IRISH CHARMS, SEVENTH SONS OF SEVENTH SONS, AND HEALERS

DONKEY AND HORSE WHISPERERS

IRISH CHARMS, SEVENTH SONS of SEVENTH SONS, and HEALERS

Donkey and Horse Whisperers.

A JENNY AND HER FOAL

We all know what a charm is, or do we?

Lucky Charms: A charm can be a good luck token.  In Ireland, brides often carried their bouquet of flowers with a velvet or bright silver horseshoe hanging from the bouquet, sometimes even a little velvet black cat attached.  In Ireland, if a black cat crosses your path, it is considered lucky, not so in America, where the black cats are considered unlucky. 

People wore charm bracelets in the 60s and 70s, gold or silver, with all kinds of miniature charms dangling from them, everything from a four-leaved clover to the Irish threepenny bit with a lucky hare on it.

Travellers still wear St. Christopher medals to ensure a safe voyage, and in one instance there was a little survivor in an aircraft crash, a child with a St. Christopher medal around her neck that her aunt had placed there before the journey began.

These are familiar charms, but there are snake charmers who play music to the cobra; and people who have great charisma and attract others with charm, or there are little written spells to make magical charms.  However, in Ireland, when they say someone has the ‘charm’, it is very often a healing trait they have within them that can be passed through generations.

Charm Cures: I knew a woman who had a ‘charm’ for internal bleeding.  We will name her Mrs. B.  She was called on Remembrance Day when a local marching silver (trumpets) band was blown up in Enniskillen during the ‘Troubles’.  My uncle, who played the trombone, was sent to play a special rendering of The Last Post at a different venue that day, where the Bishop of Clogher was holding a ceremony.  It saved his life being in a different place.  The injured were taken by ambulances from the site of the blasts to different hospitals in Northern Ireland.  Each person Mrs. B. had seen and tended to, survived.  One young female trumpeter was married and had tried unsuccessfully to have a child, but after months in hospital having her pelvis reset and in recovery from the bomb blast, went home and successfully started a family.  Some said it was the resetting of the pelvis, but others thought Mrs. B. had ‘fixed’ things.

Animal Charms: The same lady who had this ‘charm’ was often called out to successfully treat livestock for farmers, especially cows in the middle of the night.  Hematoma of the jejunum in predominant dairy cattle causes internal clots, and blood blockages may appear in the intestines of beef cattle.  There is often a flowing running noise in the belly of the animal, accompanied by a fever.  Constantly lactating cows can have fevers and suffer internal bleeding as can those with aborted calves.  These are serious conditions and often fatal if not detected by astute farmers.  Mrs. B. saved many animals, often called before a veterinarian.  Her daughter unfortunately did not wish to have the ‘charm’ passed to her, and so it was passed to a local man in the town.  No-one really knows how the ‘charm’ is passed to those not of the same family as it is normally through the genes.  I believe it is part of the secret lore. 

Charm for Warts: An elderly local doctor, Dr Matthewson, from County Tyrone, had a ‘charm’ for warts and it was said also for ringworm.  Someone in a family had a wart on the hand and the doctor was called.  He came out to the house and had the mother pick a potato with eyes in it, meaning it had started to sprout.  He cut the potato in half, rubbing one half on the wart and then rubbed the area with a copper penny. Then he placed the copper penny between the two halves of the potato and asked the mother to plant it.  By the time the eyes grew and rooted, and the rest rotted away, the wart would have fallen off.  He also whispered a little prayer or muttered some words as he followed the procedure. The wart did fall off eventually.

Seventh Son of Seventh Sons:  Ancient cures and charms were always part of normal life in Ireland, as were and still are, large families.  It was completely taken for granted that seventh sons of seventh sons were healers.  Even when the boys were babies, people would come to hold their hands or lay their little hands on to ailments and whether it was their faith or the faith of the mothers, aches and pains would be healed.  There was such a strong belief in it.

Fixers: My father told me of one seventh son who worked as a mechanic, a Mr. Desmond A. who was not interested in healing humans but could ‘fix’ any motor or start any clock or watch!  He had the peculiar markings of quite high webs between his fingers.  My mother used to say: “That boy will never drown.”

The Healer: In County Offaly, there is a man, a Mr. Joe Gallagher who has a pub called The Pull Inn.  He is a seventh son of two generations.  He healed many a person, and can remember as a child, laying his hands on others to cure them, especially of arthritic and other inflammatory conditions.

Finbarr: In Cavan, a famous seventh son was Finbarr Nolan.  I met him in both Ireland and Florida where he had undergone scientific tests during his healing work, as part of an experiment.  I saw a woman rise from her wheelchair after his ‘healing’ over a few days.  He told me that his mother knew he had the ‘cure’ or the ‘gift’ when he was a baby.  He said that if he picked up a worm, it would stiffen in his hand with the electrical impulse running through him. 

