Mark Colvin, thank you very much. OK, thank you very much for inviting me.
Tonight for the their last hurrah before faded eight.
So we talked today. But a muggy, wet cheese project, a 1711.
I've done it for a number of years, has three parts. The first part is an academic history of the trial.
The second part explore how it was remembered and commemorated and islands and some from 1711 to 2015.
And I think the final part was public history and heritage activities.
And I'll talk about these today and the challenges posed by this part in particular.
I'll talk, first of all, about this trial. Just give you an overview in case you don't know about it.
OK. The trial started to fair bit he something.
Eleven men and elderly. And how did she died? Suddenly. And people were seen in witchcraft and she died and no her toes.
And Ayla McGee. Ayla McGee as an eight male long financial on East Course, the county, Angelman Northern Ireland,
which has no accounting at a time around three hundred Presbyterians of Scots descent.
So after this woman died, a young, educated 18 year old girl, Mary Dunbar, arrived in the house and she immediately at a cone.
Are the symptoms of demonic possession, the classic ones,
the horror movie ones and Jurden Mark 1711 Dunbar accused a Presbyterian woman of using witchcraft,
dispatched Julia Tucker in spirit form and possess her body.
The women, the eight women were eventually tried and the 30 forced to march some D11 and the spring session of Katic Therapist,
Assizes and CONI until they were all convicted. They pleaded not guilty under the puffiness.
Sex, age, witchcraft, that. Common sense to one year's imprisonment and forced stance and apology on Market Day went to the act.
But unlike most Demjanjuk's or demonic with Pierce people, the incarceration of the woman didn't improve, made it on by herself.
She now claimed that William Saylor, the hard drinking husband and father to two of the convicted women, was no attack.
William was convicted at the next Assizes and September 1711, but merely Dunbar and then to Vinland period had died.
And so has the original offence turned into a capital offence and he was probably
executed is probably one of possibly two Irish witches who are executed,
along with Florence Newton, 60 61. But that's disputed by some historians.
The first part of the project is complete.
I published a monograph on it, which I think you saw on it wisely, which I explained in terms of demonic possession, gender and social conflict,
as well as wider political and religious connotations of Orlistat at that time, but inspired by the work of people in this conference.
And when Ronald and Diane and I also wanted to look at how the 1711 trial was, a member team represented a local and national level,
have argued that the collective social mammone of the trial was transmitted and Almadi Miggy for centuries afterwards via oral tradition of folklore,
particularly within families. The descendants of the accusers and accused lived in the area for centuries afterwards.
But the events were also further remembered through informal, dark heritage.
They were commemorated in this way by local people from the 19th century, probably earlier, but no record of a razor in their present.
They do this through storytelling and by avoidance of seats associated with they only give.
This is included the heart Chitose, which I've showed you there on the left hand seat, at the right hand seat,
and the old rocking stone where the spirits of the eight on Miggy Witches were meant to dance at night.
It was also where one of their convicted women, Kathryn McComb, and left claw marks when she was dragged off to court a court for Lord Internation.
Cultural memory of a child was also created by non-fiction and clear writers.
And then 19th and 20th century historians. John was SAVARY has maintained an accepted part, Jackel standards of womanhood.
But pitchin the EHL McGee, what she's in a particular way as pliant, as pious, as gentle.
And women who lacked agency and reality resisted in every part of the prosecution process.
They give her everything you know, and their families helped.
And they were accused precisely because this child was meal standards of beauty, behaviour and language.
There's gender portrayal was often bolstered by the exclusion of William Saylor's from the NRA.
And the maths was included that one of the women lost an eye and the polity pelted cabbage stocks.
This is a story that is reproduced almost verbatim by William Butler Yeats and Eating the air.
And this book that you can see on Lane. I actually think.
And you can see the poetry there. And their poetry has, you know, as recreated.
But as you mentioned, they own the which is a lot of what Lisa was saying is resonating here.
But such a codes often used rationalists and ledman rhetoric,
condemn belief in witchcraft as superstitious and bigoted and extorted to distance Ireland from Europe's west,
which on past things that are and or in daviss ring, especially in America.
So for the forthcoming book, I examine her novelist point simply.
