01x06 - Ireland: Possessed by the Devil

[bunniefuu]

- This is the only mass
witch trial in Ireland.

- A woman seems to become the
trigger of demonic possession.

- She's crying out in
pain, whole body tremors.

- The reason the demon is
afflicting this person

is because a witch
has sent the demon.

- She has tortured herself
by ghostly attackers.

It is a haunted place and it's
haunted by this witch trial.

[screaming]

[whispering]

♪ ♪

- Islandmagee is
in County Antrim.

County Antrim is what is
now Northern Ireland.

It sticks out just above
Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Ann Haltridge is
an elderly matriarch.

She's Presbyterian
of Scots descent

and she's also the widow of
Reverend John Haltridge.

- Ann Haltridge moved
to Islandmagee

in order to spend her last
years looked after by

her son's family.

[Andrew Sneddon] Ann
lived in Knowehead House.

It was a stone's throw away
from the Presbyterian church.

Ann lives there with her
son James and his wife,

two children and his
servant, Margaret Spear.

[Ronald Hutton] But everything
starts to go wrong.

[crow cawing]

♪ ♪

[Andrew Sneddon] Ann Haltridge
is reading on her own

and suddenly stones
start hitting her.

She can't see where
they're from.

They're coming
through the window

and bashing her right in
the back of the head.

[Ronald Hutton] And
the household sees
weird things going on.

Bedclothes are disarranged.

Some of them are rearranged
in the shape of a

corpse on the bed.

[Andrew Sneddon] She goes to
bed that night and what she

starts feeling, terrifyingly,
is this presence crawling

slowly up her feet, up her
legs and over her head.

She hears them
scratching and noises.

So Ann Haltridge is beginning
to wonder what's happening.

♪ ♪

- Ann is also haunted by an
apparition of a demonic boy.

[Andrew Sneddon] And
he is a small boy.

She tells the
household they think

is basically a beggar.

[Marion Gibson] She doesn't
think so and whether

he's real or not,

he seems to her to be a
manifestation of the devil.

[Andrew Sneddon] The
main witness is the
servant, Margaret Spear.

[Marion Gibson] The boy says the
devil has taught him to read.

To people in the 18th
century and particularly

extreme Protestants, like
the Haltridge family,

they would have thought of
it as a demonic phenomenon.

[Andrew Sneddon] This is a
Presbyterian Protestant

community where you
learn about God.

You learn about your duties
to the Christian faith

through reading.

It's very important.

[narrator] Then, as suddenly as
he appeared, the boy is gone.

For several months, an uneasy
peace falls on Knowehead House.

But on the 12th of February,
1711, the boy returns.

[Andrew Sneddon] He's threatened
to k*ll everybody in the house.

He produces a sword and
starts digging a grave.

He says to Margaret Spear,
"I'm digging this grave for

your master, James Haltridge.

"He's dead. I've k*lled him."

We know that that's
not the case.

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] What Ann and
her family are experiencing

is a phenomenon
called obsession.

And that's when the devil
is trying to possess you,

but actually he's
outside your body.

He can't quite get in.

So obsessed people
would be people

who would see strange visions,
to whom weird things like

stone throwing might happen.

And this was all because
the devil was thought

to be controlling their body
and their mind externally.

- People could be tormented
by demons in various ways.

This so-called demonic
obsession might proceed

in some extreme situations
into full bodily possession,

whereby the demon ceases
merely to menace externally

the victim, but actually
enters the body.

Bad spirits could get inside
a person through the mouth

or through some other orifice.

[Andrew Sneddon] What starts off
as something outside of the body

starts to internalize.

[Ronald Hutton] Ann claims to
be the victim of stabbing pains

administered by
invisible antagonists,

who are demons as far as the
Presbyterians are concerned.

[Andrew Sneddon] With anything
like this, where they're being

attacked by a demonic entity,
the first port of call

is the local minister,
Reverend Sinclair.

He is a leading man in
that small community.

