463 - We Are Never Brief

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Speaker 1 Listener note: today's episode was recorded on October 27th, 2024.

Speaker 1 saved

Speaker 2 and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 That's Georgia Hartstark.

Speaker 2 That's Karen Kilgareth.

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Speaker 2 All right. Today's a shorty episode.
That's right.

Speaker 1 I mean, not to immediately get in your face, listener, but we have spoiled you over the years of doing these 25-fucking-minute intros just to entertain ourselves.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But most podcasts just start.

Speaker 2 But sometimes we need to do just a podcast. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think that's what we're going to do today.

Speaker 2 And I.

Speaker 1 will tell you right now

Speaker 1 a story that I think you're going to like.

Speaker 1 It's about a badass 18th century sex worker from Dublin, Ireland who challenged both gender norms and social norms at a time when doing so was completely unheard of.

Speaker 1 This is the story of Irish courtesan Peg Plunkett.

Speaker 2 Peg, yes.

Speaker 2 Get ready.

Speaker 1 Main sources used for today's story are an article published on a WordPress blog called F. Yeah History by a writer named Natasha Tidd.

Speaker 1 And the article is called The Brilliant and Ballsy Life of Ireland's Favorite Courtesan, Peg Plunkett.

Speaker 1 And also another source is an article from the Women's Museum of Ireland website entitled Peg Plunkett, Brothel Madam. And that article was written by Karen Moynihan.

Speaker 1 And the rest of our sources are in our show notes.

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Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 Margaret Plunkett, who goes by the nickname Peg,

Speaker 1 plays it close to the chest about the details of her life overall. So basically, there's a real good ending that I won't spoil, but she is the reason we know so much about her life.

Speaker 1 But of course, she doesn't basically tell anybody her exact date of birth or exactly how old she is, anything like that.

Speaker 2 She controls the narrative.

Speaker 1 In a very empowering and mysterious way in terms of her age. So we don't know the exact year of her birth.
It's believed to be sometime between 1727 and 1742.

Speaker 1 But her memoirs do give some insight into her upbringing. She was born to a pair of first cousins.
She's one of eight surviving children out of

Speaker 1 22.

Speaker 2 Holy shit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's how we like to do it. The Irish.

Speaker 2 Eight out of 22.

Speaker 1 And eight surviving, which is like the grief of losing more than half of your children is just like.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How did people do it back then? So Peg grows up as a witty, fun-loving girl in Westmeath in the Irish countryside. It's the time of famine, but her father is a wealthy landowner.

Speaker 1 So Peg actually gets to enjoy a nice life and gets a good education.

Speaker 1 She is expected, of course, to find a suitable suitable husband with a stable job, move out of the family home, and then, you know, with her husband, raise some children and build her own family.

Speaker 1 Not a particularly exciting plan to Peg. She's not necessarily all that into it, but she has watched her two older sisters follow this path.

Speaker 1 It doesn't seem that bad, so she accepts the trajectory, basically because she doesn't have any other choice.

Speaker 1 That's what it was for women.

Speaker 1 But all that changes after a fever infects her family. Peg manages to avoid infection, so her father sends her to live with an uncle until everyone hopefully recovers.

Speaker 1 But by the time she returns, the illness has taken both her mother and her older brother.

Speaker 1 And her grief-stricken father is left in shambles.

Speaker 1 He is too emotionally and mentally unwell to care for his family, so he appoints his next oldest son, Christopher, to become the head of the household.

Speaker 1 But where Peg's father was a kind and respectable man, Christopher is a power-hungry monster.

Speaker 1 So instead of using the family's money to take care of his siblings or for the dowries his unwed sisters need to find prospective husbands, he just spends it all on himself.

Speaker 1 He indulges in fancy clothing, food, drink, all of it. And then at home, he is a tyrant, especially to Peg and her sisters, who are now forced to do all the household work.

Speaker 1 When any man tries to ask for one of their hands in marriages, Christopher shuts them down.

Speaker 1 He keeps the dowry money for himself and also he wants to keep the sisters in his home basically to be his servants.

Speaker 1 So one day Peg goes to visit a friend and when she comes home she finds all the doors locked. And this is Christopher's way of punishing her for leaving.

Speaker 1 He leaves her outside stranded in the cold and rain for an hour before letting her back in.

Speaker 1 So finally one of Peg's sisters runs off to Dublin, where she meets a man who's willing to marry her without a dowry.

