Social Remembrance, Social Forgetting and Commemoration: The Public History of Witch Trials in Divided Societies with Contested Past

This chapter argues that cultural and social memory of the trials of the
Islandmagee witches in 1711 was created over centuries, from the eighteenth
century onwards, and helped shape public perceptions of historic,
Irish witchcraft in the twenty- first century. In conjunction with the wider
religious and political concerns of a divided, post- conflict society, this
ensured that efforts to officially commemorate the convicted ‘witches’ (nine
women and one man) in Northern Ireland between 2015 and 2023 was a
contested and protracted process. This memory was shaped in turn by oral
tradition, public discourse and performative activity, including marking
witch- related sites through avoidance and other informal commemoration.
Together this worked to emplace witchcraft in Islandmagee and create and
re- create tangible and physical heritage associated with the trials. This was
not a linear or straightforward development as witchcraft was, in an Irish
context, appropriated to serve specific ideologies that were underpinned
by competing national identities and attitudes and assumptions relating to
magic and religion. This carried an implicit denial of multivocality, with
the opposition’s views often regarded as socially and/ or spiritually dangerous.
The valuing and acceptance of multiple voices in witchcraft heritage
in Northern Ireland only came in the twenty- first century, in the form of
multidisciplinary, collaborative public history projects and community initiatives. The latter allowed diverse religious and magical cultures to come
together to reimagine and re- emplace the story of the Islandmagee witches.