examples: in 1960 Mary Feehily knelt down on the road to use her widows curse, calling for God to smite her neighbour Patrick Watters, who had berated her during an argument about trespassing animals.140 After an inheritance dispute, Ellie Walsh of Carrick spent the five years between 1957 and 1962 solemnly and publicly cursing her neighbour Harry Walsh, going down on her knees, holding up a crucifix, and praying that the curse of God would come to wipe out Harrys family. W. B. Cannon, Voodoo Death, American Anthropologist, xliv (1942); Esther M. Sternberg, Walter B. Cannon and Voodoo Death: A Perspective from 60 Years On, American Journal of Public Health, xcii (2002); Martin A. Samuels, Voodoo Death Revisited: The Modern Lessons of Neurocardiology, Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, lxxiv (2007), suppl. Diary kept by the Rev. To illustrate: in a classic essay about anonymous threatening letters, sent to English farmers and grain-dealers in the late 1700s and 1800s, E. P. Thompson noticed that these letters were often rhymed in a spell-like style, as if to imply a bit of magical menace.60 Irish threatening letters, by contrast, were far more supernaturally explicit, teeming with the direst maledictions of the sort contained in a letter sent to a County Limerick landlord in 1886: may you wither up by the fire of hell soon and sudden, may the flesh rot off your bones, and fall away putrid before your eyes, and may the consolation of eternal flames come to be your consolation in your last illness, and the hearthstone of hell be your pillow for ever.61 That missive was pure literary cursing. The first comprehensive study of early Celtic cursing, this work analyses both medieval and ancient expressions of Celtic imprecation: from the binding tablets . Case studies can be revealing and exciting, as in Angela Bourkes exploration of the 1895 killing of a fairy-ridden Irishwoman, Bridget Cleary, or Ruth Harriss account of collective possession in an Alpine village the Mal de Morzine.16 But I think a broader perspective is more suitable here, because bringing together a wide range of evidence allows us to better appreciate cursings central quality. Broken Mirror Curse 2. 2 and 3. After that, the curse tablets were buried, placed into a well or a pool, or even hung on the wall of a temple. Flower, Western Island or Great Blasket, 49. May your bones be broken, for example, and a thousand placings of a rope round your neck.41 Irish people said these things during arguments, after accidents, or following near misses. Inevitably, it left traces on a wide range of literary material, from Gaelic dictionaries to local newspapers, government reports, travellers writings, letters, novels, legal documents, memoirs, diaries and religious tracts. The Irish farmer, Donal Bohane, owns a 30-acre (12.1 ha.) Michael knew a woman who threw the widows curse. Stemming from moral indignation, the virtuoso but also shocking technique required knowledge, composure, practice and wit. Generally though, in Ireland, cursings power was derived from more than mystic phrases alone. Matthew Dutton, The Law of Masters and Servants in Ireland (Dublin, 1723), 11417; [Anon.] Like most tribal scopes of ancient times, the basic framework of the Celtic society was composed of extended families and clans who were based within their particular territories. For example: Maureen Flynn, Blasphemy and the Play of Anger in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Past and Present, no. But cursing songs were not a dying art, part of a vanishing Gaelic folk culture. Ellen Collins of Ballina, for instance, who thought a curse killed her mother, made her child disabled and gave her depression. Folklorists interviewees, such as Patrick Feeney of Gurrane of Ballyhea in County Cork, said that the generations growing up from the 1960s knew little of maledictions.150. With these responsibilities, ecclesiastical leaders could no longer permit their priests to use such terrible language. For victims, being cursed could be nerve-shatteringly intimidating. 514, 19; vol. Gamble, Sketches of History, Politics, and Manners, in Dublin, and the North of Ireland, 48. Between the 1820s and 1860s, Protestant missionaries strove to persuade Irish Catholics to abandon Rome and embrace Reformed faiths. May your limbs wither and the stench of your rotten carcass be too horrible for hungry dogs. The Irish were formidable cursers. After all, as the old saying goes, "Prevention is better that cure". 1886. Following Holy Communion, Father Loftus stood at the altar, holding a chalice. When the evicted tenant prayed the widows and orphans curse upon him , Mr Dowd suddenly reneged on his purchase, frankly telling the vendor: Ill have nothing to do with that place I so unwisely bid for. Newry Telegraph, 9 Oct. 1851; Limerick Chronicle, 11 Oct. 1851. With the legal system generally trusted to provide fair outcomes, perhaps there was little need for a justice-based supernatural punishment. The widows curse was on them and their children. To be intimidating and cathartic, cursing required knowledge, practice, wit, skill and composure. Shivas Curse Upon Brahma 4. 