Speaker 1 And so teenage Peg is desperate to escape Christopher, so she runs off to join her sister in the city. She absolutely loves Dublin, spends all her time out and about, flirting with the local lads.

Speaker 1 And soon the proposals start rolling in for Peg. Men are lining up to be with her, but she needs Christopher's permission.

Speaker 2 Fuck that. Fuck that.
Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 And she needs the dowry money. He refuses.
He forces Peg to come home to Westmeath, and he's not happy that she left in the first place. He doesn't like that she started her own life.

Speaker 1 He begins to beat her.

Speaker 1 He whips her constantly, covering her in bruises. So she manages to escape again.
She nearly elopes with a man behind her brother's back. even though that man is already engaged to another woman.

Speaker 1 But before they can seal the deal, Christopher and two of his friends break into the inn where Peg and her fiancé are staying, and they're armed with guns.

Speaker 1 They scare off the fiancée and they drag Peg back home to Westmeath where Christopher gives her yet another terrible beating.

Speaker 1 He is so abusive to Peg and her younger sister, but where Peg is rebellious and tries to escape, her sister has a harder time avoiding feelings of despair and hopelessness about the situation.

Speaker 1 She falls into a deep depression. She stops eating and she eventually dies of malnutrition.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 So yes, horrible situation, like in a horrible turn where it's like you grow up in one way and then all of a sudden it all just goes so dark.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but the dad, like, where's the dad? I know, like, he's still alive, you know? Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, chances are, knowing how we Irish do it, he's just an alcoholic and he just kind of like can't be in the real world. Yeah.
That's an assumption on my part.

Speaker 1 I don't know what Peg's father was really doing. Allegedly, allegedly.
Allegedly, allegedly, alcoholism is a disease.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 After her sister's death, Peg gets the worst beating of her life. She's whipped so badly, she vomits blood and loses consciousness.
It takes three months of bedridden recovery.

Speaker 1 But she survives. And once she does, she decides she's getting away from her abusive brother once and for all.

Speaker 1 She convinces her father, who,

Speaker 1 as we just said, is still letting Christopher run the household. But she does convince her father to give her enough money to pay for a carriage ride back to Dublin.

Speaker 1 And when she gets to Dublin, she moves back in with her married sister and she slowly regains her health and her confidence and her enthusiasm for life. She's still traumatized and in a fragile state.

Speaker 1 So when her brother-in-law introduces her to his friend, who she in her memoirs identifies as as a Mr. Dardis.

Speaker 1 Peg is easily swept up in his kindness. He sympathizes with all the hardships she's been through and of course that makes her swoon and the two begin a romance.

Speaker 1 Do you think it's going to happen next?

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 1 Peg makes a very risky 18th century decision. She decides to have sex with Mr.
Dardis.

Speaker 2 Before marriage?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 But she's sure he's going to marry her, so she isn't concerned about ruining her reputation. She's basically been led along to believe this is like both of them are in this together.

Speaker 1 So she does. And then she discovers she's pregnant.
And when she tells him, she now knows now, well, now we have to get married. But suddenly Mr.
Dardis has cold feet.

Speaker 1 When she tells him he's ruined her reputation, he agrees to put her up in a brothel so she can deliver the baby in secret.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 So she agrees. She continues to see him.
He comes to the brothel to see her. But of course, she's like holed up there.
She can't leave. So she's very unhappy there and very anxious.

Speaker 1 And she's isolated from her family and friends. So now Peg's sister starts to wonder where she is.
And then the word gets out that Peg had Dardis's baby.

Speaker 1 So before Peg gets a chance to explain everything, her sister disowns her.

Speaker 2 Come on.

Speaker 1 Because it's all about reputation in the 1700s.

Speaker 2 This is like just bad, fucking, bad. It's bad vibes.
Bad vibes, bad cloud.

Speaker 1 So not only is Peg's sister disgusted by the fact that Peg had sex out of wedlock, which so did Mr. Dardis.
It's like that thing of like, hey, she didn't do it by herself.

Speaker 2 Right. And she got pregnant because there's no fucking birth control.
I mean,

Speaker 1 and she was. a teenager, so she kind of didn't know.
Like she was like, this is romantic love.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 But her sister's also horrified. Peg lived in a brothel during her pregnancy.
So Peg tries to go visit her sister to hash things out and beg her for her forgiveness.

Speaker 1 But her sister calls her a, quote, vile wretch and slams the door in her face.

