Who was Bidddy Early?

"If you stop in Inagh for one drink, you will stay for the day".

This was the curse or blessing put by Biddy Early on our pub, when she visited it during the famine and still effects the people more than a century later.

Biddy O'Connor was born at Faha Mountain in North Clare in 1798. As a young girl she was baby-sitting a neighbour's child when the fairies came and left an Iarlas (changeling) and took away the human baby. The fairy child grew so fond of Biddy, that he gave her a magic bottle that gave her the power to see in to future and cure all sorts of ills. This, of course, landed her in trouble with the church and she got the reputation of being a witch but there is no record of her doing other than good with her magic powers. A sip from her bottle was known to cure anything from infertility in humans or animals to arthritis.

When she was 20, Biddy married a man called Early and married her fourth husband when she was nearly 80, obviously she didn't let her husbands near the bottle! When Biddy lay dying in 1874, she was persuaded to make her peace with the church. The priest in Inagh at the time was the man responsible for dangerous missions in the Diocese and he went to give Biddy the last Rites. Just before she passed away, she gave the bottle to the priest. When he came to the bridge of Inagh, fearing what might happen him, he flung the bottle from him as far as he could.

In 1995 the bottle was found by the river at the back of the pub. We analysed the contents and found the main ingredients to be the strong aphrodisiac of Oysters with strong Irish Stout. We have developed a similar drink that we call Black Biddy in memory of the great woman. We have conducted field trials and the results are outstanding. A fifteen-year-old cow that had not calved for five years had twins and a local AI man claims "If I drank enough of that stuff, I wouldn't need the bulls". We must warn customers of the potency of the brew and some may be asked to produce your marriage cert. We accept no responsibility for 80-year-olds getting broody again, and when couples are drinking together, we advise one partner to drink ordinary beers that are also available in the bar.

When you drink Black Biddy, we don't guarantee you will see the future, but it may help you forget the past.

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