‘People who didn’t fit in were branded as witches’ – service of ‘atonement’ for woman burned at the stake in Kilkenny

A service of atonement to acknowledge that the killing of a woman who was burned at the stake in Kilkenny during the medieval witch trials was wrong will be held at St Canice’s Cathedral tomorrow.

The service will mark the end of the Toil and Trouble Festival, which examined Kilkenny’s historical connection to witchcraft and the case of Petronella de Meath, who was burned at the stake in 1324 after being accused of witchcraft.

Ms de Meath was an associate of Alice Kyteler, who was a well-connected and wealthy merchant woman in the town at the time.

After three of Ms Kyteler’s husbands died, one of her stepchildren accused her of witchcraft and having poisoned them. Ms Kyteler and her associates then became the targets of an inquisition of around a dozen people accused of witchcraft and heresy.

She managed to flee, but Ms de Meath did not and was burned to death (illustration above).

More than 50,000 people were killed during witch trials across Europe during the Middle Ages, about 80% of whom were women.

Regina Fitzpatrick, Heritage Officer with Kilkenny County Council, said Toil and Trouble Festival hopes to shed new light on events of the past and de-mythologise the story through facts.

“If you strip back to the primary sources and what we know of the time, we find a story of a powerful woman who was targeted by a powerful man, and what happened thereafter,” she told RTÉ’s News at One.

“How people who didn’t fit in with the values and norms of society were treated and often branded as witches.”