Speaker 1 So of course, Peg's completely destroyed by her sister's rejection. It's like, if it weren't for Mr.
Dardis and the baby, Peg would be completely alone in the world.

Speaker 1 But shortly after this, the baby passes away.

Speaker 1 So now now Mr. Dardis feels absolutely no obligation to take care of Pig anymore, and he kicks her out of his house.

Speaker 1 Penniless and homeless, Peg finds the cheapest boarding room possible and moves in.

Speaker 1 And with no means of income, she's left selling her own belongings piece by piece until she says, quote, she's reduced nearly to nakedness, end quote.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 And then here's another quote from her memoirs.

Speaker 1 Peg writes, quote, I remained in that boarding room till I had nothing but what covered me, not one single article wherewith to change what I wore, and for eight days had lived only on one pound of hung beef and a few potatoes, using the water in which they were boiled as the only diluter of my wretched scanty meals.

Speaker 1 So now she's desperate and she does the unthinkable. She returns to her family home and begs her abusive brother to take her back.

Speaker 2 Oh man.

Speaker 1 But her destroyed reputation precedes her and her horrible controlling brother refuses to let her back in the house. And with nowhere left to go, she has to turn around and walk back to Dublin.
Jesus.

Speaker 1 So on this long walk back from the country into the city, Peg runs into two men who offer her a meal and tea. She declines them at first.
She's very wary of their intentions.

Speaker 1 She's been through this now. She's a little wiser.
But then when she runs into them a second time, she decides to take them up on their offer.

Speaker 1 They lead her her to a tea house and they introduce her to a wealthy wine seller named Mr. Thomas Caulfield.
Mr. Caulfield takes an immediate interest in Peg.
She's really pretty, by the way.

Speaker 1 There's like an etching I can show you. And she's like, it just makes me sad.
It's like she didn't have anybody

Speaker 1 in her early teens, in her adolescence to kind of be like, hey, keep an eye out for this.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Do this, wait for that.

Speaker 2 Nothing. Totally.
No guidance.

Speaker 1 So Mr. Caulfield takes an immediate interest in Peg.
He asks her all about her life while she's eating her hot meal. And he's shocked to hear about the conditions in which Peg has been living.

Speaker 1 He wants to see where she lives to see if she's really telling the truth about this tragic situation. She agrees to show him, and they start walking to Peg's boarding room.
On the way, Mr.

Speaker 1 Caulfield, quote, slips two guinea into Peg's bosom.

Speaker 1 And he tells her that if she indeed is as poor as she says she is, he'll take care of her, protect her, and personally see that she never goes hungry again.

Speaker 2 I never really.

Speaker 1 Of course, from our vantage point, it's clear Mr. Caulfield is going to take advantage of Peg, but Peg's young, she's in dire straits.

Speaker 1 And this is what she later says in her memoirs: quote: There are many virtues, which, when carried beyond their due bounds, degenerate into vices. One of those is gratitude.

Speaker 1 The miseries I had undergone were present to my mind, and he had promised he would screen me from their future approach.

Speaker 1 All these thoughts rushed at once into my mind, awakened my sincerest acknowledgements, and I esteemed it but a grateful return to promise all he requested.

Speaker 1 So that's just a fancy way of Haig saying that she just decided to exchange sex for financial support from a man.

Speaker 1 And why shouldn't she? She's already been taken advantage of by Mr. Dardis, suffered the miscarriage of their child, was discarded by him.

Speaker 2 Has made out.

Speaker 1 She has been rejected by her own shitty, abusive family. She literally has nothing to lose.
She's in her 20s. So she's like, why wouldn't I?

Speaker 1 So she hooks up with Mr. Caulfield.
She gets pregnant. He vows to continue taking care of her and the baby, even after he marries a different woman.

Speaker 1 He actually sticks to this promise, though. He provides for Peg and their son, but now Peg Peg is considered a quote-unquote fallen woman.

Speaker 1 So she spends her nights visiting Dublin's many taverns and music halls. She meets other quote-unquote fallen women, and they teach her the ropes of becoming a professional high-end sex worker.

Speaker 1 And just like that, Peg starts making her own income on top of the financial support that she's getting from Mr. Caulfield.
But in a tragic echo of her past, this baby that she has with Mr.

Speaker 1 Caulfield also passes away.

Speaker 1 And when that baby dies, Mr. Caulfield cuts her off.
He learns that she's been seeing other clients, and he's basically like, that's that.

