The poor Witches of Prestwick . . .
And Irvine, Ayr and across the County in ghastly times
Hundreds of years ago Ayrshire was a wretched place where woman branded as witches were burned dead or alive at the stake.
And 2018 marks the 400th anniversay of one of the most well- documented witch trial.
Thanks to Sir Walter Scott who would write about the Irvine Witch Trial more than 200 years later, the murder of Margaret Barclay and Isabel Crawford in 1618 is best known.
Now historian Glenn Kerr has launched a campaign to found a fitting memorial to the “witches” of Ayrshire who died horrible deaths in the 16th and 17th centuries for being part of covens.
Other cases with historical records include Maggie Osborne from Ayr in 1653 and Bessie Dunlop from Dalry in 1576.
And a further 17 women were tortured and burned at the stake in 1650 in Irvine, and many other victims in Ayrshire are recorded.
There could have been as many as several hundred put to the death in Ayrshire.
Irvine- based dad- of- two Glenn met last Friday with Cunninghame South SNP MSP Ruth Maguire who has tried and failed to get Scottish Government funding for a memorial.
But Glenn, 52, said: “Ruth and I are looking at other ways in which we can get a campaign going for funding and to find a suitable location for a reminded of those poor women and those dark days.”
The Gallows Knowe on a grassy knoll south of the Robert Burns Memorial in Irvine was the scene of many hangings and burnings and could be a fitting site.
Barbaric forms of torture were usually inflicted to extract a confession, before the victims were put to death. Of the recorded cases in Scotland, few were burned alive, but strangled or hanged, then burned once dead.
There are also several well- documented trials and executions of women in Ayr, Kilwinning and Dalry and elsewhere in Ayrshire.
Glenn has set up a Facebook site groups/ Ayrshirewitches to garner more support in their memory.
He added: “These women were brutally tortured and killed during the Ayrshire witch trials.”
In Irvine there was a huge spike in executions in March and June 1650, though Glenn has been unable to come across detail as to why.
The first major persecution of ‘ witches’ in Irvine and the rest of Scotland began under the Witchcraft Act, enacted in 1563. James VI of Scotland had an obsession with witches, and in 1597 wrote the Daemonologie, which railed against the purported evils of witchcraft and other demonic practices.
The most notable case in Irvine was Margaret Barclay and Isabel Crawford burned at the stake close to where Malcolm Gardens is today.
The presbytery of Irvine supervised the persecution, and were represented at the executions.
Though Hugh, 7th earl, had some misgivings, the Countess of Eglinton could in 1650 write, ‘ God Almighty send a good trial to all the witches, and send a hot fire to burn them with.’
The Trial of Margaret Barclay resulted in the agonising deaths of Isobel Inch, an elderly woman, vagrant John Stewart, beautiful young mother Margaret Barclay and Isobel Crawford who was in the full bloom of youth.
They were accused of being involved in a satanic plot that was widely believed to have caused the Irvine vessel The Gift of God to be wrecked off the coast of Cornwall, causing most of the local crew, including Provost Andrew Tran to perish.
It was as a consequence of this that the Justice Court comprising of ministers and magistrates, included the new Provost, John Peebles, was commissioned.
Isobel Inch was the first of the alleged coven to perish as a result of the brutal treatment meted out to her by her accusers.
She endured several days of pitiless interrogation before succumbing and promising to make a good formal confession the next day.
The same night in desperation she flung herself from the belfry of the Old Kirk where she had been imprisoned.
Although critically ill from her fall, she was still pressed to admit her part in the demonic scheme. She died from her injuries five days later maintaining her innocence to the last minute of her life.