Possessed By the Devil

The History of the Islandmagee Witch Trials, 1711

Dr Andrew Sneddon

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English

The History Press Ltd
01 February 2025

Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Social & cultural history; Witchcraft; Local history

In 1711, in County Antrim, eight women were put on trial accused of orchestrating the demonic possession of young Mary Dunbar, and the haunting and supernatural murder of a local clergyman's wife.

Mary Dunbar was the star witness in this trial, and the women were, by the standards of the time, believable witches they smoked, they drank, they just did not look right. With echoes of Arthur Miller's The Crucible and the Salem witch-hunt, this is a story of murder, of hysteria, and of how the 'witch craze' that claimed over 40,000 lives in Europe played out on Irish shores.

AUTHOR: Dr Andrew Sneddon has a BA (hons) in History and Literature from the University of Hertfordshire and and M.

Litt in Historical Research from the University of St Andrews, with a dissertation on English witchcraft, 1586-1718. His PhD was awarded by Lancaster University for a thesis on witchcraft writer, 'improver', and religious controversialist, Bishop Francis Hutchinson (1660-1739). Towards the end of this research he taught early modern history and study skills at the University of Glasgow. He then became an archivist at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), before being appointed Research Fellow on the Leverhulme Trust funded, Irish Legislation Project, at Queen's University, Belfast. In 2007, he was appointed Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast, to explore eighteenth-century institutional medicine. The following year, he joined the history department of the University of Ulster, Coleraine as lecturer. He has given papers and invited lectures all over the world and has published widely.

8 b/w illustrations

By: Dr Andrew Sneddon
Imprint: The History Press Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Second Edition
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781803992709
ISBN 10: 1803992700
Publication Date: 01 February 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Dr ANDREW SNEDDON (BA Hons, MLitt, PhD, FHEA) is a lecturer in history at the University of Ulster. Originally from Scotland, Dr Sneddon pursued his post-graduate and post-doctoral research at the University of St Andrews, Lancaster University and Queen's University, Belfast. He has also worked as an archivist at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), and taught history at Queen's University, Belfast and Glasgow University. Dr Sneddon is the leading expert on the history of Irish witchcraft and magic and has published widely in leading, international academic journals, as well as edited collections, in the fields of British and Irish early modern social, medical and political history (c.1550-1800). In addition to presenting papers at academic conferences (both national and international), he gives talks to local community, heritage and educational groups, and is working with leading practitioners to turn his books into museum exhibitions, graphic novels, VR apps, and video games.

Reviews for Possessed By the Devil: The History of the Islandmagee Witch Trials, 1711

Praise for first edition: ‘Possessed by the devil is erudite, accessible and very readable. Sneddon meticulously embeds his story in its wider British and European context as it unfolds, and brings a great deal of scholarship to bear on his tale … as both a very good read and a genuinely fascinating (and overdue) excursion into Irish cultural history, it can be highly recommended.’ -- Dr Johnn Gibney * History Ireland * ‘Andrew Sneddon is bidding fair to become the leading expert on the trials for witchcraft in early modern Ireland … Irish trials were, famously, few. That at Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in 1711, provoked by events on nearby Islandmagee, was the largest of them … It is also one of the best-documented in the British Isles … These qualities make it a very suitable subject for a book-length case- study, which Sneddon now richly provides’ -- Prof. Ronald Hutton * Irish Historical Studies *