His church is at the
center of that community.

He believes in witchcraft.

He lives in a community that
believes in witchcraft.

Reverend Sinclair comes
in and starts praying

for Mrs. Halditch.

If this was a Roman
Catholic priest,

he may have performed
the ritual of exorcism.

- If you're trying to
rescue a possessed person

from the demon that
is possessing them,

what you're doing is you're
exorcising that person,

commanding the demon to depart.

[Andrew Sneddon] And you're
using the sign of the cross.

Sometimes you use a
bit of holy water.

[Julian Goodare] Protestants
reject all these consecrated
objects and they say,

"Well, that's just Catholic
superstition. That's wicked."

But as a result, they
leave themselves

with a relatively limited
range of techniques.

[Andrew Sneddon]
They can't command.

What they can do is pray.

[narrator] To ease her
terrible suffering,

Reverend Sinclair prays
for Ann Haltridge.

But it is not enough.

Her condition worsens.

And on February 27th,
1711, she dies.

The cause of death, unknown.

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] You'd expect
the period of mourning for her

to be very solemn,
to be very quiet.

[Ronald Hutton] But
shortly after her death,

another extraneous relative
arrives at Islandmagee.

[Andrew Sneddon] James'
cousin, Mary Dunbar.

She is from Castlereagh , which
is just outside of Belfast.

She's a stranger
to Islandmagee.

She says she hasn't been within

[Ronald Hutton] Mary is around

she settled into the household
than all the weirdness

breaks out again.

[Marion Gibson] On
the 27th of February,

Mary Dunbar finds
a fabric parcel.

[Ronald Hutton] An apron that's
been tied up in weird knots.

Now, the tying and
untying of knots

is a traditional means of
working magic by witches.

- Many cultures have
elaborate protective magics,

typically a knotting
spell will be a way

of trying to set a spell.

You work the spell and at
the moment where you say

you conclude the spell,
you tie the knot

and the knot acts
to fix the spell.

All of this is
sympathetic magic.

[Andrew Sneddon] The sympathy's
between the intended victim

and their belongings.

So you do one and it
happens to the other.

[Ronald Hutton] So it's assumed
that because the knots are in a

weird pattern that there's
some kind of magic involved.

♪ ♪

Guess what?

Mary Dunbar elects to untie the
knots and see what happens.

[narrator] Mary Dunbar pulls
at the cursed knots.

The apron unfolds and a curious
object falls to the floor.

A bonnet that belonged to the
recently deceased Ann Haltridge.

[Marion Gibson] By untying it,
Mary seems to have let out

some sort of demonic force,
which then fastens on her.

[Andrew Sneddon] And witches
use something belonging to the

victim to bewitch it.

Whatever they do to the
object belonging to them

happens to the individual.

[Ronald Huttdon] It's now Mary
Dunbar who is the apparent

center of the demonic attacks.

[Andrew Sneddon] She's
screaming out, caught with a

stabbing pain and then she goes
into convulsive fits.

♪ ♪

[Darren Oldridge] Demonic
possession was recognized

by well-established symptoms.

Physical contortion,
unnatural bodily strength.

Endless fits.

Trances.

[Darren Oldridge] And also a
recoiling from holy objects

like blessed water or crucifixes
and simply the word of God.

Now one further indication
of demonic possession

was that a possessed person
would accuse somebody else

of casting a demon
into their body.

It's because of this
that very often,

demon possession was
associated with witchcraft.

[Ronald Hutton] Mary Dunbar
claims to be attacked

by the spirits of witches.

[Andrew Sneddon] She starts to
go into trances and she starts

to see the images of
women attacking her.

[Ronald Hutton] She can
visualize their features.

[narrator] In the midst of
the spectral attack,

she hears the name of
one of her tormentors,

Janet Carson, a local
woman unknown to Mary.

[Ronald Hutton] The Reverend
Sinclair proceeds to

investigate things
as best he can.

