A to Z of Irish folk remedies
Cecily Gilligan has researched the rich world of Irish folk cures for almost 40 years and in a new book, Cures of Ireland, she interviews people with mystic abilities to heal, and compiles a list of healing traditions
There are basically two types of cure being used in Ireland currently, faith and herbal. Faith cures are by far the more common; they were almost 80 per cent of those in my study. Fewer herbal cures exist; they accounted for just 20 per cent of the ones I documented.
Faith cures centre around prayer, whereas herbal cures utilise healing plants, but often a prayer or a blessing is incorporated.
Beatrice Maloney, recording cures in Cavan in the 1970s, discovered that people thought it very important to partner the plant with the prayer. ‘’Tis little good the herb will do if you don’t know the verse,’ she was told.
Examples of the two types of cure are as follows. I interviewed a woman in her sixties who made a faith cure for toothache; she was a writer, mother and homemaker. She lived in a small town in Co. Sligo, but was given this cure by her father-in-law from rural north Leitrim. The cure was a short, secret prayer, just four lines. Most people telephoned her and she said the prayer for them immediately. They did not have to be physically present and she did not need to know their name. She had had this cure for over thirty years and helped ‘hundreds of people’. She needed to pass it on to a man, most likely her son. When I asked her what was the source of the cure, she replied, ‘I think it’s faith … the same God that cured the lepers is still here … that’s what cures the people.’
I also spoke to an elderly woman with a herbal cure for gout, which she had been making for 25 years. She explained the process: ‘I have to gather the herbs when they’re in season and dry them … and store them then for the winter.’ She used two herbs that she collected locally (their identities are not revealed): ‘I like to get them as clean as I can … I would go to quiet lanes.’
When a cure was requested, she simmered the herbs in water, allowed the liquid to cool overnight, then squeezed the plants with her hands and strained the mixture twice.
She put the herbal liquid into a one-litre plastic bottle. The people who received her cure were told to keep it in the fridge and to ‘take a small, half glass before their breakfast [fasting] every morning… until it’s gone’. There were no prayers accompanying this cure. ‘It’s totally herbal… I’d have… faith in the herbs,’ she said.
I regularly came across variations of the same cure. In the Irish healing tradition, each cure is unique and particular to the individual making it; even if two cures appear to be very similar, there are almost always small differences, as demonstrated by the cure for burns. Two people I met with this cure lick the burn, but one also blessed himself and asked the injured person to bless themselves three times.
The cure of the sprain is another example of the use of slightly different approaches to achieve the same goal. A retired woman in the midlands had this cure. She rubbed the sprain and said a prayer. The cure was made over three days, which could either be Monday, Thursday and Monday, or any three days in a row. Depending on which option was taken the prayer would also vary. A Tyrone farmer with a similar cure would start by asking the person to bless themselves. Then, he touched their sprain, making the sign of the cross on it three times and said a blessing silently each time. It was a quick procedure which could take place anywhere, in his house or the farmyard (for animals).
He, too, repeated the ritual for three days.
People with cures usually have a strong adherence to all the elements of their cure. They tend to accept unquestioningly the rituals involved, and to make it as it was given to them or as the tradition dictates. Minor changes are made to cures, small personal variations, but essentially the cures remain unaltered; therefore, they have survived for decades, even centuries, almost intact.
She had this cure for 30 years and had to pass it on to a man
Why Use Cures?
Why do people get cures? I did not ask those who avail of cures this question. However, following my interviews with those who make cures, I believe there are a number of answers to this question. Most notably, the cures have played an important role in Irish society in the past, and a continuity of respect for and interest in them survives.
Also, many people who get cures have faith in them; they believe they will work. In addition, cures exist within communities and farther afield, and if someone needs a cure and they are aware of its location, or if one is recommended to them, they might find it simpler, easier and cheaper to take this route rather than go to a general practitioner, pharmacist or vet.
Having said this, most people in Ireland today rely primarily on modern medicine to address their health concerns. They may look for a cure for a minor problem, but if the condition is more serious, they will usually visit a doctor or hospital. Sometimes, people take a cure in tandem with medical treatment. Others get cures as a last resort; they have tried modern medicine without success and they have nothing to lose.
The reality is that those who use cures combine the two approaches to healing, the traditional and the modern, to suit their needs.
Nora Smyth reached a similar conclusion following her research in Northern Ireland, writing that ‘it has not been unknown for conventional medicine and folk medicine happily to co-exist side by side’.
I always asked my interviewees why people got their cure and didn’t go to a doctor. The following are a selection of the responses I received.
One woman with a cure for shingles said that many people have been to the doctor before coming to her, and been prescribed with ‘cream to rub on… and tablets, which are very expensive’. Another woman who had some people try the cure before the vet because they believe in the cure and it is cheaper.
A man with a back pain cure thought that he was the second choice for most people.
They have already been to a doctor, but their pain continues; ‘some have gone to the doctors and they’ve failed… or they mightn’t want taking tablets’.
Similarly, a person who made a cure for hiatus hernia felt that people generally try the doctor before his cure: ‘they tend to go to the doctor… get their operations… then come for the cure, when everything doesn’t work’.