Kilkenny: The Irish woman executed for witchcraft 700 years ago

“It’s not righting a wrong,” said Kilkenny County Council’s heritage officer Regina Fitzpatrick, who has been organising these commemorative events for the past year.

“But it’s casting a light on something that was wrong. In terms of women’s history, it’s a really important story.”

It’s a history that may seem long gone, but the trial and its outcome set a precedent that became central to the witch hunts several hundred years later, when about 50,000 people were executed for witchcraft, 80% of them women.

It was the “template for what happened after”, Ms Fitzpatrick said.

Kilkenny is not the only place reckoning with its past when it comes to historical witch trials. In 2022, then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal apology to people accused of witchcraft in Scotland, and in Connecticut, USA, 12 people were exonerated last year.

But in Kilkenny, organisers did not know who it would be appropriate to ask for an apology. The Pope? King Charles? Instead they chose to have a joint civic service.

Kilkenny’s mayor will speak, and the night before, invited guests will gather for dinner in the cathedral for a dinner that Dean Farrell suggests may act as a “dignified send-off that one suspects she was denied 700 years ago”.

For Dean Farrell, the story also serves as a cautionary tale for Christians today.

“How do we not be glib about this?” he asks.

“There’s always a danger we look back on this and say, thank God we are not like them. We are wonderfully enlightened and better.

“What are our blind spots today? What acts of injustice do we tolerate in our midst?

“What will people in 700 years time look back at us and say, goodness, how on Earth was this not in their consciousness?”