[Marion Gibson] There's a test
that's been performed

since the 16th century
for witchcraft,

which is to bring the
suspected witch close

to the supposedly obsessed
or possessed person

and see if they react to
it, even if they can't see

the witchcraft suspect.

[Andrew Sneddon] The approach of
the person who has bewitched you

will make you worse.

Sympathetic magic, the cause
and the effect coming together.

[Marion Gibson] So this is
done with Janet Carson.

She's brought into the
room and of course the

victim does react and
that's held to confirm

that she must in
fact be a witch.

[narrator] Janet Carson is
the first person accused of

witchcraft in Islandmagee, but
she won't be the last.

♪ ♪

[Andrew Sneddon] It made
perfect sense that the

Haltridge households would
be attacked by the devil.

They were pious.

It was a godly household.

It was a light in the darkness.

[birds chirping]

So the question is,
why Mary Dunbar?

She's young, she's educated,
she's the type the devil

would try to tempt,
try to corrupt.

He is after all in
the popular mind,

the great corruptor
and the great tempter.

♪ ♪

And she's a perfect target,
just like Ann was before her.

Mary Dunbar's fits continue.

Convulsive, whole body
tremors that were lasting

up to eight minutes and
she's able to point

towards two further women.

Janet Liston and
Elizabeth Sellor.

They're a mother and a daughter.

[narrator] Mary can even
describe the witches.

They're short and one
struggles to walk,

but Reverend Sinclair
is cautious.

Can he trust these visions?

[Andrew Sneddon] They
are living in an era of
increasing skepticism.

They know that
these symptoms can

and have been faked in the past
and they want to make sure.

They don't want to send
an innocent person

to jail or worse.

So they continue to test.

[Julian Goodare] There is a
passage in the Bible that says,

"Believe not every spirit,
"but try the spirits

whether they are of God."

If you encounter a
spirit, if you encounter

something supernatural, you
have to work out what it is.

If somebody else has
encountered a spirit

or encountered
something supernatural,

you have to question them
to work out what it is.

It could be a good thing or
it could be a bad thing.

The good spirits,
you've got angels,

bad spirits, the
devil and demons.

So if you encounter a spirit,
it could well be a demon.

[Marion Gibson] Again,
a test is arranged.

A lineup is organized, a
bit like an identity parade

and it contains about

It's expected that
because Mary Dunbar

is not from Islandmagee,
that it will be a

good test of her
to see if she can

recognize the women whose
names she's already

been mentioning as suspects.

Not only does she pick out
the suspects in the lineup,

she actually reacted in a
very extreme manner to them.

This is thought again to be
proof of their witchcraft.

[Andrew Sneddon] Reverend
Sinclair quizzes Janet
and Elizabeth

on the Bible, but also to say
the Lord's Prayer.

This is a classic
test of witchcraft.

[narrator] Janet Liston and
Elizabeth Sellor stumble

as they recite the
Lord's Prayer.

To the pious, this is a sign.

The devil has their tongue.

[Ronald Hutton] This in the end
convinces the Reverend

that there is a case and he then
takes it to the authorities.

[Andrew Sneddon] To do
so, they have to go to
the main legal power

in the local area,
Mayor Edward Clements,

he is justice to the peace
and they investigate

charges that are serious.

They are responsible for
drawing up witness statements

or depositions and
for jailing people

to appear in the criminal court.

They are usually gentry.

They're usually of
independent means

and they're Protestants
and they decide whether

it's worthy of looking into.

In this case, Mayor Edward
Clements does investigate it.

[narrator] March 4th, 1711,
Mayor Clements arrives

in Islandmagee to launch
his investigation.

Here, he is told
a new apparition

threatens Mary Dunbar, but
only the Christian name

of this elusive witch
is known, Catherine.

[Marion Gibson] This time the
tests are slightly different.

Edward Clements rounds up all
the Catherines in his district

and brings them to Mary
to see if she knows

which one is the
witch and she does.

