Situational Irony: Persecution without Prosecution
Maybe the most amazing irony associated with the witch trials is that the Salem hysteria just so happened to occur at a point when there was officially no judiciary to handle the cases. The original charter establishing the form of government in Massachusetts colony was no longer in place, and was finally replaced in 1692 with the arrival of new governor, William Phips. Until Phips actually arrived, however, the lack of an official charter meant that the legality of many of the actions taken during the crisis was questionable.
Verbal Irony: "Outbreak"
Boyer and Nissenbaum use verbal irony when they write, "In a petition to the county court in December 1692, a committee of the Village church complained that as a result of the recent witchcraft outbreak (which had taken twenty lives, shattered many families, and left scores of accused persons still in jail), 'we have [had] no [Village] meetings to relieve our minister'" (69). They imply the villagers are ridiculous in their desire to address the problem with their minister when people's lives were lost or destroyed.
Situational Irony: Parris
When Samuel Parris stands before the congregation in order to give his rebuttal to the charges against him, he actually starts by reading in full all of those charges: "it was from the minister's own lips, oddly enough, that the Salem Villagers heard a stinging indictment of his role in 1692" (72).
Verbal Irony: Parris
Boyer and Nissenbaum cannot keep a touch of irony out of their narrative voice when they write, "In the deep winter of 1695, in a rare moment of (intentional) self-revelation, Parris had confessed that he was 'spent and tired put with the multitude of meetings'" (77). The irony is in their implying that Parris often had unintentional moments of self-revelation, which is not the way self-revelation usually works.
