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This may explain why, despite growing anxieties amongst Irish elites about the unruly conduct of verbally abusive females, Irish women continued to curse until the era of the Second World War and beyond. 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. Christiaan Corlett, Cursing Stones in Ireland, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, lxiv (2012). Michael L. Doherty, The Folklore of Cattle Diseases: A Veterinary Perspective, Baloideas, lxix (2001), 556. Hardcover. After the Great Famine, survivors wrote songs excoriating the landlords and agents who had evicted starving tenants. For interpretations of witchcraft as discourse, see: Willem de Blcourt, Keep that woman out! Notions of Space in Twentieth-Century Flemish Witchcraft Discourse, History and Theory, lii (2013), esp. 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. Soon after the Catholic Associations foundation, in 1823, Members of Parliament in Westminster began complaining about the outrageously intimidating Irish clerics, who were frightening electors with horrid stories about priests curses sending people blind, as if that might be their punishment if they were so unwise as to opt for the wrong candidate.103 Protestant periodicals also started carrying scattered reports about priests using maledictions and altar denunciations to make their parishioners pay the Catholic rent, a regular fee to support the Catholic Association.104 One might be tempted to dismiss these sectarian writings as fabricated propaganda. During the modern era, the currency and style of magic words varied considerably, and over short distances. Cara Delay, Uncharitable Tongues: Women and Abusive Language in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland, Feminist Studies, xxxix (2013). In dangerous times, many peoples thinking amounted to a magical version of Pascals wager, where it was best to stay safe, to avoid curses if doing so was not too costly, just in case. Michael Rooney of Blacklion, for instance, who was interviewed for the Irish Folklore Commission in 1974. Source: Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Maria Trotter and Robert De Bruce Trotter, Galloway Gossip Sixty Years Ago: Being A Series of Articles Illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and Peculiarities of the Aboriginal Picts of Galloway, ed. Curse Dolls 4: Dido's Curse upon Troy IV. 1846; Ballyshannon Herald, 17 July 1863. R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 16001972 (1989), 338; K. Theodore Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation: 18461886 (Oxford, 1998), 582. That question has a multi-causal answer, which I will build up throughout the rest of this paper. After all, as the old saying goes, "Prevention is better that cure". The Ars Notoria - An Ancient Magical Book to Perfect Memory and Master Academia As part of a larger collection known as the Lesser Keys of Solomon , the Ars Notoria is a book that is said to allow followers a mastery of academia; giving them greater eloquence, a perfect memory, and wisdom. Curses were written on tablets made of thin pieces of metal that were then folded or rolled. 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 . CC BY. In this epic struggle, priests curses were potent forms of intimidation, which helped the notionally peaceful Catholic Association exercise great pressure on voters, whilst at the same time remaining just within the pale of the law. Roman Curse Tablets 3. Love your enemy bless them that curse you, peacemakers counselled.152 But who could blame the bereaved families who wrote to newspapers, telling the world that they had prayed for Gods curse to fall on the murderers, or the clergymen who announced that paramilitary killers bore the curse of Cain?153 This was not the elaborate, artful cursing of generations past, using complex formulas and theatrical rituals to call down gruesome tortures. This theme has been recorded far and wide, from Western Europe to East Africa, from ancient times to the present.80 In Ireland, stories about imprecating blacksmiths were still current during the 1930s, when the Irish Folklore Commission made the inspired decision to get schoolchildren to record their elders yarns.81 Threatening a curse was the only way some country blacksmiths could get paid, apparently.82 In real life, smiths genuinely mentioned curses during financial confrontations, albeit rarely. Like cursing African Americans in the early 1900s, Irish cursers revelled in luxuriant fantasies about their enemies being destroyed in specific, irremediable ways, with bones broken, flesh rotted, heads smashed, stomachs exploded, arms withered and eyes blinded.75 Curses expressed peoples deepest anger and most elaborate fantasies, making them a great relief of the heart, as one prolific Irish imprecator put it.76 If you could not stop an eviction, get a tolerable meal, recover your stolen possessions or ensure that your relatives behaved loyally, it was invigorating to imagine that, in time, an artful malediction would wreck the evildoers. 