She picks out
Catherine M'Calmond.

Catherine M'Calmond's
house is searched.

[Andrew Sneddon] Edward
Clements is following very,

very careful instructions in
our Justice of the Peace Manual

that summarizes the 1586
Irish Witchcraft Act

that makes witchcraft
ill*gal in Ireland.

They're governed
by English law,

even though they are Scottish
Presbyterians in Ireland.

And what the authorities
are looking for

are things like wax images
into which pins or thorns

might've been stuck
in order to afflict

Mary Dunbar and others.

They're also looking
for animal familiars.

[Andrew Sneddon] This
is an English trope,

but they're looking for it
and they can't find anything.

[door creaks shut]

[narrator] Back at Knowehead
House, the apparent demonic

possession of Mary Dunbar
grows ever more intense.

[Marion Gibson] There's
this circus that develops
around Mary Dunbar.

She is talking about
demonic visions.

[Andrew Sneddon] Five
women have been accused.

How many more will be accused?

How many more people
will be dragged

from their homes and tested?

[wind blowing]

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] Until
the early 18th century,

Irish people don't seem to
have been nearly as obsessed

with witches as was
the rest of Europe.

[Andrew Sneddon] Although there
are plenty of accusations,

there are very few
formal prosecutions.

There was a famous case
of Alice Kyteler,

the Kilkenny in 1324.

She runs away, but her
associate is ex*cuted.

In 1655, with Marion Fisher,
it's quashed and she's let off.

Florence Newton in 1661.

She is accused of
bewitching a young servant.

It's assumed she was found
guilty and ex*cuted.

[trap door bangs open]

[Marion Gibson] Irish people
seem to have other ways

of explaining the supernatural,
whether that's to do

with fairies or ghosts or
supernatural creatures.

[Andrew Sneddon]
But in Islandmagee,

you're dealing
with a different belief system.

You're dealing
with Presbyterians

looking for new lives
coming from Scotland.

[Diane Purkiss] The
Elizabethan settlement policy

was in full swing in the
North, and the idea was

basically to displace the
indigenous Irish population,

which was Catholic
and Gaelic speaking,

and replace it with
an English-speaking

Protestant population, mostly
imported from Scotland.

It's that population who are
already coming from a culture

where witchcraft
beliefs are common

and witchcraft
prosecution's normal.

Therefore, it's significant
that the Islandmagee trial

happens fairly far north at
exactly the part of Ireland

that's been most thickly
settled with Protestants.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton] They are also
Presbyterians, members of the

Scottish Protestant Church,
which is far more

radically Protestant than
the Church of Ireland,

and in a mutual
hostility with it.

It's an island of
potential witch hunting

transplanted to a new land.

[birds chirping]

[Andrew Sneddon] They brought a
genuine belief in the devil,

and they brought a
belief in witchcraft.

[indistinct shoutiing]

But this is the
early 18th century,

and the court system that
the Justice of the Peace

has to use is an
English imposition.

[Marion Gibson] Witch
trials had become harder
and harder to hold.

Judges were much more
resistant to the idea of

holding a witch trial
or allowing the suspect

to be convicted.

By that point, people have
started asking better questions

about whether witchcraft
exists or not.

There were changes in the way
that evidence was demanded.

There needed to be more
evidence, basically,

before they could be convicted.

[Andrew Sneddon] What
they really want is a
voluntary confession.

You cannot t*rture under English
common law for a confession.

So the physical
evidence of witchcraft

becomes more important.

♪ ♪

So Mary Dunbar. You don't
have to look too hard

for the evidence, really.

She is a body of evidence.

The demon inside her
doesn't want to hear

the prayers of Sinclair.

So reacts to the prayers,
and she goes into

fits and convulsions.

Her teeth have been so
tightly clenched together,

they have to feed
her through a quill

and open her teeth with a key.

Her spectral visions gets worse.

[♪ discordant music]

She names her further
two suspects,

Janet Main and Janet Latimer.

