Angela Bourke is senior lecturer in Irish at University College Dublin, National University of Ireland.

On a spring day in 1895, twenty-six-year old Bridget Cleary fell ill, then disappeared from her cottage in rural Tipperary, in southern Ireland. Even before she vanished, the townspeople claimed that she was "away with the fairies." Others claimed that she was a changeling & that the "real Bridget" would appear on a white horse. But the real Bridget was lying in a shallow grave, her body badly charred. Her husband, Michael Cleary--with the help of nine of his friends & neighbors--had burned her to death, convincing himself that his pretty, independent wife had been replaced with a demon. He would eventually be charged with murder & sentenced to twenty years in prison. The Burning of Bridget Cleary is the gripping story of the event that would become a cause scandaleuse in turn-of-the-century Britain. To the Tory government, it was a confirmation of their belief that the Irish were barbarians, incapable of governing themselves. With a wealth of new scholarship, Angela Bourke explores not only what caused an entire community--including Bridget Cleary's relatives--to aid in her brutal murder, but also the social & historical climate that shaped Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century. "A wonderful, wonderful book!" --Nuala O'Faolain, author of Are You Somebody "Angela Bourke tells the story of an extraordinary & horrific haunting with a stunning mixture of engaging narrative & intelligent interpretation." --Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul.