The tale of how a teenage girl’s accusations against eight women lead to Ireland’s last witch trial has been brought to life in a new interactive website and graphic novel.
Academics at Ulster University have teamed up to bring to life the 1711 trial of the Islandmagee witches which led to the women being jailed and placed in stocks and one of their husbands executed.
The trial, in nearby Carrickfergus, came in the wake of claims that a young Mary Dunbar had been in a “grievous and violent manner tormented by witches” to such an extent that she started swearing, throwing bibles, levitating and even vomiting household objects. It was the last witch trial in Ireland and Britain and came against a backdrop of years of such events that had lead to the death of 40,000 people, mainly women, across Europe.
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While film and TV has popularised the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, which took place 19 years earlier, the story of the Islandmagee witches is less well-known. The UU project “aims to bring historical events to a wider local, national and international audience, using techniques spanning Ulster University’s expertise in history, game design, cinematic arts, music, drama and interactive media”.
The team of academics and students behind the project were led by Dr Andrew Sneddon and Dr Victoria McCollum. Historical events unearthed through years of Dr Sneddon’s research into witchcraft will be told in a graphic novel authored by Dr McCollum and Dr Sneddon, and illustrated by local artist David Campbell.
Dr Sneddon, a leading authority in the history of witchcraft and magic, said: “We have a timeless fascination with witches and witchcraft - you only need to look at the popularity of witchcraft today, whether that’s #WitchTok, the new BBC series The Witchfinder or TG4’s An Diabhal Inti (The Devil’s in Her). It’s easy to forget that it was a crime in most places in Europe until the 18th century, when an accusation of witchcraft could have terrible consequences.
“People are more likely to accuse people of witchcraft in times of political, economic and religious crisis. There’s a need to find an explanation in the supernatural when crisis looms and old certainties disappear, and that’s as true today as it was in 18th century Ireland.”
The author of Possessed By the Devil: The Real History Of The Islandmagee Witches And Ireland’s Only Mass Witchcraft Trial added: “There are many reasons why Mary Dunbar accused the Islandmagee witches of bewitching and demonically possessing her: medical, psychological or fabrication. Our project brings her accusations - and their impact on the accused graphically to life, reminding us of the original origin of the term ‘witch hunt’.”
Dr McCollum, a leading authority on the use of creative arts and modern media to bring difficult stories and histories to life, said the graphic novel was developed by staff and students in the School of Arts and Humanities and illustrated by a local artist.
She added: “We decided that a visual verbal format could enrich the public’s understanding of individuals weighed down and destroyed by the past: the graphic novel is well placed to open our eyes to erased chapters from our past.”
The website tells how in the run up to the accusations, in February 1711, the elderly widow of Presbyterian minister, Ann Haltridge, died suddenly after suffering months of demonic supernatural attack in her home, Knowehead House, in Islandmagee.
After Ann’s funeral, her niece, 18-year old, ‘educated gentlewoman’, Mary Dunbar, arrived at Knowehead House. Almost immediately Mary began to display the classic symptoms of demonic possession, the site says.
It adds: “During the month of March 1711, Dunbar accused eight Presbyterian women from Islandmagee and the surrounding areas of using witchcraft to attack her in spectral or spirit form and to summon demons to possess her body. The women were eventually tried on 31 March 1711 at the Spring Session of Carrickfergus County Assize Court. Despite pleading not guilty, they were convicted under the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and four stints in the pillory (wooden stocks).
“Unlike most demoniacs (demonically possessed persons), the incarceration of the convicted witches did not improve Dunbar’s health. Dunbar now claimed that William Sellor, husband and father to two of the convicted women, had begun bewitching her. William was convicted of witchcraft at the Summer Assizes in September 1711. Mary Dunbar however had died a few weeks earlier, just after the first trial, turning William’s original offence into a capital crime for which he was probably executed: he was thus one of a possible two people executed in Ireland under a witchcraft Act.”
To explore the new website click here.
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