Kidnapped by Fairies?

Michael Cleary said his wife was really a spirit

- Alex Noone

There were forts scattered across the whole of Ireland. Some were made of stone. Others no more than piles of earth.

They were the entrances to another world inhabited by fairies, somewhere between the living and dead. A world no man or woman could enter. Sometimes at night, the fairies would leave their forts.

They’d torment rural communities, pull down fences and walls, scream at people’s windows, steal their money, drink their milk.

And, in March 1895, the fairies kidnapped Bridget Cleary.

Or so her husband Michael believed.

The couple lived in a labourer’s cottage in Bally vadlea, a remote village in Tipperary.

Built by the local authority on a half-acre of land, the Clearys paid a nominal rent for it.

It was said to be the best home in the village. Spacious, airy. But no-one dared live there.

Because it had been built on a fairy fort.

People living in rural, Irish communities had feared the fairies for generations.

They wouldn’t approach or disturb the fairy forts. Or there’d be reprisals. Fairies, it was said, enjoyed revenge. They’d strike down anyone who came too close with rheumatism, paralysis… even death.

For Bridget and Michael, though, it was just superstition.