Elites handled the 1711 trial from the early 17th century onwards.
This includes all gaffield and little known airplay from 1948 and Adrian Racist Pawling from 1880.
Cleo RAYOS often explained that the trial in terms of a true and called a criminal
and justice system or the other less of that weirdness of the Asian people,
white people in Northern Ireland was don't talk about the weirdness of being on Miggy.
But Fieldings played prefigures Arthur Mathers Crucible by a couple of years.
But it portrays the roots of Dunbar's accusation in terms of a love triangle.
Between that she was involved and really the influence of early on non-fiction accounts are palpable.
And these fact of works the lost a myth is given Robbins' Williams salary is excluded.
The agency and resistance of Neyland Megi woman has passed over their innocence and their vulnerability as shown through it.
So just to come to that final part of the project then, and this is Public Heritage and Heshy forecast.
It struck me that if not for a release for most of university in twenty eleven.
In a press release to commemorate the 300 year anniversary, they and a Key West child that nothing would have been said about it may have passed by.
There was a flood of middle activity because of a contest with a year later and the Pendle, which is exactly what Lisa was talking about.
And you can see the difference there. And this is island's important trial, you know, along with the fortunes, of course.
But in the last nine years, I think things have changed, has been widespread media interest and the case ah novel has come out by Martina Devons,
children's books, several players and a massive theor event or dedicated to this trial or based on his trial.
I like to play a part in this rediscovery of the invention by talking about it with community groups and
libraries and art venues also engaged with women's groups using the trial to discuss issues such as equality,
naming tolerance and gender more reactively.
To be honest, community that are proactive proactively are what we're radio and TV and film production companies to work in patches.
I know Maggie watches or on treatments that actually went forward and some of these are I did some are coming out, but this wasn't done before.
And so it's a welcome, you know, celebration of Ailin, Miggy and the witch craft area.
But not all the engagement of this trial has been positive.
And twenty fifteen we've made we spread media coverage and the Guardian and the BBC was given to objection's by a Land Council act,
a proposal by martinets Martina Devlin to erect a small memorial.
And they all Miggy to the. She's the proposal from the part of a wake up call by Martina to have the what she's just a woman
at which posthumously pardon the objection to these plans were made on the grounds at a court.
There were anti gods or support of of devil worship.
Now that she's between 19 and why an act of public commemoration should provoke.
Controversially, this is difficult to explain. But if you look towards the.
I don't think so Mindstorms comment.
Certainly secular remembrance and commemoration, often underpinned by competing religiously and politically and foreign views in the past,
remains controversial and post-conflict, but still divided Northern Ireland.
It could be also traced to radical Protestant evangelicalism and the fact that they are.
Magee's trial was linked in the early 1970s to Satanism and modern Satanic worship because of its historical association with witchcraft.
Ala McGee was chosen in 1972 by Oprah.
And the Royal Alstott Constabularies special Brandts to be one of the seats of black magic
that they staged to keep kids away from ed seats of strategic importance and off the street.
This episode is Scrape Brilliantly and a book by Richard Jenkins.
I'm nearly finished.
And so lately Lunn's counsels replacement made an East and some borough council have recognised the potential of the Almadi trial.
They've included a section on the website that celebrates the history and heritage of the area
and along with colleagues and I have engaged in a number of funding beds for exhibitions,
landscape markers and interactive media projects awaiting today on Ligi case.
I haven't had much, you know, lock stock bomb threat, but I'm trying.
So just finally, to conclude that the project.
The final part of this project has proven hardest to realise in an environment of strained
budgets and other country where witchcraft has been long Retin-A of social history.
Just like Lisa said in relation to Wales and the word itself carries negative connotations that has so much potential here.
Tied the child to the landscape and the history of the region.
After all, it has been informally commemorated for centuries and in conversations with locals,
they seem keen to have it formally commemorated, celebrated, Irda says.
As I said, I think it's really important belief in the supernatural as a shared part of Irish history,
as a tie that binds not Davina's people of older voters and political backgrounds.
Just a hundred people in Northern Ireland from a variety of backgrounds to talk about Gorst charms and jiggers,
and you'll get an immediate sense of the sheer culture that's often overlooked.
Thank you very much.