Janet Main is from Broadisland,
outside of Islandmagee.

The net of suspects
has been cast wider.

♪ ♪

Janet Latimer is unable to
answer questions put to her,

and she can't say
the Lord's Prayer.

Neither can Janet Main.

Mayor Clements has
got enough evidence,

so he puts them in
jail to await trial,

which will be in a
few weeks' time.

They'll also be put
in chains and bolts

to stop them leaving
their body spectrally.

Iron is used to counteract
magic in Ireland.

It is a very folkloric thing.

It's embedded in the
popular consciousness.

It looks strange to modern
eyes, but putting them in

chains is very important
to the process of

protecting Mary Dunbar.

Because they're incarcerated,
because the iron is stopping

them using their
magic, Mary Dunbar is

able to rest easy.

[♪ music slowly ends]

[birds squawking]

It should be over.

[♪ uneasy music begins]

But it isn't.

The fits start again.

[distorted noises]

The convulsions start again.

[narrator] After the latest
demonic attacks,

Mary Dunbar names
two new witches.

Janet Miller and
Margaret Mitchell.

[Marion Gibson] It's been asked
why Mary doesn't simply

leave the house, if it's become
so uncomfortable for her

and she's so afflicted
when she's in it.

But she says, and it's
proved by her actions,

that every time she tries to
leave, she's afflicted again.

She falls down in what appears
to be a feint or a trance.

As soon as she crosses the
threshold of the house.

[Diane Purkiss] Threshold magic
is based on the idea

that a house is something
that keeps things out

and also keeps things in.

At the points where
there are openings,

whether those are windows,
doors or chimneys,

there's always a possibility
of something sneaking in

that you didn't want
to be in there.

[Ronald Hutton] The main means
by which evil can get in,

or good, can be penned in.

If you want to keep
somebody indoors,

is to stick a curse
on the doorstep.

[Diane Purkiss] It's sometimes
just a marking, which can even

be made with chalk.

It could be children's
shoes, the skull of a horse,

the body of a cat.

All these are magics
that are intended

to make you feel a bit
sick and walk away.

And that's what
threshold magic is.

And it's very big to
this day in Ireland,

and there are very
many survivals of it

in the British Isles overall.

[Marion Gibson] So on the 5th of
March, local officials dig up

the threshold of the house,
and lo and behold, there's

a terrible smell of sulphur.

So they think, well,
we've uncovered the

source of the magic here.

Perhaps now Mary can
leave the house.

[narrator] Escaping the evils
of Knowehead House,

Mary Dunbar finds a sanctuary
in the home of a trusted friend

in the nearby town of Larne.

[Andrew Sneddon] Larne
is just across the
water from Islandmagee.

It's a small town.

You get there by boat
from the tip of the

peninsula of Islandmagee.

It's on the way to
Carrickfergus,

where the court would be.

When she's going there, it
should be an easy journey.

But when she's on the way,
she sees Janet Main in a

spectral form, threatening her.

This should be impossible,
because she's safely

locked up in jail,
and she's chained and

unable to escape her body.

But here she is again...

..having a further
attack on Mary Dunbar.

[♪ music intensifies]

[♪ uneasy music playing]

[Andrew Sneddon] How does Main
appear to Mary Dunbar?

She's meant to be
locked up in jail.

Well, rather than being
bolted up all day, which

they should have been,
they've been taken out

of jail by the jailer.

She's actually been taken to his
house to card and spin linen,

taken out of her bolts
and out of prison.

And this allows them to
spectrally attack Mary Dunbar.

[narrator] Having spent two
weeks safely in Lorne,

Mary Dunbar must make the
journey to Carrickfergus.

Carrickfergus, where the accused
witches await their trial.

[Marion Gibson] The
judges meet Mary Dunbar.

They do so because
they're really cautious

about staging the trial at all.

But they must have been
convinced that she was

a compelling witness.

