Visitors were able to delve into the trial of the ‘Islandmagee Witches’ at Carrickfergus Museum in Autumn 2023 and Autumn 2024 at the ‘Reimagining the Islandmagee Witches: An Interactive Exhibition.’ The exhibition also travelled to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast in January 2024. It blended new technology, including digitised original trial documents, a video game, and an immersive virtual reality experience, with more traditional information panels, objects, maps, manuscripts, books, and images. The spellbinding story of the last witch trial in Ireland further came alive through a bewitching blend of related projects, events and workshops.
The exhibition also features a range of objects from Carrickfergus Museum’s collection plus loaned items from National Museums Northern Ireland, National Library of Ireland and Belfast Central Library.
An art installation designed and created by senior lecturers in the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University, Alison Gault and Hazel Bruce is based on an article by Dr Sneddon demonstrating the importance of stained and ruined cloth in identifying and socially placing the Islandmagee ‘witches’ during their prosecution and trial.
Free creative writing workshops are led by Kentuckian playwright and professor, Georgia Rhoades (Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, Appalachian State University). These fascinating workshops explore the lives of people whose experiences and viewpoints are often left out of historical accounts – beginning with the accused at Islandmagee. Participants view the exhibition and discuss their responses to it before being invited to write about unexplored or forgotten people they’re interested in.
Lino print workshops, designed to allow a deeper engagement with the exhibition, allow participants to explore the exhibition themes in more detail before getting hands-on with lino printing – recreating the woodblock prints of the early 18th century. Participants have the opportunity to learn the techniques and create their own piece of art.
You can read more about the project, and the exhibition, in Andrew Sneddon’s fascinating cover story in Life magazine for the Sunday Independent (Halloween 2023), which explains the witch trials of Europe & Ireland, while finding new ways to understand and commemorate them.
Sneddon and McCollum wrote an article for RTE Brainstorm detailing the exhibition’s blend of new technology with more traditional forms of exhibition materials. You can read the article here.
“We knew it already, but we really know it now by working on this exhibition and the wider project: academics don’t have all the answers and historical knowledge about hidden histories can and should be co-produced in diverse and innovative ways by many hands.“
Andrew Sneddon in RTE Article, 2023
In 2011, the 300-year anniversary of the Islandmagee trial went by almost unnoticed: no academic conferences, exhibitions or commemorative events were held. In April 2023, the Mid and East Antrim Council erected a plaque to all nine convicted Islandmagee ‘witches’.
The Hub
As a result of this very successful exhibition, Mid & East Antrim Council and Shirin Murphy of Carrickfergus Museum worked with Drs McCollum and Sneddon once more in Winter 2024 to design, develop and launch ‘The Islandmagee Witches Hub’. This permanent installation showcases key components of the project and exhibition at Carrickfergus Museum: digitised documents; video game; graphic novel; animation.
© Copyright Victoria McCollum and Andrew Sneddon 2025
Witches of Islandmagee 