The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Onto our third conspiracy theory in history for the week, which is the burning of Bridget Cleary. This takes us back to Ireland in 1895, when a man called Michael Cleary set his wife Bridget on fire because he believed that his “real” wife had been taken by fairies and replaced by a changeling. Several people witnessed the event but did not stop Bridget’s murder.

So even though 1895 was a long time ago, it is still post-Industrial Revolution and well past when most people in Britain considered fairies genuinely capable of replacing people with changeling counterfeits– and the acceptability of killing an alleged changeling was never actually a thing. What made Michael Cleary turn to this strange belief? He was under a lot of work stress, and moreover, his wife showed a streak of independence unusual for the times – she was a professional seamstress, owned and managed her own chickens, and had lived independently from him after their springtime marriage when she was only 18.

Some psychologists suggest that Michael had undergone a short-term psychotic breakdown known as “Capgras Syndrome,” when a person believes someone close in their lives has been switched by a fake. And perhaps the several passive witnesses partook in “folie a plusieurs”, which is a sort of group psychosis. Regardless, at 26 Bridget’s husband threw lamp oil onto her and set her on fire. This is after he had tried to make the “changeling” disappear by putting urine on Bridget and taking her close to a fire, and refusing to administer her medication for a cough she had.

This account raises the question about defining “conspiracy theories.” The ones I am discussing this week share the following: 1) unsupported ideas shared by a group of people, 2) able to cause great harm because they accuse another (or others) of committing repulsive acts, 3) they convince their followers by using emotional triggers that prey on confirmation biases.