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). Many thanks to the librarians and archivists who helped me locate sources for this article. dissertation, 2012). Pg mo thin. Patrick S. Dinneen (ed. Curses have been left out of accounts of Irish land conflict, but there is no doubt that they played an important role. Irish Independent, 5 Dec. 1919; Freemans Journal, 4 Dec. 1919; Connacht Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920. Caesar ( 6.14) states that the druids taught "that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another.". Cursing blended lyrical and ritualistic spell casting with something like prayers to God, Mary, Jesus, the saints (and occasionally the Devil), begging these awesome entities to smite guilty parties. NFC, Schools Collection: vol. ], Focaloir Gaoidhilge-Sax-Bharla (Paris, 1768). 1, S816. This had various causes: emigration, population decline, the near disappearance of the precarious peasant class, the increased availability of official poverty relief, and new laws criminalizing wandering begging. The Irish were formidable cursers. Whatever the response, after scenes like these, the neighbours would talk, and not just about your crimes. They speak to the precariousness of rural life in an age before antibiotics and vaccines, when crops, beasts and people were at great risk from dimly understood threats, when local famines and fever epidemics were almost annual occurrences. Roman Catholic Questions: Church of Rome in Ireland, British Critic, v (1829), 1867; Wexford Conservative, 28 Oct. 1835. Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland: Contributions to Irish Lore (London, 1890), 224. Generally though, in Ireland, cursings power was derived from more than mystic phrases alone. John C. Messenger, Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland (Long Grove, Ill., 1983), 11317, 127. Broken Mirror Curse 2. Troubles or deaths befalling the earls of Egmont, to take a famous example, invariably prompted retellings of the tale of the solemn curse that had been laid on the family seat of Cowdray House, way back during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1538.72 Even if you tried not to believe in it, being cursed made you seem weaker an impermanent and insecure presence, who was not long for this world. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Western People, 4 Mar. In 1888, a shopkeeper from Mitchelstown who had purchased a house from the Countess of Kingstons estate was warned by notices posted around the town: let her be aware of the widows curse.134. Dite agus loisceadh ort. May you die without a priest. Minutes of the Evidence Taken at the Trial of the Galway County Election, 211. Driver Jailed After Placing Lurid Widows Curse on Garda that Her Family Would Die, Irish Examiner, 8 Jan. 2019, . Ian Lynch, a researcher at University College Dublins National Folklore Collection, discovered something similar in 2011, when he sent out questionnaires asking about widows curses. Magic is a potent force in the world, not supernaturally but psychologically. May the Almightys curse rest on your children. She was considered as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and as an effective agent of curses wished by her votaries. Not everyone in Ireland thought curses were legitimate. Also: First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 525, 530, 537. Here's our pick of some top ancient Irish curses: 1. 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. Instead, the tradition faded with the massive reduction in begging that followed the Great Famine. 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. Quoted in: Ignatius Murphy, The Diocese of Killaloe in the Eighteenth Century (Dublin, 1991), 129. Following decades of debate, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883 at last outlawed the using of undue spiritual influence during elections, meaning clerical curses.118 Priests still threw imprecations, and many people still credited them. Reflecting a remarkable continuity in the history of magic, blacksmiths were known as potent cursers. Partly this was because the church hierarchy was now firmly in control. Nineteenth-century Irish folk possessed a deep oral literacy and a high capacity for verbal sparring. 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. 1886. Parliamentary Elections (Corrupt And Illegal Practices) BillBill 7, Hansard, cclxxx, col. 84293 (18 June 1883). Also: Curse of Cain, Belfast Telegraph, 26 Nov. 1971, 5; 11 Sept. 1972, 3. Beggars could not curse lightly, because maledictions levied without just cause were ineffective.87 In a world of canny country folk and official discourses about the undeserving poor, mendicants had to appear genuinely needy to make their curses seem potent. The words for curses and cursing did not really overlap with the vocabulary for witchcraft and piseogs, as evil spells were sometimes called. Dublin Weekly Nation, 4 July 1857; Advocate, 17 Feb. 1858. 1973. 