The History of Witch Hunts in Ireland

The History of Witch Hunts in Ireland comes to The Blues Kitchen Brixton on Wednesday 21 October, with historian Dr Gillian Kenny taking the lead. It's a talk that looks at a part of Irish history that doesn't fit the usual pattern: Ireland had an unusually sparse record of witchcraft, with fewer than ten trials across four centuries—rare, peculiar cases that have mostly been forgotten. While the rest of Europe was gripped by mass panics, when misfortune struck in Ireland, it was blamed less on a pact with the Devil and more on the fairies and the 'cunning folk' who dealt with them. The supernatural world there looked very different from the one fueling the hunts elsewhere.

Kenny follows the remarkable case of Alice Kyteler, Ireland's most famous accused witch, and uses it to consider how fairy belief shaped Irish justice, fear, and community life. It's a way of getting at how people actually lived and what they believed, rather than just looking at the few trials that made it into the records. The session is for over-18s and ends with a Q&A, so there's a chance to ask questions once she's finished.

Dr Gillian Kenny is a historian of medieval and early modern Ireland whose work focuses on women, magic, and folklore. She's an Adjunct Associate Professor in the UCD School of History and a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and has appeared on The Rest Is History and You're Dead to Me. The talk is presented by Seed Talks.

Doors open at 7:00pm at The Blues Kitchen Brixton, 40 Acre Lane, London SW2 5SP, with the talk starting at 7:30pm and running for about two and a half hours. Tickets are £18.04.