95, 1467; vol. Here's our pick of some top ancient Irish curses: 1. Roman Curse Tablets 3. Anthony McIntyre, (18531856), Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (hereafter PRONI), MS D1558/2/3, 120. To boatmen who sailed over their nets, fisherman spat out all sorts of imprecations, both profuse Gaelic maledictions and simpler curses in English, the writer J. M. Synge observed while sailing between the Aran Islands in Galway Bay.42 Interfering clerics, who habitually visited paupers, sometimes found their souls cursed to the hottest and lowest regions of hell, as happened to the Reverend Anthony McIntyre of Belfast in 1854.43 Policemen, too, were damned in this way, like a constable who during the Great Famine of 184555 stopped a hungry Ulster crowd from taking shipwrecked grain. Did people fear beggars curses? 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. Irish Independent, 11 Nov. 2000; Irish Independent, 8 Feb. 2002; Sunday Independent (Dublin), 26 July 1987. No. Fairies, rural remedies, stone circles and holy wells have made a modest comeback, in early twenty-first-century Ireland. Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England ([1971] London, 1991), 599611. Every time misfortune struck they would mention your curse, whispering how you had never had any luck since that fateful day. Irish Independent, 5 Dec. 1919; Freemans Journal, 4 Dec. 1919; Connacht Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920. Diodorus Siculus ( 5.28) expands upon this idea, stating that the Celts . Whereas metaphorical curses were daily occurrences, real cursing was deeply serious and comparatively rare. To make a curse stick, it was best to say something dreadful, complex and difficult to rebut. This changed with the late nineteenth-century Gaelic revival and particularly after Irelands partition in 1922. Curses in Ireland come from the usual roots, folk magic and charms, mythology, and religion (the good versus evil model is simple and always popular) with famous examples of spell curses in folklore (eg the spell placed on Etain that turned her into various animals or the curse placed on the children of Lir.) It was the scariest manifestation of a well-established but increasingly controversial tradition, of sharp-tongued females using fearful words to scold, defame and assert themselves.139 Irish popular culture had long paid special heed to womens voices, in moments of crisis, from the cry of the keening mourner to the wail of the banshee. Irish cursing persisted partly because of its value, use and functions. Like many early twentieth-century anthropologists, Malinowski was nonetheless rather condescending about the topic. The Curse of the Knights Templar II. Rituals and a certain style were required to launch maledictions, to give them energy as the antiquary William Carleton put it.62. After lots of stunted answers, the interviewer started pushing and reassuring Michael: just tell us one instance: its all right. In this contested environment, for the first time perhaps since the Middle Ages, priests curses became political. 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. Whether or not the residents really credited the curse, it was politically counterproductive. 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. 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. (London, 1920), 131. 514, 19; vol. Following Holy Communion, Father Loftus stood at the altar, holding a chalice. It is tempting to classify it as one of the weapons of the weak that have been most sensitively studied by the sociologist James C. Scott those everyday forms of resistance that subordinated individuals use to subtly check authority and limit powerful peoples claims upon food, rents, taxes and labour.167 To fit Irish cursing precisely into this schema would not, however, be entirely correct. Botorrita Plaques, the third plaque is the most extended text discovered in any ancient Celtic language. Cursing was largely ignored during the late 1800s and early 1900s occult revival in Ireland. P. W. Joyce, The Origin and History of Irish Names and Places, 3rd edn (Dublin, 1871), 379; T. ORorke, The History of Sligo: Town and County, ii (Dublin, [1889]), 2578; amonn Tuathail, Mallachta Choluimcille/Coluimcilles Curses, Baloideas, ii (1930); John Begley, The Diocese of Limerick: Ancient and Medieval (Dublin, 1906), 55. Catholic Emancipation Petition of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland, Hansard, xvi, col. 796 (2 Mar. These campaigns achieved little. Source: Wellcome Collection. A Day at Lough Patrick, Christian Examiner and Church of Ireland Magazine, xi (1831), 48. Cinema, radio and television all diminished popular knowledge of cursing. Nothing was more feared than a really venomous malediction, commentators on Irish manners claimed, without much exaggeration.10 Yet this intriguing form of modern magic remains almost entirely unstudied.11 Antiquarians and folklorists were only marginally interested in it, with the exception of a lively essay by William Carleton (17941869). 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. In this dangerous environment, it was best to be cautious. It provides the first full overview and analyses of the ancient Celtic use of binding curses (as attested in Old Celtic and Latin inscriptions) and examines their mooted influence in later medieval expressions. Like most tribal scopes of ancient times, the basic framework of the Celtic society was composed of extended families and clans who were based within their particular territories. May his neck get stiff, they mumbled.44, More serious were musical curses, stinging ballads calling for uncanny retribution. A Handbook of Irish Pre-Christian Traditions, 2 vols. When Spells Worked Magic In ancient times, a curse could help you win in the stadium or in the courts, and a plea addressed to a demon could bring you the woman of your dreams. