Folk soil remedy could provide new antibiotic breakthrough

Local historian Frank McHugh said people come from “far and wide to take the soil home” from a churchyard at Boho.

He said the tradition dates back to the Reverend James McGirr, the parish priest on Boho in 1803.

“What he said was, ‘after I die, the clay that covers me will cure anything that I cured when I was with you’.”

An international team of researchers trying to find new antibiotics took samples to see if there was any scientific basis for the cure.

Dr Gerry Quinn found a unique strain of streptomyces, a microorganism used to produce antibiotics.

It was found to kill the top three pathogens (organisms that cause disease) which had been identified by the World Health Organisation as a major threat to human health.

“When we brought the soil back to the laboratory we found a new species of streptomyces that had never been discovered before and it contained many antibiotics and some of these antibiotics actually killed some multi-resistant pathogens,” he told BBC News NI.