Speaker 1 So yet again, Peg is alone in the world. But unlike last time, she now has her own way of making money.

Speaker 1 So she keeps working and she keeps partying at pubs and looking for new Johns to keep herself afloat. And one day she meets a well-to-do man she identifies as a Mr.
Leeson.

Speaker 1 It's Neum's great-great-grandfather.

Speaker 2 Leeson, Neam, Leeson.

Speaker 1 Not Neum. Liam.
Neam.

Speaker 2 Liam.

Speaker 1 So Mr. Leeson becomes infatuated with Peg, and so he moves her into his lavish country estate in Kildare.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Things are looking up. He makes her feel like royalty.
And because he does all this for her, she sees fewer and fewer clients.

Speaker 1 And this kind of helps her maintain the image that she's just keeping herself only for Mr. Leeson.
At one point, she even takes his last name, going by either Peg or Margaret Leeson.

Speaker 1 But she is not in love with him.

Speaker 1 She, like many of us, has fallen in love with Devlin's nightlife.

Speaker 1 That's what she's really about. And she's grateful, of course, for everything this man's done for her.
But their relationship is purely transactional to her. It is not romantic.

Speaker 1 Pretty soon, her partying and her meetings with other Johns increase, and when Mr. Leeson catches on, he is furious.
He demands she stops sleeping with other men.

Speaker 1 But at this point in her life, Peg has had enough of listening to men.

Speaker 1 She's a businesswoman now, and she's sick of the double standard that women have to remain chaste while men can just go out and do whatever they want.

Speaker 1 When she expresses this to Mr. Leeson, he proposes to her, hoping that marriage will set Peg straight, but she turns him down.

Speaker 1 And she'll later write, quote, I looked upon marriage merely as a human institution calculated chiefly to fix the legitimization of children and oblige parents to bring them up and provide for them, to ascertain the descent of property and also to bind two persons together, even if they might be disgusted and heartily tired of one another.

Speaker 1 Yikes.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then I wrote, sounds like Peg's been on my side of TikTok.

Speaker 1 But like having this opinion, especially writing about it in the 18th century,

Speaker 1 being bold enough and like brave enough enough to put it on paper is revolutionary. She is truly a badass.
Totally. Which is like kind of the result of tragedy.

Speaker 1 Like when you go through bad shit, yes, it's hard. Yes, there's trauma.
And also

Speaker 1 your spine gets real thick. You get real brave.

Speaker 2 Resilience is a motherfucker. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, of course, when Peg turns down Mr. Leeson's marriage proposal, their business relationship ends too.

Speaker 1 And so Peg goes back to her old routine, trying to see as many Johns, you know, as she wants, basically, earning her own money and partying in Dublin. And then she ends up meeting a John

Speaker 1 that is named Buck Lawless,

Speaker 1 which is hot. And old Buck becomes one of Peg's regulars, but she actually soon finds herself falling head over heels for him.

Speaker 1 And it's actually the real thing this time. In the initial bliss of their relationship, Peg remains faithful to Buck and she stops sex work altogether.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 her past is too much for Buck to handle emotionally. He starts getting jealous anytime he sees Peg even talking to another man, which then leads to bickering, which turns into intense fighting.

Speaker 1 And soon, Buck starts physically abusing Peg.

Speaker 1 And it doesn't stop even after he knows she is pregnant with his baby. And at one point, he beats her so badly that she has a miscarriage.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 But she stays with him because this is kind of what she knows.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And she ends up getting pregnant with him again.

Speaker 1 So it's just seems like she is in another impossible situation with a man. But luck strikes when Buck Lawless, who is seeking new financial opportunities, decides to set out for America.

Speaker 1 And so he leaves her. And suddenly she's free from his tyrannical reign and she's left with their daughter and to live the life she wants to live.

Speaker 1 Buck has promised that he's going to send money once he gets to America. No money ever comes.
So she goes back to the one thing she can depend on, sex work.

Speaker 1 But now Peg isn't just looking for a stable income. She wants a higher income.

Speaker 1 So this is now the mid-1770s. And she and Peg and her friend and fellow sex worker Sally Hayes decide to team up and start their own high-end brothel.

Speaker 1 So instead of settling for cheap rent in a poorer neighborhood to work out of, the women pull all their funds together and spring for a nice place in a wealthy neighborhood.

Speaker 1 Similar care is taken in selecting the other ladies who will be working there.

