The Islandmagee witch trial took place in 1710–1711 in
Islandmagee
Islandmagee () is a peninsula and civil parish on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, located between the towns of Larne and Whitehead. It is part of the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council area and is a sparsely populated rural ...
, Ireland. It is believed to have been the last
witch trial
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern perio ...
to take place in Ireland.
In March 1711, in
Carrickfergus
Carrickfergus ( , meaning " Fergus' rock") is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits on the north shore of Belfast Lough, from Belfast. The town had a population of 27,998 at the 2011 Census. It is County Antrim's oldest ...
,
County Antrim
County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population ...
, eight women were put on trial and found guilty of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...
. The women were put in stocks and then jailed for one year. The trial was the result of a claim by Mrs. James Haltridge that 18-year-old Mary Dunbar exhibited signs of
demonic possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and r ...
such as "shouting, swearing, blaspheming, throwing Bibles, going into fits every time a clergyman came near her and vomiting household items such as pins, buttons, nails, glass and wool". Assisted by local authorities, Dunbar picked out eight women she claimed were witches that had attacked her in spectral form.
[Andrew Sneddon. ]
Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland
'. Palgrave Macmillan UK; 25 August 2015. . p. 70–.
Court case
The case was presided over by two High Court judges, Anthony Upton and James Macartney. It is interesting that in their summing up to the jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England d ...
they took radically different views of the evidence. Upton urged the jury to acquit: he did not take the modern view that there are no witches, but stressed the blameless lives of the accused and their exemplary attendance at Christian worship: was it likely that they also practised witchcraft? Macartney, however, took a more credulous view and successfully urged the jury to convict.
During the arrest of the eight, they were set upon by a frenzied mob and one of the accused lost an eye. On release, all of the women were ostracized from the community.
Historians' comments and fate of records
According to Andrew Sneddon, history lecturer at University of Ulster
sco, Ulstèr Universitie
, image = Ulster University coat of arms.png
, caption =
, motto_lang =
, mottoeng =
, latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae
, established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...
, "Mary Dunbar was making up the whole thing". Sneddon wrote that "Mary Dunbar learned the part of a demoniac from accounts about Salem or Scotland, or someone told her about it. Remember, this was a time when people were pouring in from Scotland".[
Records of what happened to Mary Dunbar or those convicted of witchcraft may have been lost when the Public Records Office in question was burned down during the ]Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War ( ga, Cogadh Cathartha na hÉireann; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United ...
.[
]
Proposed memorial
A memorial to the eight women convicted was proposed by the author Martina Devlin. However the memorial was objected to by TUV councillor Jack McKee
Jack McKee (4 September 1943 – 4 October 2015) was a Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) politician in Larne, Northern Ireland.Sydney Elliott and W. D. Flackes, ''Northern Ireland: A Political Directory, 1968-1999'', p.333
Early life
McKee was ...
who believed the plaque could become a "shrine to paganism" and furthermore stated that he wasn't convinced the women weren't guilty and that he believed the proposal to be "anti-god".
See also
* Florence Newton
Florence Newton (died 1661) was an alleged Irish witch, known as the "Witch of Youghal", who died during what St John Seymour as one of the most important examples of Irish witch trials.
Witch trial
Florence Newton was described as an old beggar ...
References
* Summers, Montague
''Geography of Witchcraft''
1927, pp. 96–98.
* Seymour, John D
''Irish Witchcraft and Demonology''
1913, pp. 207–221.
at Antrim.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Islandmagee Witch Trial
Witch trials
1711 in law
1711 in Ireland
18th-century trials
History of County Antrim
Trials in Ireland