Child Murderess and Dead Child Traditions: A comparataive Study

The comparative analysis of child murderess and dead child traditions in Irish and European folklore is the focus of this study. Drawing extensively from the Irish Folklore Collections housed at the Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin and citing a variety of folklore and documentary sources, this study explores Irish and European traditions concerned with the supernatural manifestation of the spirits of women who have murdered children and of the souls of children who have died without baptism. The specific social and historical circumstances in which these traditions developed in Ireland reveals both the uniqueness of the Irish area within the north-west European cultural province and the distinctly religious character of the Irish material.