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 449, 550, 565, 577, 628, 648. She was considered as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and as an effective agent of curses wished by her votaries. The Confessions of an Apostate, Meath People, 23 Oct. 1858. 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. See The Art of Magic and the Power of Faith, in Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (Boston, 1948) and Owen Davies, Magic: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2012), 112. Full analysis of ancient and medieval expressions of Celtic cursing, using evidence ranging from magical charms to curse tablets. To signify this, real cursing used scarier and more complicated wordplay. Bathed in righteous power, steeped in the Holy Spirit, it was obvious that they should possess awesome imprecations. Yet though their utterers may have been unconscious of it, non-literal curses were also vital preparation for the high art of real cursing. Noonans auction house will soon sell a small bronze statue featuring a man holding a large penis in his right hand, in Mayfair, London. When Johanna Sullivan was convicted of being drunk outside Corks Theatre Royal, in 1863, she gave the magistrates a mouthful, but the local paper noted only that she uttered a fearful curse.56 Novelists were less inhibited, but as well as being melodramatic and stereotypical, they were unconcerned with literal accuracy. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 52530, 560, 585. The widows curse was on them and their children. 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. This psychologically powerful form of magic was deeply rooted in Irish cosmology, tradition and history. However, they had little sense of cursing as a distinct type of moral magic.78. 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. 95, 112. 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. 1901; Irish News and Belfast Morning News, 13 Mar. Quoted in John D. Brewer with Gareth I. Higgins, Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 16001998: The Mote and the Beam (Basingstoke, 1998), 111. William Carleton, An Essay on Irish Swearing, in Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 2nd ser., 3 vols. Most provided evasive or cynical replies, saying that only illiterates, fools, servants, children and women took beggars curses seriously.94 Occasionally though, witnesses gave a glimpse of an uncertain superstitious psychology beneath the hard-nosed faade of early nineteenth-century opinion. After the Great Famine, survivors wrote songs excoriating the landlords and agents who had evicted starving tenants. 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. A publican and farmer from Kilmanaheen, in County Clare, told the commissioners: a woman with child would certainly never refuse relief, meaning that a pregnant woman would not dare risk a beggars curse. A solemn curse was uttered with poise and determination, with a hair-raising seriousness seldom found in everyday life. In 1972 the Reverend Paisley attacked what he called the curse that has blighted twentieth-century Protestantism, this curse of ecumenism.155 Infamously, in the late 1970s and 1980s he and other senior members of the DUP used similar rhetoric to attack another target: if homosexuality were legalized in Ulster, they said, it would bring Gods curse down upon our people.156 The scandalous claim has haunted the DUP ever since; whether it damaged or enhanced their electoral prospects is debatable. 1901. This is striking because, up to about the 1950s, cursing was probably the most valuable magic in a land where all sorts of mystic forces were treated with respect, from Marian apparitions to banshees. Ancient Roman Curses 1. Tutankhamun 2. Basic maledictions like hells cure to you, the divils luck to you, and high hanging to you were easy to remember and quick to say.50 Sometimes, for real cursing, they were piled on top of each other, as if to multiply their effect. Andrew Sneddon, Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland (Basingstoke, 2015), 53. There was an irony about priests being pre-eminent cursers. NFC, Schools Collection: vol. Saxon (Bedlington, 1877), 10910. Privately, amongst their families at home, the reality was different. Irelands cursers were beggars, priests, blacksmiths, millers, orphans, people nearing death, parents, and all sorts of wronged souls. The Irish were formidable cursers. The emphasis on justice, on curses befalling evildoers, had waned. 1890; 24 Mar. At Ballyloo in 1840, Father Tyrrell went with a hundred men to the house of Patrick Regan, where the priest gave Patrick his curse, saying he would soon see whether he would prosper.107 Their curses would raise storms, sink ships and bring the sickness, imprecating clergymen warned.108, During this conflicted moment, proselytizing also began to inspire clerical maledictions. The Irish farmer, Donal Bohane, owns a 30-acre (12.1 ha.) Janet K. TeBrake, Irish Peasant Women in Revolt: The Land League Years, Irish Historical Studies, xxviii (1992). But as hordes of desperately needy people left the Irish landscape, promises of beggars blessings and threats of beggars curses stopped being regular occurrences. It was finally let in 1901 but the new occupant quickly gave it up after hundreds of local people protested and their leaders warned him that he would go before God with the widows curse.137 In that instance, it is hard to discern what part the curse played, but other cases show that maledictions genuinely did drive out some land-grabbers. 