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. But this general point also needs qualifying. When they knelt in the street to curse, crying out to the Almighty and all who would listen, like a poor woman from County Kerry recalled in one early twentieth-century memoir, it would have been hard to know how to react.70 Some victims unconvincingly mocked their imprecators, saying they did not care about their curse any more than their blessing.71 Others walked off, shaking, or maintained what they imagined was a dignified silence. Cursing continued to be rife during the period of the Enlightenment, throughout the 1800s, and until about the mid-twentieth century. Jeanne Cooper Foster, Ulster Folklore (Belfast, 1951), 1202; Ulster Folklore, in Proceedings and Report of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society: Session 19431944, 2nd ser., ii (1945), 153; Lynch, Widows Curse, 2836. A few tried to send the maledictions back. After lots of stunted answers, the interviewer started pushing and reassuring Michael: just tell us one instance: its all right. Nor was it employed exclusively by the weak and powerless. It was simpler, informed more by biblical imagery than oral tradition, yet it did have elements of public performance. [Anon. 212 (Aug. 2011); Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present (Yale, 2018), 246. 1827). Edward Nangle, The Origin, Progress, and Difficulties of the Achill Mission (Dublin, 1839), 534, 140. Curses in Ireland come from the usual roots of mythology and include folk magic, charms, and were usually used for nefarious means. In an era when we often see anger as dysfunctional, as something needing to be managed, and when many contemporary forms of indignation are indeed horribly crude (think of road rage or abusive outbursts on the Internet), surely it is worth considering the artful ways people expressed and used anger, historically.15 Thankfully, there is no lack of evidence. 2 and 5; Michael D. Bailey, The Disenchantment of Magic: Spells, Charms, and Superstition in Early European Witchcraft Literature, American Historical Review, cxi (2006). I Think Im Cursed, Sunday Life, 21 May 1995, 30. J. M. Synge, The Aran Islands (Dublin, 1907), 1434. 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.) 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. May every thing that could give comfort in affliction be a days march before you, whilst sorrow, multiplied sorrow, be your daily companion, the Irish writer John Levy made one of his characters, an old widow, pray on her landlord.57 Neither novelists nor journalists mentioned sexual maledictions. Murphy, Diocese of Killaloe in the Eighteenth Century, 27982; Conrad M. Arensberg, The Irish Countryman: An Anthropological Study (Gloucester, Mass., 1959), 1978. The congregation laughed and even Charles himself chuckled. THE MORRGAN. 625, 258. Eviction Scene, Daniel MacDonald (c.1850). To use sociological parlance, there was a certain amount of path dependency, with Irish imprecators drawing on well-established conventions and precedents, just as people do in other cursing cultures, such as the Okiek of Kenya.79 Yet when Irish folk uttered maledictions, they recreated and renewed certain (not all) cursing techniques. Beyond the stock villains of Irish popular culture, their targets included bankers, merchants and police informers.46 James Carey, whose testimony helped convict the men who murdered the government ministers Thomas Henry Burke (182982) and Lord Frederick Cavendish (183682) in Dublins Phoenix Park, was the object of venomous songs wishing that he be afflicted with everything from bedbugs to death.47 For wrongs past and present, the old adversary across the water was also a frequent target: Gods curse on you England, you cruel-hearted monsters.48, Jokey, angry and tuneful curses were mere horseplay, some said. Irish Independent, 11 Nov. 2000; Irish Independent, 8 Feb. 2002; Sunday Independent (Dublin), 26 July 1987. Irelands cursers were beggars, priests, blacksmiths, millers, orphans, people nearing death, parents, and all sorts of wronged souls. Rituals and a certain style were required to launch maledictions, to give them energy as the antiquary William Carleton put it.62. 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. It may help to explain why, during the early modern period, Ireland experienced no witch craze, with just a handful of trials, compared with almost four thousand across the water in Scotland (mostly involving people from lowland and non-Gaelic regions).7 Along with taking some stigma out of interpersonal supernatural conflict, cursing influenced how Irish people saw the world. Noonans auction house will soon sell a small bronze statue featuring a man holding a large penis in his right hand, in Mayfair, London. Yet in Ireland, a proclivity for this dark kind of cursing goes back millennia. You will see within 12 months that your family or someone belonged to you will be dead.162. NFC, MS 538, 20813; Schools Collection: vol. "OLD, LIKE PUTRID GORE". A Scotsman named Patrick Dowd, for example, who in 1901 bought a distressed farm in Sligo. 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. (eds. Whereas metaphorical curses were daily occurrences, real cursing was deeply serious and comparatively rare. These collective groups, often categorized as Celtic tribes, were ruled by kings or high chieftains, with power sometimes shared by dual authorities. Saxon (Bedlington, 1877), 10910. Another clerical curse victim was Thomas Mahon, a retired policeman and possible child killer from Carna in County Galway. 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. Hugh Dorian, The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal, ed. OBriens words for curse were aingeis, aoir and airier, ceasacht, cursachadh, easgaine, irre, malsachd, mioscaith and trist. Ancient Roman Curses 1. 1. 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.