Speaker 1 They all must be beautiful, well-dressed, have enough of an education to carry on a conversation about either art or politics or music.

Speaker 1 When Johns visit the house, they're served champagne and treated to a full night of partying and entertainment.

Speaker 1 So Peg and Sally are offering a much more complete experience rather than just cheap, fast sex.

Speaker 1 And their brothel immediately gains a reputation among Dublin's wealthy men for being a cut above. And business starts booming.
And Peg and Sally spend their money like crazy.

Speaker 1 They buy themselves the finest clothes, the best food, all the drinks. They party together almost every single night, and they have the time of their lives.

Speaker 1 And then Peg gets a surprise. Buck Lawless returns from America.
And like any toxic ex, he reaches out and asks her to come visit him in Cork.

Speaker 1 She refuses at first, but she still has feelings for Buck. He was, I can't say her first true love, but like she did love him.

Speaker 1 So Sally convinces her just to go see him and she says she'll go along for protection.

Speaker 1 So the two women get to Cork and Peg decides she and Sally should take advantage of Buck the way he took advantage of her. So they start partying in Cork on Buck's dime.

Speaker 1 And they do it for a while, like a couple weeks.

Speaker 1 But Peg's taste for revenge softens and soon she and Buck rekindle their relationship. And by the time Peg returns to Dublin, she is again pregnant with Buck's child.

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Speaker 1 So now she's feeling like things are back on track. She's running a successful business.
She has a boyfriend named Buck Lawless.

Speaker 1 But in keeping with the unfortunate cycles of Peg's life, trouble is right around the corner. And this is awful.

Speaker 1 In November of 1779, a gang of seven college boys calling themselves the, quote, pinking dindies,

Speaker 1 break into Peg's home and rape and beat her mercilessly. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 And her two-year-old daughter watches in horror as her mom is incapacitated by this monstrous gang of men. Peg survives the ordeal, but the baby she was pregnant with does not.

Speaker 1 And soon after, her two-year-old daughter dies too.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 And in her memoirs, Peg attributes her toddler's death to shock. Oh, horrifying.

Speaker 2 How much can one fucking person?

Speaker 2 Right? That's just awful.

Speaker 1 And yet, Peg does not crumble, where she absolutely could have and maybe should have. Instead, she decides to sue these men.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Which is like unheard of. Like this single woman like out there alone.
And she basically

Speaker 1 sues them. The head of the gang tells her to drop the lawsuit or he'll kill her.
Jesus. But she will not be intimidated.
She presses on. She wins the case.

Speaker 1 So the perpetrators don't only land in jail, but once their sentences are served, they're banished from Dublin.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 1 So as Peg is kind of going through all that, Buck Lawless is making a plan to move to London, and he tells Peg he wants her to come with him. Peg loves the life she's built for herself in Dublin.

Speaker 1 She doesn't want to leave it or her business. She certainly doesn't want to go to London.
But Buck pushes her, saying she needs a fresh start after all the things that she has suffered.

Speaker 1 So she finally gives in. She moves to London to be with the man she loves and to recover.
And once she gets there, she finds out Buck has been sleeping with another woman.

Speaker 2 Buck.

Speaker 1 So of course she's angry, but she's also resilient and she's determined to make the most of her time in London. She finds British people to be uptight and too concerned with pleasing local nobility.

Speaker 1 And this is kind of a running thing in Peg's life. She doesn't like these like upper men.

Speaker 1 And probably for great reason. I mean,

Speaker 1 those men, these rich men around her, have failed her, have beaten her, have used her, whatever. So she kind of was like, it's so funny.
So she's a rebel. She decides to have some fun.

Speaker 1 One afternoon, she sees the Prince of Wales in a tailor shop customizing a fancy waistcoat. So she goes in after him, orders the same waistcoat, and then gives it to her shoemaker.
Nice.

Speaker 1 So she's basically like, oh, you you think you're the one that only? Now there's two of those dresses on the red carpet.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 And then later on, she's riding in her carriage down the street and the prince, that same prince, comes riding along.

Speaker 1 And I guess the thing they did was like everyone, knowing it was the prince of Wales, would clear off the street like a fire truck so he can have the street all to himself. Not Peg.

Speaker 1 She rides right along next to him and makes it clear to him that she considers him to be just another person like anybody else.

Speaker 1 But very quickly, Peg gets bored of London. So she goes back to Dublin and she gets back into her brothel business with Sally.
She's finally back in her element. She runs the business.

