Their greatest impact was at places like Doughmakeon and Oughaval in County Mayo, where during the early nineteenth century galvanized clergymen cleared their parishes of ancient cursing stones, destroying or burying unusual rocks that had long been used to lay powerful maledictions.24 A good number of these sinister monuments remained, however, including the bed of St Columbkille, a hillside rock near Carrickmore village, which was still being used to lay curses during the 1880s, as well as cursing stones on the island of Inishmurray in Sligo Bay and St Brigids stones near Blacklion in County Cavan (see Plate 1).25 The anti-cursing laws were sporadically employed and supplemented by the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847 and the Towns Improvement Act of 1854, both of which forbade profane language.26 But cursing was too deeply embedded in everyday life for crackdowns based on vague legislation to be effective. Michael L. Doherty, The Folklore of Cattle Diseases: A Veterinary Perspective, Baloideas, lxix (2001), 556. Cinema, radio and television all diminished popular knowledge of cursing. Many thanks to the librarians and archivists who helped me locate sources for this article. Cursing continued to be rife during the period of the Enlightenment, throughout the 1800s, and until about the mid-twentieth century. Overall though, cursing is best conceived of as an art because of the cultivation it required and the strength of the reactions it elicited. Humorously, he asked: where was the blackguard who canvassed for the Conservatives? But this general point also needs qualifying. During the modern era, the currency and style of magic words varied considerably, and over short distances. Curse . 126, 126; vol. It also reminds us that not all types of magic share the same chronology of rise and fall, growth and decline, enchantment and disenchantment. Sean OFallon, Irish Curses, Northern Junket, xi (n.d.), 28. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Yale, 1990), 423. Julian Adelman, Food in Ireland since 1740, in Biagini and Daly (eds. Maledictions were uttered across Ireland, North and South, Protestant and Catholic districts, even in towns and cities. She was considered as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and as an effective agent of curses wished by her votaries. They would rebound on their casters, unless they quickly cancelled their maledictions with a blessing formula such as agus crosaim th in Gaelic or its English translation: I cross you.36 Proverbs in Gaelic and English reiterated the point: Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.37, Whether uttered in English, Irish or Ulster-Scots, not all maledictions were magical. In 1786, for example, Munsters Catholic bishops announced their determination to sanction clerics who habitually poured forth from the altar the most shocking curses and imprecations.23. Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland: Contributions to Irish Lore (London, 1890), 224. The good versus evil model is simple and was always popular in Irish folk tales. The Bath curse tablets are a collection of about 130 Roman era curse tablets (or defixiones in Latin) discovered in 1979/1980 in the English city of Bath. Number III of Tracts Published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Practice in the Kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1787); T. C. Barnard, Reforming Irish Manners: The Religious Societies in Dublin during the 1690s, Historical Journal, xxxv (1992), 820. Why then was the righteous art of cursing so heavily cultivated in Ireland, in the commercial and increasingly sophisticated world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Curses are declared to be the most dreaded form of magic, often called black magic, and are believed to be universally used. The same is likely to be true, though perhaps to a lesser degree, of other magical techniques. Yet cursing did not always work that way. Borrow, Wild Wales (1862), iii, 417, 422, 434, 436. Irish cursing was a potent art. Like many early twentieth-century anthropologists, Malinowski was nonetheless rather condescending about the topic. The Boccough, Londonderry Sentinel, 12 Dec. 1835, 1; Niall Ciosin, Ireland in Official Print Culture, 18001850: A New Reading of the Poor Inquiry (Oxford, 2014), 756. 1967; Connaught Telegraph, 2 Mar. For the imprecators, cursing could be a means of coercion, a cathartic fantasy of their enemies destruction, or merely a way of showing off. farm in the townland of Coolnagarrane in County Cork. The bayonet of the British soldier will protect him, admitted a speaker at a meeting of the Callan Tenant Protection Society in 1847, but the widows curse will meet him on the threshold and wither him.135 Literary stories about Irish life contained a trope about an abandoned cottage, left unoccupied since the previous occupant uttered her widows curse.136 In the real world, loosely similar events took place. May you live a hundred years, may you pass unhurt through fire and water, may the gates of Paradise be ever open to receive you.90 But if there was still no luck, and they were desperate or frustrated enough, beggars might curse. Here's our pick of some top ancient Irish curses: 1. From an emotional perspective, evicted tenants consoled themselves with the thought that dire supernatural punishments awaited the new occupants. To illustrate: Irish cursing was closely linked with certain characters, whose identity gave them heightened powers. Reflecting a remarkable continuity in the history of magic, blacksmiths were known as potent cursers. He talked volubly about dozens of topics, but when curses were broached, Michael went quiet. 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. "OLD, LIKE PUTRID GORE". 