Sir, - The feature and review of The Burning of Bridget Cleary (Weekend, August 7th), omits an aspect of the matter which I feel needs serious consideration. While the context of Michael Cleary's belief that his wife was no longer his wife but a fairy may derive from a preoccupation with contemporary folklore, as propounded by the author Angela Bourke (and, long before, by the late Hubert Butler), the more fundamental question of why he believed, and induced others to believe, his wife to be somebody else was not addressed.
The condition wherein a person, usually a spouse, believes that a wife or husband is no longer such a person, but has been changed into an impostor, has been known to psychiatry for almost a century and referred to as the Capgras syndrome, after the French psychiatrist who first described it. The possibility, even likelihood, that Cleary suffered from such a delusional belief with all its consequences does merit serious consideration, even if the matter can never be decided.
The capacity of an individual suffering from a delusional belief to induce others to adopt the same mistaken belief is also well known to psychiatry. This, too, has been described by the French and referred to as folie a deux, or as in this case, a plusieurs, and dates back at least to the mid-19th century. Cleary, who had been harbouring suspicions concerning his wife's identity for many months before the burning, was evidently an individual of such forceful character that he induced his accomplices in the burning to believe, or partly believe, his delusion.
It is important that this aspect of the matter should not be ignored. Those wishing to pursue it further are directed to my short article in the Irish Journal of Psychiatry, Spring 1991. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Dermot Walsh, St Loman's Hospital, Ballyowen, Dublin 20.