Unfortunately, Finbarr passed away in 2020, but during his life he had ‘cured’ many thousands of people.

"The Old Irish Healer to the Soul"
It's not your back that hurts, but the burden.
It's not your eyes that hurt, but injustice.
It's not your head that hurts, it's your thoughts.
It's not the throat, but what you don't express or say with anger.
It's not the stomach hurts, but what the soul does not digest.
It's not the liver that hurts, it's the anger.
It's not your heart that hurts, but love.
And it is love itself that contains the most powerful medicine.
(Unknown Author)

Seventh Daughters of Seventh Daughters: These women are also said to have healing powers and the ‘second sight’.  Often, they had an instinct for ‘plant healing’ and would use herbs and potions.  This is said to be a truth in America too, possibly because of the influence of the great Irish Exodus during the potato famine in Ireland when families fled to America and spread their knowledge of ‘gifts’ and ‘cures’.

The seventh child, regardless of whether they are from a seventh father or mother, is said to have a speciality, the gift of ‘seeing’, and enters life with a spiritual purpose in the world.

Elsewhere in Native American culture, and perhaps linking with these conditions, the Pleiades has seven stars, known as the seven sisters. This represents seven different universes to the Hopi and Cree Native Americans.  It is also thought to be the birthplace of stars.  Any seventh child was thought to have the gift of prophecy and fortune-telling, plus the gift of healing, the sacred knowledge of plants and nature.  Often, they led the ceremonies in the ‘sweat huts’ for healing.  They heated seven or sixteen stones during their ceremonies and sang ancient healing songs passed down through the generations by the medicine elders. 

Italy: An Italian friend of mine said her grandmother had what they called the ‘physic finger’, something which is known about in Italy, where she would trace her third finger (known as the ring finger) on the right or left hand and could find the source of any ailment in the body like an x-ray.  She believed it may have been passed on to her as she had the ability to find pain and blockages in others, through her hands.

Danny: Another famous seventh son of a seventh son was Danny Gallagher from Maghera in County Derry who travelled up and down the country healing many, they say, thousands.  Maddeleana Merrigan is the author of Born to Heal about Danny who used to sell ice-cream.  Much of his healing is faith healing, and is done after sunset.

Laying on of Hands: A married woman who had eleven years of difficulty trying to conceive went to a faith healer in Northern Ireland who lit candles and incense and placed his hands upon her belly and prayed fervently.

She went home afterwards and said her tummy was red hot burning all night long.  She became pregnant with twins but sadly lost them.  She went back to the healer who told her that she was not strong enough to carry them together but that he would pray for them to come one at a time.  He repeated the healing and prayed.  He gave her a rosebush and told her to plant it, and at the first blooming of a rose, she would have the first baby and in the second year at the blooming she would conceive a second child.  She now has two healthy children today, a boy, and a girl.

Valentine Greatrakes (The Stroker):  He was an Irish faith healer documented as having lived in the 1600’s.  He toured Ireland and England during the time of the Great Fire of London.  He was born on the 14^th February in County Waterford, and named for the Saint of that day. Valentine was a Protestant settler.  During the Irish Rebellion in 1641, he fled with his mother to England.  After a few years, he returned to Ireland to Cork.  He was extremely religious and believed he could cure ‘scrofula’ (an infection in the lymph nodes causing swelling of the neck) and he stroked several people and cured them of that condition.  He then began to cure fevers and convulsions, ulcers, and soldiers’ wounds, himself having been in the Regiment.  Travelling around, he also cured the ague, a rheumatic condition. Unfortunately, prejudice against Protestantism caused a Catholic Bishop to hold court at Lismore in Ireland which forbade him stroking others with his hands as he had no medical licence for it.  He went back to England.  King Charles II himself was stroked by Greatrakes at Whitehall, but even though he was unconvinced of any miracle-curing ability, the King allowed him to continue his laying on of hands.  He was said to have removed evil afflictions from persons and healed people of burns and weeping ulcers of the Great Fire.  Greatrakes (using the spelling Greatorex) returned once more to Ireland, after failing to remove recurring headaches from a famous Countess, and lived out his life as a farmer, not healing again or drawing attention to himself.  James Joyce mentions him in Ulysses.

Donkey and Horse Whisperers: 

Most people have heard of Horse Whisperers, made famous by Nicholas Evans’ book The Horse Whisperer, and the subsequent film directed by, and featuring, Robert Redford.  The book was based on three known American Horse Whisperers, one of whom worked on the film with Robert Redford.  His name was Dan ‘Buck’ Brannaman, a cowboy who could make the wildest of horses tame.  Nicholas Evans met a blacksmith (a farrier) in England, who told him about horse whisperers, men and women who could calm traumatised horses.  Some farriers themselves must know how to calm horses in order to shoe them.

Not many have heard of donkey whisperers, but there is one who lives in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. 

