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ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
11 The Fly Post; or the Post-master, Saturday 14 March 1711. ‘Dublin. We hear, That 8 witches were Try’d at the Assizes of Carrickfergus, for bewitching a young gentlewoman, were found guilty, and are to be imprisoned for a Year and a Day, and 4 Times Pilloried.’ Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Patrick McWilliams and Angélique Day, QUB Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast 1990 (O/S Memoirs): Parishes of County Antrim III, vol. 10, Parish of Islandmagee, James Boyle, April 1840.13 (pp. 40-41) ‘In no part of Ireland are the people more generally and inveterately superstitious than here. Most of the better educated class implicitly believe in witchcraft, fairies, brownies and enchantments, and there are few who are not perfectly convinced of the guilt of the unfortunate individuals convicted of witchcraft alleged to have been committed here in 1711. The utmost attention is paid to dreams and to omens. Many have seen the devil in the shape of a pig or a black dog. The house in which the witchcraft alluded to was enacted (situated in Kilcoanmore) is still considered as haunted, and though inhabited, many, even men, will not pass it alone at night … it is only necessary to refer to the belief in the guilt of the accused by nineteen-twentieths of the population to form an idea of their superstition.’ Witchcraft in Scotland [Back to Contents] Belfast Newsletter, 10 November 1829, Executions at Paisley. In the Newsletter of the 2nd inst. we noticed the execution of two men in Paisley for house- breaking. Although for more than a century past executions have been very rare in the town, yet ancient records tell us that in former times many melancholy occurrences of that kind had taken place there, through ignorance and superstition – We select the following from the Paisley Advertiser:- From the declaration of W. Sutherland contained in the Appendix to Woodrow’s History, Vol. 1 it appears that the individual was necessitated to officiate at the execution of a witch in this town in the year, 1661. 13 The Ordinance Survey Memoirs are parish accounts collated in the 1830s to accompany the new 6 inch Ordinance Survey Maps. The project was abandoned before completion and consequently the Memoirs only cover parishes in the North of Ireland.