Biddy Early lived a remarkable life as a faith healer and wise woman, a feminist and surrounded by people of every class. Unfortunately she is best known through nonsense.
Declan Bogue TO MENTION THE name of Biddy Early now feels like stepping back into an Ireland that time left behind. An anachronism of sorts. The sort of stuff that entertains the foolish.
Contained within is the genuinely-held beliefs of what some might unkindly label the peasantry. It is folk-memory, folk-tales and riddles from a period of history when superstition rubbed up alongside clerical control. In the much-quoted Seamus Heaney poem ‘The Cure Of Troy’, the extended metaphor for peace in the north beseeches that, ‘Believe that a further shore, Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles, And cures and healing wells.’
She married Pat Malley of Feakle. He already had a son and he was twice her age – common enough. When living in Feakle though, she developed her cures and people travelled long distances to avail.
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