She was 26 years old, self-employed, literate, and by every account exceptional. Bridget Cleary was a dressmaker in rural County Tipperary who made her own money, kept her own chickens, and lived life largely on her own terms — which, in 1895 Ireland, made her unusual. It may also have made her a target. When Bridget fell ill in late February 1895, her husband Michael didn't call a doctor. He called Jack Dunne — a local man known throughout the community as an expert in fairy belief and folk cures. Dunne's diagnosis was swift and devastating: the woman in the bed was not the real Bridget Cleary. The fairies had taken her. What lay in that cottage was a changeling — a fairy impostor wearing his wife's face. What followed was nine days of escalating ritualistic abuse, witnessed and participated in by Bridget's own father, her cousins, and her neighbors. There were multiple people in that cottage on the night of March 14th, 1895. There were multiple opportunities to stop what was happening. Nobody did. Michael Cleary dragged his wife to the fireplace. He demanded she repeat her own name three times to prove she was human. She did. He didn't believe her. He held her over the flames, then seized a household oil lamp and poured the burning fuel over her body. Bridget Cleary died that night, burned beyond recognition, while the people who knew and loved her stood in the room and watched. In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we tell the complete story of the burning of Bridget Cleary — from the remarkable life she lived, to the fairy belief system that made her murder possible, to the cover-up, the shallow grave near a fairy fort, and the trial at Clonmel Assizes in July 1895 that sent nine people to the dock including her husband, her father, her cousins, her neighbors, and the so-called fairy expert Jack Dunne himself. This is Irish true crime at its most haunting. It is a story about superstition and obsession, about community silence and female independence, about a woman who was too much herself in a world that couldn't handle it. And it is, ultimately, a story about what happens when the people who are supposed to protect you decide you are something other than human. Bridget Cleary was not a fairy. She was not a changeling. She was a woman. And she deserved so much better than the world she lived in. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 05:14 Who Was Bridget Cleary? 12:06 Fairy Belief in Victorian Ireland and Types of Fairies 24:26 The Illness and Jack Dunne's Diagnosis 28:53 Nine Days of Ritualistic Abuse 41:09 The Night of March 14th, 1895 47:03 The Cover-Up and the Shallow Grave 51:00 The Arrests — Nine People in the Dock 54:50 The Trial at Clonmel Assizes 59:52 The Verdicts and Sentences 1:03:38 Bless Your Heart #BridgetCleary #IrishTrueCrime #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Changeling #IrishHistory #FairyMurder #FolkHorror #VictorianIreland #Hitched2Homicide #MichaelCleary #JackDunne #DarkHistory #IrishFolklore #TrueCrimeCommunity Support the show JOIN THE  HITCHED 2 HOMICIDE IN-LAWS AND OUTLAWS START KRIS CALVERT'S BOOKS TODAY FOR FREE H2H WEBSITE H2H on TWITTER H2H on INSTA Send Kris and Rob a Message! sources used for this podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.