Biddy Early, the Wise woman of Clare
A hERBALIST, HEALER AND PSYCHIC known as THE
‘WISE WOMAN OF CLARE’
“an old woman known as 'Biddy Early' who resides near Tulla, and who, among the peasantry, has the reputation of a witch or sorceress, who could cure all kinds of diseases”.
Biddy Early, of Feakle, Co. Clare, was born to an impoverished, catholic family during the rebellion of 1798. Despite her lowly beginnings, she achieved fortune and recognition far beyond what such circumstances would traditionally yield. When her parents passed during her teenage years, Biddy, without any education or means to support herself, took to the streets and ended up enduring the harsh conditions of the local workhouse. It was then she began to hone her trade as herbalist becoming revered locally as one with mystic powers of healing and predicting. When she joined her fellow tenants to petition against rising rents she is said to have warned the landlord of his fate as she was thrown from her home, shortly before his untimely passing. Early broke social conventions of the day as a drinker, smoker, and a four time widow, the last of her late husbands being forty years her junior.
After gaining a venerated reputation as a psychic, the local faction of the church sought her downfall and she was brought to Ennis Court in 1865 charged under the Witchcraft Act of 1586. Throughout her life, Biddy Early remained uncompromising in her defiance of the classist system of the time and the rule of the Catholic Church. Biddy Early broke social conventions of the day, as a breadwinner, drinker, smoker, and a four time widow, the last of her late husbands being forty years her junior. Beyond her quirks of character, Biddy Early provided hope to those without means, taking in those turned away by priests or doctors and often trading her cure for a bottle of whiskey or poitín. Though not met with the same universal recognition as the four other women we salute in this project for their social, scientific and cultural contributions, with this project we seek to shine a light on a woman who put herself beyond the conventions and expectations of her gender at the time, and in doing so created space for us to do the same. In acknowledging Biddy Early, we also acknowledge the women throughout history whose names might be known if they were men, or whose gender may have deprived them of the opportunities to realise their potential and play their role in bringing society forward.