The gift of old country cures

There is a centuries-old belief in Ireland pertaining to infants whose fathers die while they are still in their mother’s womb. These children, when born, are said to be “blessed” or “gifted” with a cure.

I first learned of this in Co Roscommon in 1979, following the death of an old widow named “Queenie,” who lived at the Four Mile House. My grandmother had often heard of Queenie, as she was well known for having the cure for ringworm and other skin ailments.

During my donkey travels in 1979, I met the publican Paddy Hennessy of Miltown Malbay, who, I was told, had the cure for thrush, craos ghalor, a fungal infection of the mouth mostly affecting infants. When I brought up the subject to Paddy, he shared a somber story of how his cure came about.

“I was born,” he began, “a month after my father’s death and was so given the cure for thrush. You see, my father was shot dead at Canada Cross on the 15th of April, 1920, by the British regiment and the Royal Irish Constabulary. There was a great bonfire in the town that evening, as hundreds were celebrating the release that morning of three Irish prisoners from Mountjoy Jail in Dublin. Suddenly, the crowd was indiscriminately fired upon, killing my father and two others, O’Leary and O’Loughlin, and wounding several more. I was born 23 days later, on the 7th of May, 1920.

“At the age of 10, my mother told me one evening that I was to pedal into the country the next morning and cure a young child with thrush, and that I had possessed this cure since the age of 9 on account of my father’s death. She added I was to fast from midnight onward and that I’d know what to do upon arriving at the house.

“The following morning, I cycled four miles to the parish of Freigh, and walked another good stretch before coming to the house itself. Inside, the mother showed me her infant son, whose tongue was spotted and swollen, and the roof of its mouth covered with lesions. I took up the child and blew three times into his mouth and did the same every morning for nine mornings, and began to see improvement on the fifth day.” (Modern-day treatment for thrush is the antibiotic, Nystatin, prescribed for seven to 10 days).

Following his wondrous account, I asked him if he believed his healing powers were some sort of heavenly blessing or a mystical gift from the Otherworld.

“No such thing as all of that,” he laughed, amused by my far-fetched queries. “I can neither state nor fathom the reason for my cure, but, you see, modern-day doctors were scarce in the country during the 1920s and 30s, and folk cures were the thing at the time. And from that first healing onward, I was practically on the move every month until the age of 18. And the only way I ever felt strange is that I’d often go hoarse or suffer a sore throat after a cure.”

“It must be wonderful to have such a gift,” I said, admiring the peaceful mien of this healing man.

“Yes, but it would’ve been more wonderful to have known my father,” he stated plaintively. “But God has His reasons, hasn’t He?”

When I called in to Paddy seven years later, he suggested I visit Joe Burke, a bonesetter who lived in nearby Rineen. Paddy added that Joe’s father, Thomas, had been elected to the Dáil (Irish parliament) not so much for his political savvy, but that he had set so many men walking again.

“He’s as close to a faery-doctor as you’ll ever meet,” added a patron. “He’s a crooked little man in his 70s with magical hands. And when he laughs, which is often, he could knock a chandelier off a high ceiling.”

A few days later, my young son Eamonn and I visited the two-story farmhouse where Joe Burke resided. He was a slightly built man full of mirth and goodwill. Unlike Paddy, Joe explained he had inherited his gift of bone-setting through his family lineage. He also made it clear that bone-setting was an innate gift, neither learned through apprenticeship nor the study of anatomical models. “’Tis simply in the hands at birth,” he explained.

Joe had recently been interviewed on both radio and television, but he didn’t tell me that. Nor did he mention anything about how he could set disabled greyhounds running again. In fact, I would’ve known little about this extraordinary man if not for his caretaker, Michael Meade, joining us in the drawing room.

“Joe thinks little of what he does,” shared Michael, who brought Joe into his home after Joe suffered a slight stroke. “There are people from all over England, America, and Ireland who call in to him. Why, there are Sunday queues of a dozen or more. But Joe won’t tell you that. Nor would he tell me if I didn’t happen to know it. There was a woman carried in here a week ago and I asked him at tea how she fared, and Joe says, ‘Oh, she walked out all right,’ before he went back to spooning his soup. And he does this day after day: sprains, dislocations, even compound fractures. Did he tell you how he treated Dr. Staunton, the chief surgeon at the County Hospital? Of course not. And I bet he told you nothing about Seamus Darby, either.”

“Not a thing,” I answered, looking over at Joe who was slapping his knees in laughter.

“Seamus Darby was a Co Offaly footballer,” added Michael, “who was injured some years back and traveled all of Ireland and England for nearly two years to see if anyone could mend his ankle. Then he heard about Joe Burke and, before you know it, Offaly is in the 1982 All-Ireland final facing Kerry, who were going for an unprecedented fifth straight title. Late in the match, they called Darby off the bench, who scored an electrifying winning goal in the closing minutes to defeat mighty Kerry.

“Now, I don’t know if you follow Gaelic sports, but that score by Darby is one of the most celebrated goals in Gaelic football history, and it’s this man here who helped make it happen.”

“T’was only two bones,” laughed Joe, bellying up across the couch in laughter. “Only two bones gone wrong in Darby’s ankle.”

*Kevin O’Hara is the author of “Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man’s Journey
through Ireland.” You can contact him via email at KevinBOHara@gmail.com.