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Were Witches Welcome in Ireland?

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Fun holidays that involve dressing up and enjoying treats are Irish gifts this island has shared with the world, and that world has embraced them with enthusiasm. St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the only Irish holiday celebrated widely. Halloween began in Ireland as Samhain, the last day of the Celtic year when the veil between this world and the spirit world was worn thin. Irish people believed that when the veil was that thin, all sorts of spooky spirits could pop into their world and cause mayhem. They felt their best protection was to offer treats – and that’s where trick or treating began.

Jack O'Lantern with an Autumnal Background

Today, every household that puts out some jack o’lanterns and welcomes trick or treaters is going to see plenty of little witches in their classic pointy black hats. And if you go out to a bar or party instead, you won’t escape the witches there either. Revellers of all ages love to dress up as witches, whether they take their treats in a plastic pumpkin or a cocktail glass.

When we think of witches, we tend to think of the notorious Salem witch trials or the similar persecutions across Europe and  in not-so-merry old England – but not Ireland. Only a handful of women were prosecuted as witches in Ireland, which was of course under British rule until the 1920s.

The most well-known case of a woman being prosecuted for being a witch in Ireland didn’t involve someone living in the woods mixing up potions. Dame Alice Kyteler was an affluent merchant and moneylender in Kilkenny. When her fourth husband became mysteriously ill, her stepchildren accused her of poisoning him and forcing him to change his will to leave everything to her eldest son. The local bishop decided that she must be using witchcraft, and added an array of fantastical details.

In the end, crafty Alice fled but her maid was found guilty of witchcraft and killed.

Why Didn’t Ireland Join the Hysteria about Witches?

The few cases of people being accused and tried for witchcraft in Ireland were nothing compared to the hysteria in Europe and North America. Why was Ireland different?

A woman wearing a black cape and crown of white flowers in a forest

The assortment of best-selling Irish gifts gives us one clue. The pre-Christian designs have endured and remain well-loved today. In Ireland, belief in fairy folk, magical cures and other mystical phenomena have always comfortably coexisted with passionate and devout Christian faith – not only in the same town, but in the same households and individuals. Many an Irish granny who never missed mass also firmly believed in fortune telling and the ability of some individuals to cure specific illnesses because they were born with the gift.

Maybe because we’re the descendants of druids, we’re inclined to have a little love for nature and whatever cures it holds.

Or perhaps our ancestors weren’t worried about witches because the supernatural creatures they believed to be roaming around the countryside at night were much scarier than a woman mixing up some herbs in her own home.

If you are on the lookout for banshees and pucas, a witch is pretty small potatoes. And a witch might just have some connections among those banshees and pucas. It’s safer to give them some treats than to hold witch trials!

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