Tag Archives: Witches
A few witch trial facts: 20 people were executed in Salem. An estimate of 200,000 were tortured, burnt, or hanged in Western Europe. The last witch trial in Ireland took place in Islandmagee in 1710-11. pic.twitter.com/NSQAF2lJ8r
— Ash Clarke (@AislinnClarke) July 27, 2020
Um.
Meanwhile…
Mathew Hopkins was 22 ish when he set himself up as Witchfinder General. To find ‘Devil’s marks’ – a painless mark left on a witch by the devil, he poked women with a spike. They would feel no pain because his blade would retract into a spring-loaded handle ‘proving’ their guilt. pic.twitter.com/qQD1MNevGU
— Ash Clarke (@AislinnClarke) July 27, 2020
He had a point.
Pause.
I’ll get my cape.
The Prophecy
at
Six young Irish women.
Convicted of witchcraft and assorted sorcery in the 17th century.
A wicked miscarriage of justice.
Or was it?
In what is believed to have been the last witch trials in the British Isles, the women were convicted in a Carrickfergus court over 300 years ago and spent a year in prison, as well as being put in the public stocks.
Renowned Irish novelist Martina Devlin has penned a new book on the subject, and she also requested that Larne Borough Council erect a small memorial to the women.
….But TUV Alderman Jack McKee has decried the proposal as “anti-God” and said he could not support it.
According to minutes of a council meeting in January, Ald McKee said he “could not tell whether or not the women had been rightly or wrongly convicted as he didn’t have the facts and was not going to support devil worship”.
*lights pitchfork phones Legal Coffee Drinker*
Council row over Islandmagee ‘devil worship’ plaque (LarneTimes)