Speaker 1 She's partying with her friends. But then, like really quickly and out of the blue, she marries a man named Barry Yelverton.
And Barry Yelverton isn't just any guy.

Speaker 1 He's the son of a baron and he is insanely rich.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 So marrying him him means that now people have to refer to Peg as, quote, the right honorable Mrs. Yelverton.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they do. And I want that title from now on.
Right.

Speaker 2 Right honorable. Right honorable.

Speaker 1 So this is kind of like

Speaker 1 the perfect middle finger to anybody who has disrespected her for being a sex worker for all the shit she's gone through. And clearly she's doing it for the money.

Speaker 1 Sadly, Barry actually has feelings for Peg. She just wants the status.
She just kind of wants, she's basically like, Don't hate the player, hate the game. And it's all a game.
So let's do this thing.

Speaker 1 They actually go through with the wedding, but very soon after, Barry's father goes to Peg and says, I will pay you off to get out of here.

Speaker 1 And she's like, sounds good to me, and gets paid off and leaves. Poor Barry.
You know, Barry was one goofy motherfucker who's like, What are you doing?

Speaker 2 He was like an awkward mama's boy

Speaker 2 goofball.

Speaker 1 He got played.

Speaker 2 He got worked. By his wife and father.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So at this point, it's the 1790s. Peg figures it's time to retire.
She has spent around 30 years in the courtesan business, both as a sex worker and as a brothel madam.

Speaker 1 She's amassed enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life. Wow.

Speaker 1 Or so she thinks.

Speaker 1 A large portion of her retirement funds are IOUs left by the wealthy former clients that she had.

Speaker 2 Credit. So basically everything on credit.

Speaker 1 They did it on credit and she assumed that they would pay because she knows they have money. But when she goes and tries to collect on them, they won't pay.

Speaker 1 And this is bad news for her because she has already bought a beautiful country house outside of Dublin in the city of Black Rock.

Speaker 1 So, and she bought it on credit, obviously. So now all the money she is owed is not coming in.
Her debt catches up to her.

Speaker 1 And before she knows it, she's thrown in prison for failing to make house payments.

Speaker 1 But life will not get Peg Plunkett down.

Speaker 2 No, it won't.

Speaker 1 It just won't. She's a warrior.

Speaker 1 So as she's sitting in prison, she realizes there's one thing that she still has on her side, and it's the truth.

Speaker 1 As a courtesan, her discretion was a huge asset in the success of her business, but now she has no reason to keep quiet about her decades of salacious interludes with the noblemen who will not pay her now.

Speaker 2 Blackmail. It's not even blackmail though.
It's like, oh, you're not going to say anything, then I'm sending it to fucking collections, which in this case is your reputation.

Speaker 2 I'm collecting your fucking reputation, bitch.

Speaker 1 That's right. She's been a person who has been made to suffer by that concept of reputations all her life.
So she's like, fine, let's do the reputation thing.

Speaker 1 So she writes to all the men, and she's, I think, fair about this, where it's like, it's blackmail, but she's basically saying, she's writing to all of them and saying, you owe me money, and I plan to release an intimately detailed tell-all book about my life.

Speaker 1 So the way you keep your name out of this book is you pay me what you owe me.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Some of them take her seriously and hand over the money. Others doubt her, suspecting either she's bluffing or she couldn't even write a book if she wanted to.

Speaker 1 And those men that doubted her lose big time because Peg publishes not just one, but three tell-all memoirs about

Speaker 1 her life. And in every one, she publishes the names of the politicians, military personnel, clergymen, and, you know, like fancy royal guys.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, the scandal.
The scandal. I don't want to be in like a cafe when those get released on the day of and everyone's just like, did you see so-and-so's in that?

Speaker 1 And like, I mean, it's like such a brilliant idea. And it's such a like, oh yeah, fuck all this shit.

Speaker 1 Like, why would I ever go along with this idea of that I'm supposed to be the one with the discretion and with holds all the

Speaker 1 keep those secrets. And it's like, oh, you're a scumbag that not only,

Speaker 1 you know, like cheats on your wife for all the reasons that you think it's bad that you're getting caught going to a sex worker. Right.

Speaker 1 Why would I keep that secret? You don't even pay your bills.

Speaker 2 You're paying for discretion. And if you haven't paid it for it, then it doesn't belong to you.

Speaker 1 That's right. You know, then if you're going to cheat, then she gets to cheat.