They were struck by the fact
that she seemed ladylike,

she seemed educated,
she seemed respectable,

and she seemed innocent.

And so the trial went ahead.

[Andrew Sneddon] Both in
the court and outside of
the court were packed out.

It was a big deal.

[Ronald Hutton] They are tried
by two professional judges,

but with a local jury
deciding the verdict.

[Andrew Sneddon] This
trial had 19 witnesses.

They're brought in randomly and
it's hard to follow the case.

The range of religious
and political might

is against these poor,
marginalised women.

You can imagine how frightening
this would have been.

But they stood up
for themselves.

[Ronald Hutton] None of the
women have confessed,

which is quite unusual.

[Marion Gibson] The judges were
very concerned to keep stating

the importance of
reaching a fair verdict,

and they warned continually
about the consequences.

[Andrew Sneddon] And
we've got a problem here.

[Ronald Hutton] One of the
judges supports the evidence

and the other judge says the
evidence is preposterous.

[Darren Oldridge] The kinds of
arguments that people were

making against the criminal
prosecution of witches

were increasingly accepted
by the later 17th century

and the early 18th
century than had perhaps

previously been the case.

Many educated people began to
accept a model of the world

that operated according to
the principles of mathematics

and what today we might
think of as natural science.

And that view of the
world, for many people,

was incompatible with the idea
of evil spirits and bewitchment.

[Diane Purkiss] The Islandmagee
case is a perfect example of a

case where the elite don't side
with the popular belief at all.

It becomes characteristic
of the best-educated people

to be really sceptical
about witchcraft

and to set out to disprove it.

Increasingly, people
treat people who purport

to be demonically possessed
or bewitched as mental cases,

who says this girl is
not possessed, she's

simply hysterical
and she just needs

medical treatment.

So it certainly becomes
possible increasingly

to think of what would
once have been regarded

as witchcraft for sure as
something else altogether,

something scientific and
something entirely secular.

[Ronald Hutton] Trouble is, the
jury is Scot's Presbyterian,

which thoroughly believes
in the power of the

devil and of witchcraft, and
so it proceeds to convict.

[Marion Gibson] They
weren't sentenced to death,

but they were sentenced

to a year in prison and
they had to make four

appearances at the pillory
in local market towns.

Put in a contraption
which imprisons the

head and the hands, so
you're standing helpless.

The problem there is you
can't defend your face

and so if the crowd is against
you, and in Islandmagee it is,

they will pelt you and you
could be seriously injured.

[Andrew Sneddon] The
other punishment is
imprisonment for a year.

These prisons are not
designed to punish people

for any length of time.

They're there for short stay,
so being there for a year

must have been horrendous.

[Marion Gibson] They were
dirty, they were full,

overflowing with people,
so there was no privacy.

From the smell, the presence
of your fellow prisoners,

some of whom would have
been quite dangerous.

♪ ♪

[Andrew Sneddon] These women
fought with everything they had

against these charges and
they didn't have much.

They were poor, they
were marginalised,

but they didn't
go along with it.

They were fighting against it.

They stood up in court where
the great and the good

were ranged against
them and they said,

"No, we didn't do it."

None of these women, till
the end, admitted it.

And for that, we should be
terribly proud of them.

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] Even after
the conviction of the

eight suspects, the matter
was not over for Mary Dunbar.

[Andrew Sneddon] She is still
being demonically possessed

when everybody she's
accused is in jail.

A man threatens her with
a knife, in spectral

form, and stabs her.

[muted screaming]

They have a look
at her shoulder.

They can see a physical
scar on her shoulder

where she's been stabbed.

[narrator] Mary Dunbar
is able to recognise
and name her attacker.

William Sellor.

[Andrew Sneddon] William Sellor
is husband to Janet Liston

and father to Elizabeth Sellor.

William Sellor is tracked
down to a tavern.

Then he is arrested.

But it's not over.

It takes a dramatic turn.

