When St. John D. Seymour sat down to write Irish Witchcraft and Demonology in 1913, it was widely believed that Ireland had somehow escaped the witchcraft panic that swept across Europe for centuries. Apart from the famous Kyteler trial in medieval Kilkenny, the common view was that witchcraft simply never took much of a hold in Ireland.

Seymour wasn't convinced. Digging through archives, court records, forgotten manuscripts, folklore, and eyewitness accounts, he uncovered a very different story. Ireland, it turns out, had its fair share of alleged witches, magic, black arts, demonic possessions, spells and curses, satanic rituals, and conjurings, bewitchings, enchantments and sensational witchcraft trials.

The result is a fascinating glimpse into a side of Irish history that has been largely forgotten. It reminds us that our ancestors worried about many of the same supernatural forces that terrorized the rest of Europe—and they often had stories to prove it.

The collection includes accounts of witches, ghosts, spectres, sorceresses, apparitions, demons, sacred relics, curses, supernatural encounters, visions and portents, ghostly armies, demonic possession, bewitchings, witch trials, the testing of suspected witches, and many other strange and unexplained phenomena from Ireland's past.

True Irish Sorcery is not a complete reprint of Seymour's original book. Instead, it brings together a carefully chosen selection of the most engaging stories. To keep the focus on the tales themselves, the lengthy historical discussions, editorial commentary, scholarly notes, and other introductory material have been left out. The stories have been edited lightly to make them easier for modern listeners to enjoy.

Every effort has been made to preserve Seymour's distinctive style, the original language, and the rich local colour. These accounts feel as though a friend is spinning a yarn, in the pub or beside a turf fire on a long winter's night.