Speaker 1 So the first volume comes out in 1795. It is a massive hit.
Of course, the people of Ireland cannot, cannot

Speaker 1 stop. It's selling out.
People can't wait to get their hands on what is basically the hottest piece of gossip of their lifetimes.

Speaker 2 Yes, I want to be there.

Speaker 1 I know. The money Peg earns from the sales of this book is more than enough to pay off her debts to get her out of prison.
But the success is so massive, she figures why stop there.

Speaker 1 Her second volume of memoirs comes out a year later in 1796, and it does just as well as the first.

Speaker 1 So of course, Peg decides to write a third book, but before it hits the shelves in 1797, Peg Plunkett passes away at around 70 years old.

Speaker 1 We'll never know because she never would admit how old she was.

Speaker 2 That's kind of old for that time, right? Like that's a legit, like, it's not now, obviously, but for back then, like, that's like an old lady, legitimately.

Speaker 1 It seems like it. Yeah.
For, yeah, when I would guess median age was like around 50 or 60.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 All three volumes of Peg's memoirs are in the public domain and are available to read online for free.

Speaker 1 Historian Julie Peekman has also compiled a condensed version of the tell-all with her own analysis and commentary called Peg Plunkett Memoirs of a Whore.

Speaker 1 While Peg's story is filled with tragedy, it's one that completely upends the expectations of an 18th century, quote, fallen woman.

Speaker 1 Because Peg took the time to write her own story in her own voice, it gave her the chance to humanize her plight and honor her own brilliance and fortitude on her own terms.

Speaker 1 And that is the story of Irish courtesan Peg Plunkett.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 I mean.

Speaker 2 What resilience.

Speaker 1 Also, imagine if like a man wrote her story and how it would turn out. It's like that idea of women actually being the ones to do it so that it's preserved the way

Speaker 1 they get to represent themselves.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Pretty cool.

Speaker 2 It seems like agency was very important to her and she was able to

Speaker 2 fucking create a life around it. It's pretty amazing.
Yeah, really good. Great job.
Thank you for telling that story.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening actively.

Speaker 1 We've done it again.

Speaker 2 We did it again. Thank you guys for listening to this quote short episode, but like seriously, it's never short.
It's never short. We are never brief.

Speaker 1 That's our promise to you.

Speaker 2 That's right. We promise to never shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy.

Speaker 2 And don't get murdered.

Speaker 2 Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 Do you movies?

Speaker 2 I love you.

Speaker 2 Movies.

Speaker 3 You've seen them.

Speaker 2 But have you loved them?

Speaker 4 Like, really, really loved them? I'm Millie DiCherico. I'm a film programmer, historian, writer, and former co-host of I Saw What You Did.

Speaker 3 And I'm Casey O'Brien, producer of I Saw What You Did, filmmaker and lover of movies.

Speaker 4 And now we're teaming up again to host our brand new film podcast, Dear Movies, I Love You. We're two unlikely friends coming together to pull off a big score.

Speaker 4 It's not unlike Jean-Pierre Melville's La Cirque Le Rouge.

Speaker 3 Or like Thelma and Louise, holding hands, careening off a cliff. The point is, we want to talk about all the movies we're crushing on, from hidden gems to blockbuster favorites.

Speaker 4 Each week, Casey and I will talk about what's going on in the world of cinema, from new releases in the theater to what we're streaming at home.

Speaker 3 There's going to be heated debates, flawless recommendations, and guest luminaries from every corner of the film industry.

Speaker 4 And some of our funniest friends. So whether you're a dedicated cinephile or just someone who loves quoting mean girls, this is the movie podcast for you.

Speaker 3 Come obsessed with us over the one crush that actually loves you back.

Speaker 4 Dear movies, I love you. Premieres Tuesday, January 28th.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 1 Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.

Speaker 2 Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 1 This episode was mixed by Liana Scolace.

Speaker 2 Our researchers are Maren McClashin and Allie Elkin.

Speaker 1 Email your hometowns to myfavorate murder at gmail.com.

Speaker 2 Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavorite Murder and Twitter at MyFave Murder. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 No one brings out your inner monster like a bad neighbor.

Speaker 2 Claire Danes and Matthew Reese find that out for themselves in The Beast in Me, a new eight-episode drama from the team that brought you homeland. Danes plays Aggie Wiggs, a grieving writer.

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Speaker 1 The Beast in Me, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
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