In the summer of 1650, the legal and religious authorities in Wigtownshire turned their attention to a group of individuals residing in the parishes of Old and New Luce. Among those identified by the Presbytery was Kathrin McKennay, whose involvement in the legal proceedings of that period is documented in the surviving records of the Scottish judiciary. On July 1, 1650, Kathrin was formally entered into the judicial system under case file C/JO/3021, marking the commencement of a process that would see her moved from the scrutiny of local ecclesiastical oversight to the formal theater of the courtroom.
The progression of Kathrin’s case is evidenced by the subsequent trial record, T/JO/1286. As an inhabitant of Old Luce, she was caught within a wider wave of accusations that swept through this corner of the South West during a time of intense administrative and religious regulation. While the specific testimonies and depositions regarding her alleged actions remain obscured by the passage of centuries, the formal documentation confirms her place within the rigorous legal architecture of the seventeenth-century Scottish witch trials. Her experience remains a vital fragment of the broader history of the Presbytery of Stranraer’s efforts to address the perceived spiritual anxieties of the mid-1600s.