School: Athgarvan, Curragh (roll number 13350)

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1. Miss Hodge

   

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   About the time that Biddy Early lived in Feakle, a Miss Hodge lived in Kilrush. At that time an extraordinary number of dogs suffered from rabies. and people lived in hourly dread of getting hydrophobia. Miss Hodge claimed to be able to prevent hydrophobia. She had a crystal and when she looked into it she could see (so she said) the mad dog hanging off the person he had bitten, and hanging from the part he bit. If he was hanging from below the heart she claimed to be able to set a charm which would prevent hydrophobia, but she could do nothing, if he bit above the heart. Miss Hodge was a Protestant - some said she was a minister's daughter - and like Biddy Early she knew no Irish. Apparently it is easier to indulge in "hocus pocus" through the medium of English than through Gaedhealg. No bonus for Irish in the nether world!

   Some years before my grandfather got married - say 85 years ago - he and two other farmers who had horses went to help a poor man named Keatinge (the father of Baitiléar a Phluic) to get home his turf. Keatinge had a fair share of turf saved in Moinagowel bog less than a mile away and on the day of the Miotaill Beag(?) he helped the men to load the turf into the creels, then he used come along with them to his own house and help to empty the creels and unload the turf. After that he used "to throw up" some of the turf, that

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. medical practice
         1. folk medicine (~11,815)
   2. agents (~1)
      1. supernatural and legendary beings (~14,864)
         1. Biddy Early (~186)

   Language

   English

   Location

   Kilmaley, Co. Clare

   Collector

   Bríghid Bean Mhic Niocaill

   Gender

   Female

   Occupation

   Múinteoir