1890. Plain imprecations were uttered in English: the curse of the poor and helpless cripple upon you every day you put a coat over your back, a beggar on the shores of Lough Patrick was overheard saying, in 1816.91 But beggars usually laid their worst maledictions in Irish Gaelic.92 Biadh an taifrionn gan sholas duit a bhean shalach!, for example, meaning may the Mass never comfort you, you dirty queen!.93. It was discovered in 2022 by Paul Shepheard and his wife Joanne during a metal detector rally in Haconby, Lincolnshire. Did people fear beggars curses? Samus Duilearga, Introductory Note, in Sen Silleabhin, A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Detroit, 1970). A kneeling woman, perhaps a widow, calls down a curse on the landlords evicting her family. May you die without a priest. OBriens words for curse were aingeis, aoir and airier, ceasacht, cursachadh, easgaine, irre, malsachd, mioscaith and trist. Everybody knew what a beggars curse was: it was a regular and familiar part of life, in pre-famine Ireland. The words for curses and cursing did not really overlap with the vocabulary for witchcraft and piseogs, as evil spells were sometimes called. Michael knew a woman who threw the widows curse. Cursing was largely ignored during the late 1800s and early 1900s occult revival in Ireland. Worried its clergy were abusing the terrifying priests curse, Irelands Catholic Church periodically forbade the practice. NFC, MS a102, 5862; O. Davies and D. Lowry-Corry, Killinagh Church and Crom Cruaich, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 3rd ser., ii (1939), 103; Isabel R. Crozier and Lily C. Rea, Bullauns and Other Basin-Stones, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 3rd ser., iii (1940), 106; NFC, MS a102, 5860; Sle N Chinnide, A Frenchmans Tour of Connacht in 1791, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, xxxvi (1977/1978); James McParlan, Statistical Survey of the County of Sligo, with Observations on the Means of Improvement (Dublin, 1802), 106. 78, 153; MS 42, 203; MS 538, 212. George Borrow, Wild Wales: Its People, Language, and Scenery, 3 vols. 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. Those land-grabbers never had a bit of luck. After all, as the old saying goes, "Prevention is better that cure". With the legal system generally trusted to provide fair outcomes, perhaps there was little need for a justice-based supernatural punishment. However, by repurposing an older way of thinking about magic, I argue that historic Irish cursing is best understood as an art, because it required knowledge, practice, wit, skill and composure. (London, 1920), 131. That ye may never have a days luck! 625, 258. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 687. 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. College Dublin M.Litt. 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 . ), Foclir Gaeilge agus Barla (Dublin, 1904), 200. Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the Worlds Great Folk Epics (Bloomington, Ia, 1978), 302. 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. In 1939, questioned about mallachta (curses) by a researcher from the Irish Folklore Commission, a farmer from County Mayo reeled off an impressive list of eleven Gaelic maledictions, evoking death and the Devil, failure and blood, as direly poetic as any curses from a hundred years earlier. It must begin with deep history and the cursing traditions I noted earlier. Although not really an art, it seems to have nurtured determination and vengeance, amongst people experiencing terrible loss. Especially in the North, evictees still used the fire of stones curse.146 Before they were thrown out, tenants would build up piles of stones in every hearth in the house. At the mid-twentieth century, cursing was not just the province of aged farmers in the Gaeltacht western Ireland, where Gaelic was strongest. Concepts like belief, ritual, tradition, symbolism, mentality and discourse undoubtedly illuminate key aspects of historic Irish maledictions. For victims, it was threatening, disturbing and humiliating. Geasa are common in Irish and Scottish folklore and mythology, as well as in modern English-language fantasy fiction. Nineteenth-century Irish folk possessed a deep oral literacy and a high capacity for verbal sparring. Occasionally, priests fought back with maledictions, wishing Gods curse on Catholics who worked in or enrolled their children at Protestant schools.109 Any person or persons sending their children to this school henceforth, may they be struck blind and deaf may they be pained both sitting and standing [may] their crops and their goods be taken away by the devil.110 So pronounced a priest from County Clare in 1851, praying for curses to afflict patrons of the new Kiltrellig school. (eds. So prayed a priest from County Mayo, in 1872, on a woman he accused of spreading tar on his churchs seats.119 He uttered that malediction while standing at the altar, pointing, and followed it up with stories about families who had wasted away and animals that had gone mad, after gaining the priests malediction. Other cursers stood up high, on rocks above island shores for instance, as policemen and bailiffs sailed away. It was used for both cursing and blessing. The Irish farmer, Donal Bohane, owns a 30-acre (12.1 ha.) Irish Independent, 5 Dec. 1919; Freemans Journal, 4 Dec. 1919; Connacht Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920. Generally though, in Ireland, cursings power was derived from more than mystic phrases alone. A curse is one or many M agic spells which are placed upon people with the intention of harming them. Carleton, An Essay on Irish Swearing, 348. the Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, (12 May 1818), PRONI, MS D1375/3/35/15. Irish cursing persisted partly because of its value, use and functions. !.51 But workaday curses were not particularly suitable for proper cursing because they invited easy retorts. The most dangerous malediction, Irish commentators and ordinary people agreed, was a priests.98 I mind nothing but the priests curse, one of Lady Anne Dalys tenants told her in 1872, when describing how he could endure any intimidation from his neighbours except that.99. In bilingual or largely English-speaking regions, and in towns and cities, tuneful maledictions were composed in English and sold as printed ballads. II. Druidry in Contemporary Ireland, in Michael F. Strmiska (ed.) Guardedly, they talked about piseogs, the evil eye (blinking), witchcraft and curses.165 However, those words now meant much the same thing. Dr James Butlers Catechism, Irelands official statement of Catholic faith, explicitly prohibited cursing for being contrary to the Second Commandment.100 Within Roman Catholicism, however, this simple statement masked considerable ambiguity and inconsistency. NFC, Schools Collection: vol.