In late April, William
Sellor's accuser,

the centre of the whole case,
Mary Dunbar, dies suddenly.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Andrew Sneddon] We know about
the death of Mary Dunbar

because it's reported
in the newspaper.

And it's very stark.

It just says, "The person
who accused witches

"and the police who were lately
tried at Carrickfergus is dead."

It doesn't tell us why.

[Marion Gibson] And that changes
the fate of William Sellor,

who is in jail for practising
witchcraft against her.

It changes his trial to one
which appears to be about

m*rder of Mary Dunbar.

William is suddenly on
trial for his life.

[Andrew Sneddon] Under
the 1586 Witchcraft Act,

if you m*rder using witchcraft,
you can be ex*cuted.

He is tried and he
is found guilty.

We don't know if
he was ex*cuted.

We can't find his body.

But he was found guilty, so it's
assumed it was carried out.

[Ronald Hutton] And if that
happened, it would have been a

spectacularly late execution
for witchcraft in the

history of the British
Isles, one of only three

in Irish history, and
an entire generation

after witch executions
had ceased in England.

This is an amazing story, and
it's so recently discovered,

we haven't really yet
got our heads round it.

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] It's difficult
to say what happened in the

case of Mary Dunbar.

Did she really think that
she was being afflicted

by supernatural forces?

[Darren Oldridge] Demon
possession was regarded with

some suspicion because, of
course, it was possible to fake.

[Julian Goodare] Demonic
possession starts to become

more prominent in
the later stages of

the great European witch hunt.

There comes to be a sort of
shared body of knowledge

as to how a demoniac
should behave.

Presumably Mary Dunbar
may well have heard about

the other recent cases
and known how to behave.

My impression is that there is
some psychological disorder

of some kind behind
much of this.

These demoniacs are not simply
faking the whole thing,

but they're just being
encouraged to behave in

certain specific ways
to take the symptoms of

their psychiatric disorder
in a particular direction.

[Andrew Sneddon] Historians
warn of imposing modern medical

diagnosis onto the past
because diseases change.

People who are trying to find
modern medical explanations

are relying on evidence
that is quite sparse.

Now, if it was an
illness, did she fake it?

She is a young woman in a
very restrictive family.

She has constraints
placed on what she can

do and what she can't do.

It's also a way for
her to challenge the

restrictions placed on her.

This allows her to behave
in ways that would be

otherwise unacceptable.

So this brings her
to centre stage.

It's a drama of
her own creation.

[Marion Gibson] That
still doesn't explain
everything, though.

Some of the things
that she describes

couldn't have been done by
one person acting alone.

She would have to have had help.

[Andrew Sneddon] When you
look at Ann Haltridge's
demonic obsession...

..Mary's possession...

..one of the people
who see it all is the

servant, Margaret Spear.

Mary Dunbar probably
needed help faking it

because things happen
when she's not there.

It would also explain why Mary
could track these people down

through their names and
through what they looked like.

It could have came
from Margaret Spear.

[Ronald Hutton] Who identified
people for her, briefed her

and helped set
things up for her.

[Andrew Sneddon]
She's from that area.

She may have known these people.

So there is things
we can't explain.

But so much can't be.

[narrator] It's most likely
these events were caused

by Mary Dunbar and Margaret
Spear fighting for attention.

But so much remains unexplained.

What caused Ann Haltridge's
possession and death?

How could Janet
Main's attack occur

just as she was
taken out of prison?

And what was behind the
mysterious death of Mary Dunbar?

[Julian Goodare] This is the
kind of witchcraft case that

you get in the later stages of
the great European witch hunt.

It's very colourful.

It's very dramatic.

It's also controversial.

Either the story is of,
yes, she was genuine,

or indeed the story is,
yes, she was faking.

These are both stories
that people want to tell

and sometimes you see
both stories being told

about the same person.

[Ronald Hutton] But her sudden
death is an extraordinary event,

presumably a complete
coincidence.

But it's the kind of thing of
which true melodrama is made.

