This article is from page 13 of the 2011-08-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
ANY takers out there for one of the most famous houses in the county – probably the most famous in fact as it’s the cottage belonging to the ‘Wise Woman of Clare’ who was said to have put a curse on the Banner’s senior hurlers.
It’s Biddy Early’s cottage in Feakle that’s been put on the market for € 75,000 by its owner – well known solicitor Billy Loughnane.
“I spent many years back in the 70’s restoring the cottage,” revealed Loughnane, “but that couldn’t last forever and it fell into disrepair again. I had sought State funding to develop it but no one was interested.
“I would be absolutely delighted if someone could take over the cottage — it needs a new energy. I’d only be happy though if whoever did take it over did so for the right reasons and actually has a real feel for who Biddy Early really was,” he added.
The Ennis and Scariff-based solicitor acquired the cottage from his fa- ther, Dr Bill Loughnane, who served as a TD from 1969 until the time of his death in 1982.
Loughnane Snr had bought the house form local man Jim Fitzgerald in the 1960s.
Biddy Early lived a colourful life, winning fame as noted herbalist and healer in the 19th century while she married four times, while after her death in a local priest remarked, “we thought we had a demon amongst us in poor Biddy Early, but we had a saint, and we did not know it”.
Legend had it that while she was on her deathbed the 76-year-old ordered that her famous ‘Blue Bottle’ that carried her healing remedies to be Carter’s Lough, which the her cottage overlooked.
Legend also had it that she placed a curse on the Clare hurling team, but Biddy Early historian Eddie Lenihan says “she was a good woman and there was no curse, because she was dead ten years before the GAA was founded. She was a woman who healed people ”.