Irish and Scottish Witches… From 1324 to Today

For centuries, Ireland and Scotland shared more than myths and migrations, they shared fear. The Irish and Scottish witch trials that swept both lands reveal how superstition and authority combined to target the vulnerable. Yet their stories also show the endurance of folk knowledge: charms, potions, and whispered prayers meant to heal, not harm.

Roots of Magic in Ireland

Irish witchcraft grew from the soil itself. Early healers combined saintly prayer with the old earth rites that lingered long after conversion. When a farmer’s cow failed to give milk, he might seek a bean feasa (wise woman). She carried sprigs of bog myrtle and ash to break the fairy blast.

Their potions were herbal science wrapped in sacred ritual. Boiled nettle water eased joint pain. Crushed foxglove leaves, carefully measured, treated dropsy. A drink of rowan berries mixed with honey cured sore throats. Each potion blended belief and botany. Every stir followed a pattern: sunwise for healing, widdershins for undoing harm. A pinch of salt sealed the blessing. From a modern lens, this was pharmacy in a peasant jar.

The 1324 Kilkenny Witch Trial

In 1324, the city of Kilkenny became the stage for one of Europe’s first documented witch trials. The central figure was Alice Kyteler. She was a wealthy innkeeper and moneylender. Her independence made her a target of envy and suspicion. Her repeated marriages also contributed to this. Her fourth husband, John le Poer, fell ill. His relatives accused Alice and her servant Petronilla de Meath of witchcraft. They were also charged with sorcery and heresy.

The charges were unusually detailed. They included making potions from the body parts of unbaptized children, consulting a demon called Robin Artisson, and offering sacrifices to him at crossroads. These accusations reflected standard medieval fears. They were also politically convenient. Alice’s wealth and debts to powerful men gave her enemies motive.

Bishop Richard de Ledrede of Ossory pursued the case aggressively. He claimed that Alice and her followers had renounced Christianity, trampled crosses, and concocted powders to kill husbands. De Ledrede’s zeal led to a direct conflict with the Anglo-Irish nobility, who saw his actions as interference in secular affairs.

Alice fled to England before sentencing, vanishing from history. Her servant Petronilla de Meath, however, was captured, tortured, and burned alive in Kilkenny. She was the first known person executed for witchcraft in Ireland. Her death in November 1324 marked the earliest recorded use of ecclesiastical law to condemn witchcraft as heresy in Western Europe.

Modern historians recognize the case as a collision between gender, class, and religious authority. Alice’s independence and Petronilla’s loyalty became threats to a patriarchal order uncomfortable with women who held property or influence. The Kyteler affair established a precedent. It defined how the Church and state would handle spiritual dissent for the next three centuries.

The Stormy North

Scotland’s witch trials erupted with far greater fury. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 made sorcery a capital crime, and religious reformers eager for moral purity filled the gallows.

The North Berwick trials (1590–1591) began when King James VI’s ship met a storm at sea. His advisers claimed witches had conjured it. Agnes Sampson, a midwife, and the schoolmaster John Fian were tortured into confessing that they sailed in sieves across the Firth of Forth and shouted spells into the wind.

Records from Aberdeen and Fife describe women keeping small flasks of unguent, animal fat, henbane, and soot. These ingredients were believed to heal skin ailments. Interrogators claimed these salves made them fly. The same ingredients appear in continental flying ointments, which contain hallucinogens that can cause vivid visions of motion or levitation.

Ireland’s Final Trial

By 1711, eight women in Islandmagee, County Antrim, were accused of tormenting a young girl. At this time, Ireland’s witch panic was fading. Their charms were unchanged for generations. They used iron keys to guard the threshold. Holy water was used on livestock. Occasionally, a curse was muttered in anger.

Their punishment, pillory and a year in jail, marked disbelief more than mercy. The age of miracles had ended, the age of reason had begun.

Summary of Significant Events: Irish and Scottish Witch Trials

1324 – Kilkenny, Ireland

The trial of Alice Kyteler and her servant Petronilla de Meath was the first recorded witchcraft case in Ireland and one of the earliest in Europe. Kyteler escaped to England. But Petronilla was tortured and burned at the stake in Kilkenny, setting a precedent for future prosecutions.

1563 – Scottish Witchcraft Act

Scotland’s Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act, declaring all forms of sorcery a capital offense. This single statute triggered more than a century of persecution and legitimized state-sanctioned executions for witchcraft across the realm.

