Name: Creative Digital Practice and Public History: Ireland’s Last Witch Trial
Start: 2025-10-29T16:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-29T18:00:00-04:00
Location: Forten Hall, Salem, Massachusetts

$Creative Digital Practice and Public History: Ireland\u2019s Last Witch Trial$

This talk introduces Ireland’s last witch trial in County Antrim in 1711 through the ‘Islandmagee Witches 1711 digital and creative project.
About this Event

Creative Digital Practice and Public History: Ireland’s last Witch trial, 1711

Wednesday, October 29, 4:30pm, Charlotte Forten Hall Room 123

This talk will introduce Ireland’s last witch trial in County Antrim in 1711 through the ‘Islandmagee Witches 1711 digital and creative project’ (w1711.org) directed by Dr Victoria McCollum and Dr Andrew Sneddon from Ulster University. The project took the story of the trial to new audiences by producing a graphic novel, a play, digitised trial documents, an award-winning Virtual Reality experience, a short animation, and a new cutting-edge video game for PC. The co-directors and their team take you through a ‘making of’ and curated walkthrough of the game. 1711 is an open world, ‘serious’ game with a cinematic, ‘horror’ aesthetic and built on meticulous historical research where choices count as you explore carefully constructed villages and towns in eighteenth-century Ireland, trying to uncover what really happened. Free and open to the public.

Speakers from Ulster University:

Brian Coyle is Senior Lecturer in Games Design

Victoria McCollum is Senior Lecturer in Cinematic Arts

Sabrina Minter is Lecturer in Games Design

Andrew Sneddon, is Senior Lecturer in History