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Richard: In 1973 I was a student in Belfast, studying social anthropology. I read the newspapers and also encountered the rumors as word-of-mouth, in Belfast and in my home town of Larne, County Antrim. As someone with an anthropologist's interest in religion, witchcraft, and so on, it was impossible not to be interested.What was the content of these rumors?
In the north Belfast Catholic neighborhood of Ardoyne during the weeks around Halloween 1972, tales circulated—particularly among children and teenagers—about a mysterious "Black Man" who was apparently practicing black magic and sacrificing dogs. The Black Mass in question was said to involve upside-down crosses and black candles. These stories soon died away, and they did not make the local newspapers.Nine months later, on August 5, 1973, the Belfast Sunday News published a sensational story about the "black magic ritual killing" of sheep on the Copeland Islands, in Belfast Lough. Then, on September 8, the mutilated and burned body of Brian McDermott, aged ten, was found in the River Lagan, near Belfast's Ormeau Park. Three days later rumors that he had been killed as part of a black magic ritual appeared in the newspapers. By the end of September, however, the Copeland Islands story had been debunked by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC—now the Police Service of Northern Ireland) in the absence of evidence, and by mid-October it was clear that the police were no longer interested in black magic as an avenue of inquiry in the McDermott case.
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By mid October, the first in a series of RUC denials that there was any evidence of black magic appeared. These denials did not seem to make any immediate impact on the rumors. Witchcraft and black magic rumors circulated in Catholic and Protestant areas. The reports peaked between mid-October and the third week in November, clustering around Halloween. In 1974 the rumors declined almost to a vanishing point.
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Mostly that I wanted to know more, but I doubted that the north of Ireland had suddenly become a hotbed of Satanism and witchcraft. In this respect, my view hasn't changed.The psy-ops theory was reported by republican news-sheets at the time. Did it have many followers or was it considered a conspiracy theory?
This is hard to answer with any precision. However, the suggestion of Army involvement in the black magic rumors did not only appear in Republican news-sheets, and it did not even appear there first. On Sunday, October 26, 1973, the Dublin-based Sunday World newspaper quoted an "expert" as saying just this. And on November 2, The Argus, published in Dundalk, quoted a priest making the same suggestion. So at least some people had their suspicions. How many people were wise to what the Army was up to is impossible to know, however. And there were people, perhaps many people, who took the rumors seriously, as something authentic.How would you describe the involvement of the population in this "black magic fear"?
Northern Ireland in the early 1970s was not "in the grip" of a black magic scare. Some people, some of the time, were to some extent genuinely concerned about the threat of black magic and witchcraft. Those concerns and fears appear to have had some life of their own, independent of the newspaper coverage. In particular, children and young people were enthusiastic rumor-mongers. However, many other people found the rumors to be unbelievable, either because of consistent official denials or their own skepticism. And some youngsters took the rumors with a pinch of salt and enjoyed the opportunity to play pranks and have some fun, particularly around Halloween. The Halloween festivities were at worst dampened, rather than cancelled.
Was there a difference in the reactions between Catholics and Protestants to these rumors?Read on Noisey: This Guy Paints Grime Stars As If They Are Landed Gentry from the 1700s
I do not believe that the Catholic community was more subject to fears about magic… although that was a suggestion sometimes made in the press at the time [a suggestion which might have been planted by Colin Wallace and his colleagues]. The fact that the rumors were much less present and prominent in the counties west of the River Bann might even suggest that the Catholic community was less fearful. More generally, in the early 1970s, Catholics, particularly in Belfast, may, if anything, have felt that the Republican cause was in the ascendant; i.e. that they might be about to "win." On the other hand, they also took the brunt of Army actions, and were on the receiving end of the horror of the loyalist assassination campaign. It was a very difficult time for everyone.What was the Protestant mindset and how did that affect their reaction to the witchcraft rumors?
Many, and perhaps most, felt betrayed and abandoned by the rest of Britain and the Westminster parliament, and they feared that the Republican cause was indeed "winning." Many were also ill at ease with much loyalist violence, particularly the assassination campaign. In addition, many of the actively religious Protestants felt that they might be in the time of the "Last Days." The religious component of the witchcraft rumors was pretty much all Protestant. Protestants were no less affected by the rumors.Thanks, Richard.