[Marion Gibson] We'll never
really know what happened in the

case of Mary Dunbar,
but it does make

a fantastic story
and it convinced the

judges at her witch trial.

[narrator] Despite many
unanswered questions,

the trials in
Islandmagee have ended.

But their horrors continue.

[Andrew Sneddon] The Islandmagee
case is unusual in Ireland.

[seagull calling]

Nine people were
convicted for witchcraft

and it is the only
trial in Ireland

that a man is prosecuted
and convicted

and, as far as we know,
hung for witchcraft.

When the rest of Europe is
stopping prosecuting witches,

this is at the point a
trial happens in Ireland.

But in Islandmagee itself,
it is a haunted place

and it's haunted by
this witch trial.

It haunts the folk history.

People won't go past
Knowehead House at night.

There's an old rocking
stone that witches are

said to have danced on
at night and people

not go near it.

But something has changed
by the early 18th century.

In Ireland, there is
no more witch trials.

Nobody is formally prosecuted
and there's no convictions.

[Julian Goodare] The
great European witch hunt
does have an overall arc.

It goes up and then
it goes down again.

[narrator] Ireland's last ever
witch trial is over

and mass trials and
accusations of witchcraft

fade away throughout
the Western world.

[Andrew Sneddon] We are at a
point of change and part of the

reason is an increase
in judicial scepticism,

finding it hard to get
convincing proof of witchcraft.

In the mid to late 17th
century, we start to get judges

and legal writers being
more sceptical about

witchcraft prosecutions.

[Diane Purkiss] In order for
witch trials to happen

and for people to be
prosecuted and ex*cuted,

the elite, the top 20% at least,
have consistently to believe

that there are real witches and
that they are a real threat.

The actual prosecutions
stop happening

because the elite
no longer believe.

[Ronald Hutton] And when they
doubt the evidence,

their trials end because
they're pointless.

And when trials end, the laws
against witchcraft get repealed.

Then convictions subside.

♪ ♪

The other thing is that
witch hunting doesn't work.

It doesn't produce better luck,
better weather, better children.

Instead, it disrupts
and demoralises

and decimates communities.

And the Protestant and
Catholic have failed

to wipe each other out, so
they're having to learn

to tolerate each other.

[Julian Goodare] Each side wants
to prove that it's more godly

than the other lot.

They both hate witches, but
the biggest change is that

they want to stop k*lling
each other for it.

[Marion Gibson] The world is
moving towards a change

in the way that people think
about society, about each other,

and a belief in greater
tolerance, in not

k*lling each other, and
of being more charitable

towards other people.

[Ronald Hutton] So it looks as
if God is lightening up.

The weather gets better.

Christian Europe gets stronger
and more self-confident

in defeating its enemies.

Epidemic disease recedes
for the first time

in hundreds of years.

♪ ♪

[Darren Oldridge] The people who
accused others of witchcraft

were afraid of witches.

They were dealing with
what seemed to them

to be real dangers in the
world, and a genuine desire to

deal with a dangerous
but difficult crime.

And that has been lost,
because today we don't

believe in bad magic, and
with it our appreciation

of the genuine fears
of people in the past,

and it prevents us from
appreciating truly

the tragedy of
witch persecutions,

because if we imagine
the people that accused

others of witchcraft
as being malicious or

suffering from hysteria, then
we won't take the lesson,

which is that well-meaning
and rational people

might sometimes make
terrible mistakes,

and that seems to me
to be a much more

important lesson to take from
the age of what we think

of today as witch hunts.

[fire crackling]

[Julian Goodare] The great
European witch hunt has gone.

[Marion Gibson] But that's only
the story in Western Europe

and North America.

♪ ♪

Around the world today,
witch trials still continue.

In Southern Africa,
in Indonesia,

parts of the Indian
subcontinent and Nepal.

That's perhaps another story.

But it's the story of
ongoing witch trials.

We're still in the era
of the witch hunt today.

♪ ♪