My brother procured a female donkey (a Jenny) to help with the grass growing on a rather steep hill in Ireland.  However, the donkey was a bit unmanageable and did not settle at first.  At the same time as he bought the donkey, he purchased an agricultural raffle ticket that won him a ride-on lawnmower!  He then had a choice.  His decision was to keep the donkey, and sell the mower, but the animal was rather wild.  (When he told me of the ride-on lawnmower, I thought he was quipping about the donkey!)  He heard of a donkey whisperer and asked him to help him with the donkey.  The whisperer arrived along with his whole family proud to witness the event.  The man went into the field and clicked his tongue in a special way that drew the attention of the donkey, then he pulled a wad of what looked like hay out of his pocket, that later we found out was Virginia pipe tobacco, I believe.  The donkey trotted over and the man whispered diligently and soothingly while holding out the ‘strange hay’ tobacco which the donkey sniffed at, then the man produced an apple from his other pocket which the donkey bit into, and at the same time he looped a rein around his neck and stroked behind his ears.  He certainly had the ‘gift’ of taming the donkey.

The donkey-whisperer passed the Virginia tobacco to my brother and gave him an apple to do likewise.  The donkey stayed close to my brother, and for the next few days, my brother did this ritual, I believe without the whispering, but the donkey was very happy.  I told my brother he should get a companion for the donkey as most animals do not like to be alone. A donkey is quite happy alongside other grass-eating species in the field.

After a few months, the donkey appeared to be getting fat, and my brother wondered if she had something wrong with her and should he ‘worm’ her?  Luckily, he didn’t.  One morning, and this was now fourteen months later since he bought the donkey, he looked out of the window and saw what appeared to be a big dog standing beside her.  He rushed out, in a rescue mission, to chase the dog, only to find a new baby donkey beside the mother.  It was such a shock and a surprise to find out that a donkey can be fourteen months in gestation, so the mother was newly pregnant when he bought her.  The two are living happily in the field now and chomping away at the grass and being fed and watered and loved every day.

JOHN MCLAREN: ISLAND FARM DONKEY SANCTUARY. OXFORDSHIRE.

In Oxfordshire, near Wallingford, there is a wonderful donkey sanctuary started by John McLaren in 1983, called Island Farm Donkey Sanctuary where over 120 donkeys have been rescued. Donkeys may be adopted from there and donations help for their medical treatments and care.  They have fundraising events, dog shows, (I was a Judge with the Mayor of Wallingford one year) and days for families to see the donkeys.  They rescued two Andalusian donkeys that I sponsored originally, naming them Mrs. P. and Mabel after the characters in a radio series I had called The Gabby Aggies.  Mrs. P, sadly died from old age last year, but Mabel is still there.  Andalusian donkeys are large like horses, gentle creatures that went through terrible cruelties.  At one time they were hurled from the tops of towers for not having the distinctive cross on their backs like smaller donkeys that are considered marked for the donkey having carried Christ on its back.  He was on his way to celebrate Passover on Palm Sunday in Jerusalem.  For that same reason, fanatics also blamed the donkey for taking that journey.     

Many of these donkeys had to be rescued to prevent further cruelties by abusers at Easter.  Today there is a fake donkey hurled from the towers, but there have been terrible cruelties to donkeys over hundreds of years at supposedly ‘religious’ festivals in parts of Spain and many other countries.  The festival of Peropalo in western Spain once a year, is where donkeys are put through terrible abuse.

There are stories of the poor creatures being abandoned or mistreated once their usefulness as burden-carriers has finished.  They are often discarded when they collapse from lack of water in hot weather or are too old to work anymore.  Some of them can hardly walk because of their hooves growing into a curling form because of not being looked after properly.  Over six million donkeys a year have been slaughtered for their skins that contain some ingredient called Ejiao that is a type of glue-collagen used in traditional Chinese medicine.

We need healing medicines and ointments, but I do not believe that anyone can benefit either physically or spiritually from something that is manufactured from killing and cruelly treating animals.  Almost every population in the world kills domestic and farm creatures for some food or beauty product or other.  The world is changing but not fast enough, and humans are gradually becoming more conscious of avoiding inhumane actions. 

I decided to purchase a rescued little donkey, (a Jack) but had to sponsor him instead because I now live on the edge of a town and not on a farm.  I was told that he has a ‘mating call’ that reaches over three miles and can last all night long, perhaps several nights!  That might have ruffled the neighbours.  Jack is very contented now with his friends at the Donkey Sanctuary, and my neighbours may continue to sleep well.  I doubt that any donkey whisperer could prevent the primal call of a lone male donkey over three miles.  We should count ourselves lucky that human males do not carry the same trait. 

Perhaps we need Human Whisperers, those who can soothe, calm, and heal us with love by whispering away fears and willing away traumas.  Did someone say they are called ‘Mothers’?

Dwina***