1590 – North Berwick Trials

Sparked by storms that threatened King James VI’s voyage, these trials accused dozens of men and women of conjuring weather against the king. Midwife Agnes Sampson and schoolmaster John Fian were tortured and executed, marking Scotland’s first major witch panic.

1597 – Great Scottish Witch Hunt

Witchcraft investigations spread nationwide, fueled by royal endorsement and fear of demonic plots. Hundreds were interrogated, and many executed, particularly in Aberdeen, Fife, and East Lothian. This was the broadest sweep of witch trials in Scottish history.

1697 – Paisley Trials

The Renfrewshire witch hunt condemned seven townspeople, accused of cursing an eleven-year-old girl. Their hanging in Paisley became the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe. It symbolized the fading power of superstition.

1711 – Islandmagee Trial, Ireland

Eight women were charged in County Antrim with tormenting a young girl through spells and spirits. Convicted but spared execution, they served a year in jail. This was the last recorded witch trial in Ireland and a sign that the age of witch persecutions was ending.

Potions, Ointments, and Other Secrets of Irish and Scottish Witches

Surviving recipes show a close marriage of prayer and plant:

• Charm against fever: Yarrow steeped in milk, blessed three times with the Sign of the Cross.
• Salve for wounds: Mutton fat melted with comfrey root and beeswax, recited over with Psalm 50.
• Love draught: Mead with thyme and crushed apple pips, harmless but suspect.
• Curse potion (as alleged): Water drawn from three streams at midnight, stirred with a blackthorn stick.

Potion-making followed the principle of like cures like: red herbs healed blood, heart-shaped leaves cured heart pain. Such logic, older than Christianity, reflects Celtic cosmology, where the physical and spiritual formed one continuum.

Sigils, Seals, and Sacred Geometry

Sigil means little sign. In early modern Ireland and Scotland, these marks were protective, not demonic. Charmers drew crosses, circles, or stars on parchment, bread, or even a cow’s hide.

• Saint’s Cross: Two lines with four dots for the Evangelists.
• Circle of Brigid: Spiral sunwheel used to bless fire and home.
• Triquetra or Trinity Knot: Adapted from Celtic art as a Christian protection.
• Planetary seals: Copied from printed almanacs to cure melancholy or ward the evil eye.

These symbols were inked with oak-gall ink, folded, and worn at the neck. When authorities found them, they saw pacts with Satan rather than prayers for safety.

Words of Power

Spells were rhythmic and brief, often blending Latin fragments with Gaelic rhyme. One example survives in phonetic form:

“Bríd bocht, Banríon, coinnigh an lasair seo slán.”
“Poor Brigid, queen, keep this flame safe.”

The repetition acted like meditation. Sound shaped intent, breath sealed it. Where the cleric saw blasphemy, the villager saw focus.

Memory and Memorials

The landscape still carries their memory. The Witches’ Well at Edinburgh Castle honors the 300 plus woman burned at the stake there. At Doon Hill, Aberfoyle, ribbons hang from trees to please the fairies. Kilkenny keeps its medieval lanes where Alice Kyteler once fled.

Modern Voices of the Craft

The story of witchcraft did not end with the last trials in 1711. Today, the word witch has been reclaimed by people who use it to express creativity, spirituality, and balance with nature. A good modern example comes close to home.

Molly Donlan, an American writer and energy-healing practitioner, co-hosts the podcast Demystify Magic with her friend Madison Lillian. Together they describe their work as “science + spirituality + low-effort witchcraft.” They examine the same ideas that once drew suspicion in early modern society. Intention, rhythm, and symbol can influence human well-being.

Today’s practitioners draw sigils with marker pens instead of quills. Their potions come as herbal teas rather than boiling cauldrons. The approach is playful yet sincere. It shows how a language once used to condemn women has become a vocabulary for healing. It is now used for self-knowledge.

In the interest of transparency, one of the hosts, Molly, is also part of my family. Watching her generation reinterpret ancient practices reminds me that curiosity and wonder still survive every wave of skepticism.

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Author’s Note

Terry Donlan writes about Irish and Scottish history, genealogy, and folklore for Irish Scottish Roots Blog. His lifelong interest in the borderlands between faith and folklore continues in his family. His daughter Molly’s modern practice of energy work and witchcraft provides a living echo of the heritage explored here.

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