The Healing Soil of Boho

In the Boho highlands of West Fermanagh Scarplands in Northern Ireland, there is a longstanding belief that the soil from the local churchyard has miraculous curative powers. It was on this churchyard, in 1815, the Reverend James McGirr, who was a faith healer, was buried. On his deathbed, Father McGirr himself had supposedly declared that “the clay that covers me will cure anything that I was able to cure when I was with you while I was alive.” Since then, a local custom developed. Whenever a parishioner got sick, he or she will kneel beside Father McGirr’s grave and scoop up a spoon-full of dirt and put it into a cotton pouch. They will then take the pouch to their home, place it under the pillow and sleep on it. By morning the ailment will already be on the retreat. A spoonful of dirt. Photo: J_R Images/Shutterstock.com Villagers have been using Father McGirr’s soil to treat a variety of conditions such toothache, sore throats and flesh wound. Once cured, the soil is returned back to the graveyard. Failing to take back the soil is said to bring bad luck. A legend such as this will invoke different reaction in different people—the believer will accept as fact whatever knowledge is passed on through the generations; the skeptic will dismiss it as an old wives’ tale; but only the inquisitive mind will try to unravel the mystery behind it. Gerry Quinn, a microbiologist who grew up in the area, belonged to the latter. “Originally I was surprised as it was a folk remedy and there seemed to be a lot of superstition around it, but in the back of my head I realised that there's always something behind these traditions or they wouldn't be going on so long,” Quinn told BBC . In 2018, Quinn and his colleagues at the Swansea University Medical School collected soil samples from Boho’s churchyard.