'Platform': Empire, inequality and Irish complicity in slavery

Press/Media: Expert Comment

Description

Laurence Fenton (HI 28.5, Sept./Oct. 2020, Platform) raises important questions about how Irish society can best take part in and learn from this vital conversation. His piece reflects ongoing concerns expressed by Liam Hogan and others, whose research has been critical in countering malicious attempts to juxtapose Irish and African American suffering. Emanating mainly from an emboldened American far right and grounded in ludicrous claims about ‘Irish slavery’, these efforts are aimed—transparently—at denying the persistence of systemic racism and undermining demands for social justice and an end to police violence. In a world where growing inequality has been accompanied over recent years by an alarming rise in racism and xenophobia—including on our own doorsteps—I share Fenton’s concern that Ireland cannot afford complacency, and that the shameful treatment of immigrants and refugees, north and south, affords little basis for self-congratulation.

In important ways, however, Fenton’s piece shares with other recent commentary a problematic approach to understanding Irish complicity in transatlantic slavery. An article in the Irish Times earlier this year (headlined ‘Many Irish were implicated in the slave trade and the legacy lives on’) conveyed the impression that slave-owning was widespread across eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ireland, and that broad sectors of Irish society profited from the provisioning of slave colonies and the sale of slave produce. The same assumptions permeate almost everything else written for popular consumption before or since. The country was, in the estimation of a Waterford blogger, ‘tainted at birth’ by the ‘original sin’ of slavery.

1350 words

 

Period15 Jan 2021

Media contributions

1

Media contributions

  • Title'Platform': Empire, inequality and Irish complicity in slavery
    Degree of recognitionNational
    Media name/outletHistory Ireland
    Media typePrint
    Duration/Length/Size1350 words
    Country/TerritoryIreland
    Date15/01/2021
    DescriptionLaurence Fenton (HI 28.5, Sept./Oct. 2020, Platform) raises important questions about how Irish society can best take part in and learn from this vital conversation. His piece reflects ongoing concerns expressed by Liam Hogan and others, whose research has been critical in countering malicious attempts to juxtapose Irish and African American suffering. Emanating mainly from an emboldened American far right and grounded in ludicrous claims about ‘Irish slavery’, these efforts are aimed—transparently—at denying the persistence of systemic racism and undermining demands for social justice and an end to police violence. In a world where growing inequality has been accompanied over recent years by an alarming rise in racism and xenophobia—including on our own doorsteps—I share Fenton’s concern that Ireland cannot afford complacency, and that the shameful treatment of immigrants and refugees, north and south, affords little basis for self-congratulation.

    In important ways, however, Fenton’s piece shares with other recent commentary a problematic approach to understanding Irish complicity in transatlantic slavery. An article in the Irish Times earlier this year (headlined ‘Many Irish were implicated in the slave trade and the legacy lives on’) conveyed the impression that slave-owning was widespread across eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ireland, and that broad sectors of Irish society profited from the provisioning of slave colonies and the sale of slave produce. The same assumptions permeate almost everything else written for popular consumption before or since. The country was, in the estimation of a Waterford blogger, ‘tainted at birth’ by the ‘original sin’ of slavery.
    Producer/AuthorTommy Graham, ed.
    URLhttps://www.historyireland.com/empire-inequality-and-irish-complicity-in-slavery/
    PersonsBrian Kelly