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Events from the year 1711 in Ireland.
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Events from the year 1711 in Ireland.
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A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity. An intensive period of witch-hunts occurring in Early Modern Europe and to a smaller extent Colonial America, took place about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.
The Witchcraft Acts were historically a succession of governing laws in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies on penalties for the practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practise witchcraft.
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars were believed to be supernatural entities or spiritual guardians that would protect or assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to records of the time, those alleging to have had contact with familiar spirits reported that they could manifest as numerous forms, usually as an animal, but sometimes as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as "clearly defined, three-dimensional... forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound", as opposed to descriptions of ghosts with their "smoky, undefined form[s]".
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 community with a long history since the mesolithic period. The population is approximately 2,500. In the early medieval period it was known as Semne, a petty-kingdom within Ulaid.
Ballystrudder or Ballystruder is a small village and townland on Islandmagee in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is situated in the historic barony of Belfast Lower and the civil parish of Islandmagee. It is part of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. It had a population of 992 people in the 2011 Census.
Mullaghboy is a small village and townland on Islandmagee in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is situated in the civil parish of Islandmagee and the historic barony of Belfast Lower. It is within the Larne Borough Council area. It had a population of 364 people in the 2011 Census..
Events from the year 1649 in England. The Second English Civil War ends and the Third English Civil War begins.
Events from the year 1682 in England.
Events from the year 1736 in Great Britain.
Events from the year 1848 in Ireland.
Florence Newton 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.
The Islandmagee witch trials were two criminal trials in Carrickfergus in 1711 for alleged witchcraft at Islandmagee. It is believed to have been the last witch trial to take place in Ireland.
In early modern Scotland, in between the early 16th century and the mid-18th century, judicial proceedings concerned with the crimes of witchcraft took place as part of a series of witch trials in Early Modern Europe. In the late middle age there were a handful of prosecutions for harm done through witchcraft, but the passing of the Witchcraft Act 1563 made witchcraft, or consulting with witches, capital crimes. The first major issue of trials under the new act were the North Berwick witch trials, beginning in 1590, in which King James VI played a major part as "victim" and investigator. He became interested in witchcraft and published a defence of witch-hunting in the Daemonologie in 1597, but he appears to have become increasingly sceptical and eventually took steps to limit prosecutions.
James Macartney was an Irish lawyer, judge and politician, notable mainly for presiding at the Islandmagee witch trial of 1711, which was apparently the last such trial in Ireland.
The great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 was a series of witch trials in Scotland. It is one of five major hunts identified in early modern Scotland and it probably saw the most executions in a single year.
Anthony Upton (1656-1718) was an English-born judge, much of whose career was spent in Ireland. He was a close friend of the poet William King, who lived for a time at Mountown, Upton's country house near Dublin. Upton was accused by his critics of neglecting his official duties, but he showed a notably enlightened attitude at the Islandmagee witch trial of 1711, where he urged the jury, without success, to acquit the accused women. He was removed from the Bench in 1714, on account of his political affiliation, and returned to England, where he committed suicide for unknown reasons in 1718.
Witchcraft in Orkney possibly has its roots in the settlement of Norsemen on the archipelago from the eighth century onwards. Until the early modern period magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle, but witch-hunts began on the mainland of Scotland in about 1550, and the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft or consultation with witches a crime punishable by death. One of the first Orcadians tried and executed for witchcraft was Allison Balfour, in 1594. Balfour, her elderly husband and two young children, were subjected to severe torture for two days to elicit a confession from her.
Witch trials and witch related accusations were at a high during the early modern period in Britain, a time that spanned from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century.
Mary Butters was an Irish witch known as the Carnmoney witch.
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