640, 75. Some unleashed maledictions whilst brushing the dust from their feet, as Christ told his disciples to do when they were shunned.64 Irish cursers of various types fell to their knees, in conspicuously public places like the middle of a road or marketplace.65 With locals watching including, preferably, their victims these cursers beat the floor and looked to the skies, put their hands together and besought God to blight their opponents. NFC, Schools Collection: vol. May his neck get stiff, they mumbled.44, More serious were musical curses, stinging ballads calling for uncanny retribution. Chief amongst these useful maledictions, during the impoverished early nineteenth century, was the beggars curse. May the cold north blast of misery nip your body, while your heart burns like fire. Fairies, leprechauns, banshees, witches, holy wells and rural remedies. May you never prosper. Dr. James Butlers Catechism: Revised, Enlarged, Approved, and Recommended by the Four R.C. The emigration and land consolidation following the Great Famine meant that female farmers (most of whom were widows) made up a growing proportion of tenants, from 4 per cent in 1841, to 15 per cent by 1911.133 Landlords were evicting unprofitable tenants but farmers fought back, particularly during the Land War of 187982, using non-compliance and intimidation. A publican and farmer from Kilmanaheen, in County Clare, told the commissioners: a woman with child would certainly never refuse relief, meaning that a pregnant woman would not dare risk a beggars curse. May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat. Whatever the response, after scenes like these, the neighbours would talk, and not just about your crimes. A curse is one or many M agic spells which are placed upon people with the intention of harming them. Botorrita Plaques, the third plaque is the most extended text discovered in any ancient Celtic language. They expressed fear, loathing, hate and yearning for pitiless vengeance, for punishments exceeding anything one could mete out physically. Its unusual history underlines three wider points: (i) magic can usefully thrive in modern societies, figuring in the most vital areas of life; (ii) different types of magic have distinct chronologies; (iii) the most psychologically powerful forms of magic are subtle arts that deserve our (begrudging) respect. First, it was an outlet for boiling anger, doubtless engaging what clinical psychologists call the neurological rage circuit even more powerfully than conventional swearing did.73 Second, and rather luridly, cursing articulated intricate revenge fantasies. The curse was known in Scotland too, and may have been brought to Ireland centuries ago by Presbyterian settlers (though the transmission could have been the other way).147 One of the most baleful curses known in Ulster, the folklorist Jeanne Cooper Foster was stunned to learn that, as late as the 1940s and 1950s, the fire of stones curse was still used.148 It was always levied in connection with evictions, she discovered, with cases occurring in Downpatrick, Bushmills, County Down, and even on Belfasts famously Protestant Shankill Road. Like many early twentieth-century anthropologists, Malinowski was nonetheless rather condescending about the topic. Mostly though, Irelands cursers were women. David Nash, Analyzing the History of Religious Crime: Models of Passive and Active Blasphemy since the Medieval Period, Journal of Social History, xli (2007); Paul OHiggins, Blasphemy in Irish Law, Modern Law Review, xxiii (1960), 1556. Hardcover. J. M. Synge, The Aran Islands (Dublin, 1907), 1434. Some of his respondents made an equivalence between curses and maleficent practices like leaving eggs and dead animals on neighbours farms.166 People no longer distinguished between different types of occult attack. Cursing continued to be rife during the period of the Enlightenment, throughout the 1800s, and until about the mid-twentieth century. He would have got away with it, had not the local priest heard rumours and put his malediction on anyone who did not report what they knew to the police. Formally, the Church forbade it. Alexander Macbains An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language (Stirling, 1911) recorded five Scotch Gaelic words for a curse: ainchis, condrachd or contrachd, mallachd and trusdar. Michael L. Doherty, The Folklore of Cattle Diseases: A Veterinary Perspective, Baloideas, lxix (2001), 556. In nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland, women usually wore headscarves when outdoors, to keep warm and as nods to strong patriarchal conventions of modesty and respectability. Finally, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Irelands priests stopped throwing political curses. 1967; Connaught Telegraph, 2 Mar. Some cursed from the altar, damning and excommunicating the opposition, prohibiting friendly contact, and proclaiming that they walked on earth as accursed beings.106 Others joined campaign trails. By the close of the nineteenth century the masses of Irish beggars who had once stunned travellers were gone, and the beggars curse began to be forgotten.96 A few stories were still told about it.97 Occasionally, people who had fallen on hard times threatened to use it, to elicit a bit of money or food. OFallon, Irish Curses, 32; Robin Flower, The Western Island or Great Blasket ([1944] Oxford, 1979), 49. Edward Nangle, The Origin, Progress, and Difficulties of the Achill Mission (Dublin, 1839), 534, 140. Maybe, too, cursing was weakened by the decline of Catholicism and the idea of a supervisory God, with the weekly church-going rate in the Republic