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. 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. In fact, there is good reason to think that the power of cursing clerics actually grew, in the wake of the famine.114 Their ratio was rapidly increasing, from roughly one priest per three thousand laity in 1840, to approximately 1 per 1,500 in 1870, and still growing.115 Priests could now realistically monitor their parishioners and, if they misbehaved, pronounce personalized imprecations.116 Good evidence of this powerful combination was generated by the disputed Galway by-election of 1872. In court, the officer explained how it made her feel very uncomfortable, though the defendants promised it was a load of nonsense.161 Even worse was the lurid curse an arrested driver threw at a Garda officer in Ennis in May 2018: I am putting a curse on you. Some cursed from the altar, damning and excommunicating the opposition, prohibiting friendly contact, and proclaiming that they walked on earth as accursed beings.106 Others joined campaign trails. The time has come for redress. Common Brittonic (Welsh: Brythoneg; Cornish: Brythonek; Breton: Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany.. Overall though, cursing is best conceived of as an art because of the cultivation it required and the strength of the reactions it elicited. English newspapers portrayed them as slow, stupid drunks; yet Irelands workers possessed finely honed curses for every occasion, every fit of passion.58 Their lyrical formulas were designed to awaken God to injustice, alert the Devil to sin, and generally unsettle supernatural forces. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. Evening Herald, 12 Mar. 1. The art of cursing, on the other hand, is little cultivated. Defeats in football, hurling and even stock market losses were occasionally blamed on old curses.159 More seriously, in the Irish Republic a few people still threw maledictions and credited them with dire powers. 1890. This, I pray.1, This article is about historic Irelands penchant for cursing. Dr. James Butlers Catechism: Revised, Enlarged, Approved, and Recommended by the Four R.C. 1886. Fairies, leprechauns, banshees, witches, holy wells and rural remedies. !.51 But workaday curses were not particularly suitable for proper cursing because they invited easy retorts. As well as publicly uttering maledictions, Irish women used modern means to advertise the dark forces they had unleashed. After that, the curse tablets were buried, placed into a well or a pool, or even hung on the wall of a temple. May your limbs wither and the stench of your rotten carcass be too horrible for hungry dogs. Kevin Danaher, Irish Country People (Cork, 1976), 14. May you fall without rising. Michael knew a woman who threw the widows curse. farm in the townland of Coolnagarrane in County Cork. But the atmosphere darkened when the priest said anyone voting for Captain Trench would die bearing the mark of Cain, as would their children.117 Next Father Loftus pronounced a Gaelic malediction that Charles could not understand, but which affected the Irish-speaking majority so much that they instinctively touched their chests, in horror. Such was the nasty curse pronounced, in 1829, by a Catholic priest from Tarbert, County Kerry, on discovering that one of his flock was marrying a Protestant.55 Often though, it can be difficult to uncover the exact wording employed by Irelands greatest cursers, because journalists censored horrible maledictions. 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. Curse tablets found at Bath appeal to Sulis to punish the perpetrators of the crime. Some of the dwindling number of monoglot Gaelic speakers wondered whether English might be especially suited for firing imprecations.28 Really though, the great cursing language was Irish Gaelic, still spoken by around 40 per cent of people in 1801, when Ireland was incorporated into the United Kingdom, though a century later the figure had fallen to under 15 per cent, with less than 1 per cent speaking Irish Gaelic only.29 Cursing formulas were very common in the Irish language, as the Victorian linguist George Borrow noted.30 Irish also had an abnormally large number of curse words, certainly more than English, and probably more than Scottish Gaelic too.31 Ten Irish Gaelic nouns for a curse were recorded in Bishop John OBriens 1768 dictionary, and thirteen in Edward OReilly and John ODonovans more definitive 1864 compilation, along with numerous verbs for the act of cursing and adjectives to describe accursed people.32 Mallacht was the main Irish term for a curse, but Gaelic speakers had many alternatives. Inevitably, it left traces on a wide range of literary material, from Gaelic dictionaries to local newspapers, government reports, travellers writings, letters, novels, legal documents, memoirs, diaries and religious tracts. 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.) The relationship is revealed in the timing. Mallacht - Celtic Curses Go n-ithe an cat th is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.