collapsing from 91 per cent in 1973 to 43 per cent in 2008.163 Whatever the case, Irish cursing had not just diminished but changed, losing its previously strong link with morality. If we want to appreciate how magic can move people in these ways, we need to better appreciate how accomplished, skilful and imposing it is. Margaret Dobbs, On Tin B Flidais, riu, viii (1916), 146; Salvador Ryan, Popular Religion in Gaelic Ireland: 14451645 (National Univ. Scopas Poggo, The Origins and Culture of Blacksmiths in Kuku Society of the Sudan, 17971955, Journal of African Cultural Studies, xviii (2006), 170; Felix J. Oinas, The Balto-Finnic Epics, in Felix J. Oinas (ed.) Curse of the Stolen Cloak A rare Roman-era curse tablet found in England asks that the Celtic god Maglus punish a thief. Privately, amongst their families at home, the reality was different. Cinema, radio and television all diminished popular knowledge of cursing. dissertation, 2012). Cursing was largely ignored during the late 1800s and early 1900s occult revival in Ireland. When Johanna Sullivan was convicted of being drunk outside Corks Theatre Royal, in 1863, she gave the magistrates a mouthful, but the local paper noted only that she uttered a fearful curse.56 Novelists were less inhibited, but as well as being melodramatic and stereotypical, they were unconcerned with literal accuracy. Inspiration for a fuller, more dynamic understanding of cursing, and perhaps other forms of magic too, can be derived from the way that magicians since classical times have imagined the ars magica the art of magic.18 Although pioneering anthropologists like Bronisaw Malinowski acknowledged the art of magic, this understanding of the controversial topic has been forgotten by many recent studies in which, as one not unsympathetic critic puts it: all too often a sense of magic is lost.19. Instead, the tradition faded with the massive reduction in begging that followed the Great Famine. This was how Catholic priests imprecated grievous sinners, from the altar, with an open Bible or chalice in hand, and candles flickering.63 Beggars shooed away from cottages empty-handed could curse just as ostentatiously. Their money would melt in their pockets, apparently.122 During the bloody years of the Irish War of Independence (191921), murderous republicans also felt the force of clerical imprecations, if they killed well-liked local characters.123. However, they had little sense of cursing as a distinct type of moral magic.78. Some female beggars wore their hair down, as if to imply that they were already in the cursing pose. Those nasty practices had an extensive Gaelic terminology of their own. Locals became very annoyed with Peoples Democracy: they will get no support from us now, one said.154 Ian Paisley, the hard-line leader of Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party, had more success when he used the rhetoric of cursing to advertise his partys no surrender politics. Catholic priests were well placed to excel at the theatrical art of cursing. Rev. Curse tablets found at Bath appeal to Sulis to punish the perpetrators of the crime. A Home Rule candidate John Philip Nolan trounced his unionist opponent, the Conservative William Le Poer Trench, before the result was overturned on appeal. George Borrow, Wild Wales: Its People, Language, and Scenery, 3 vols. It mattered because curses were believed to be most powerful when their victims remained silent, as if dumbstruck by the lyrical ingenuity of the dreadful utterances.52 By contrast, people who instantly countered with clever replies could turn curses back on their authors. Though not a witch in the most traditional sense, the Morrgan of Irish mythology's Ulster Cycle bears a name often translated to "Queen of the . Priests, by definition, were close to God and the saints. Many thanks to the librarians and archivists who helped me locate sources for this article. Patrick S. Dinneen (ed. Statutes Passed in the Parliaments Held in Ireland. Such was the nasty curse pronounced, in 1829, by a Catholic priest from Tarbert, County Kerry, on discovering that one of his flock was marrying a Protestant.55 Often though, it can be difficult to uncover the exact wording employed by Irelands greatest cursers, because journalists censored horrible maledictions. Teresa ODonnell, Skin the Goats Curse on James Carey: Narrating the Story of the Phoenix Park Murders through Contemporary Broadside Ballads, in Kyle Hughes and Donald M. MacRaild (eds. Curses were thrown at Protestant evangelists and their converts too, with notable victims being the Reverend Edward Nangle (180083) and his mission on the island of Achill.111 Their tongues would fall out, local Catholics were warned, if they failed to bellow abuse at the heretics.112. Borrow, Wild Wales (1862), iii, 417, 422, 434, 436. Curse . Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, i (Boston, 1887), 191. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. English newspapers portrayed them as slow, stupid drunks; yet Irelands workers possessed finely honed curses for every occasion, every fit of passion.58 Their lyrical formulas were designed to awaken God to injustice, alert the Devil to sin, and generally unsettle supernatural forces. It began with dress. $76.60 - $78.80 4 Used from $78.80 14 New from $76.60. The women of_Irish_ and Celtic mythology are equally loved and feared. Irish maledictions can be usefully analysed using familiar academic categories such as belief, ritual, symbolism, mentality, tradition, meaning and discourse.17 Cursing contained all those things: but it was also something fundamentally more lively, active and affecting. The good versus evil model is simple and was always popular in Irish folk tales. Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland; Antain Mac Lochlainn, The Famine in Gaelic Tradition, Irish Review, xvii/xviii (1995). May you be accursed in the sight of God, and hated by your fellow man. In 1969 a member of the Trotskyist civil rights group Peoples Democracy put the curse of Cromwell on three hundred council tenants from Armagh, because they failed to join a protest demonstration outside Armagh City Hall, preferring to organize their own march instead. Catholic mothers curse on killers, Belfast Telegraph, 2 Mar. Ancient cultures used curses to invoke deities, to bring punishment upon enemies, and to express dissatisfaction with someone or something. Druidry in Contemporary Ireland, in Michael F. Strmiska (ed.) In this contested environment, for the first time perhaps since the Middle Ages, priests curses became political. Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives (Santa Barbara Cal., 2005); Carmen Kuhling, The New Age Movement in the Post-Celtic Tiger Context: Secularisation, Enchantment and Crisis, tudes Irlandaises, xxxix (2014); Richard Jenkins, The Transformations of Biddy Early: From Local Reports of Magical Healing to Globalised New Age Fantasies, Folklore, cxviii (2007); Catherine Maignant, Alternative Pilgrimages: Postmodern Celtic Christianity and the Spatialisation of Time, Nordic Irish Studies, vi (2007); Jenny Butler, 21st Century Irish Paganism: Worldview, Ritual, Identity (Farnham, 2019). At the mid-twentieth century, cursing was not just the province of aged farmers in the Gaeltacht western Ireland, where Gaelic was strongest. There are many famous examples of spells and curses in folklore. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. I do not want to have the widows and orphans curse.138, With curses, Irish women complained, agitated, denounced, denigrated and fought back. On the Traditions of the County of Kilkenny, Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, i (1851), 365. Ultimately though, cursing was no longer being embedded in youngsters minds. Yet cursing did not always work that way. Carleton, An Essay on Irish Swearing, 3489. Ronald Hutton, Pagan Britain (Yale, 2013), viiviii. While researchers were analyzing the genes of prehistoric Irish ancestors they discovered that the beginning of a "Celtic Curse" (haemochromatosis) probably arose 4,000 years ago with a wave of migration from the Pontic Steppe to the East. Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland Collected and Arranged by Lady Gregory: With Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats, 2nd ser. With outstretched arms and windswept hair, they roared maledictions using magnificent words and gestures that were totally uncharacteristic of their usually reticent temperament.66 Flowing hair, incidentally, was important. That all belonging to ye may die with the hunger!! John J. Marshall, The Dialect of Ulster (Continued), Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 2nd ser., xi (1905), 124; A. Hume, A Dialogue in the Ulster Dialect, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 1st ser., vi (1858), 41; George Francis Savage-Armstrong, Ballads of Down (London, 1901), 334; James Orr, Poems, on Various Subjects (Belfast, 1804), 17, 91, 155; W. Clarke Robinson, Antrim Idylls and Other Poems (Belfast, 1907), 22. The heaviest curse at the present, wrote a teacher from the same county in the same year, is Marbhadh Fisg ort the squeeze band of Death on you.145. Following Southern Irelands independence in 1922, crime in the Irish Free State and Irish Republic fell precipitously, partly because huge numbers of deviants and dissenters were shunted off to asylums and church homes. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 449, 550, 565, 577, 628, 648. The first comprehensive study of early Celtic cursing, this work analyses both medieval and ancient expressions of Celtic imprecation: from the binding tablets of ancient Britain and Gaul to the saintly maledictions of the early medieval period, and other traces of Celtic . Amongst these strategies was cursing. Roman Curse Tablets 3. Historic Ireland is famous for its superstitions, magic and alternative beliefs. Folklorists in the newly independent Irish Free State began a nationalistic project dedicated to preserving the spirit of Ireland, the traditions of the historic Irish nation.12 Under the direction of figures like Sen Silleabhin, the government-funded Irish Folklore Commission (est. Catholic Emancipation Petition of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland, Hansard, xvi, col. 796 (2 Mar. In this respect, it was an art. Letter from Alexander McNeile, Ballycastle, to the Rt Rev. It would have been obvious what the Archbishop of Tuam meant when, in 1835, he wrote to his clergy, instructing them to kindle amongst voters the fear that the curse of the Lord will come on those who elect enemies of religion, meaning opponents of the Catholic Association.105 In the depressed and famine-struck years of the 1840s, reports mushroomed of clerics flaunting their mystic powers during elections.