Ireland of the Welcomes? The Roots of Racism and Anti-Racism

in Ireland

Introduction: Recognising Irish Racism

The acknowledgement of the existence of racism in Ireland

was slow to develop. The Republic of Ireland signed the UN

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial

Discrimination in 1968, but did not ratify the Convention

until December 2000. And although the rest of the United

Kingdom had had a Race Relations Act since 1976, it was 1997

before the provisions of that Act came to apply to Northern

Ireland. In both cases the belated recognition of duties

resulted from the sterling efforts of anti-racist

campaigners. For the most part they were working in a social

and political atmosphere which implied that there was no

case to answer. While other European countries recognized

that ‘race relations’ laws and policies were necessary,

Irish public opinion, backed by the attitude of politicians

and policy makers, was that there was no racism in Ireland

not least because, unlike in these other European countries,

there were no people of colour in Ireland. Apart from the

faulty logic inherent in such a view that racism is caused

by its victims whose crime, in effect, is that of arrival in

the host country, the conclusion is factually incorrect.

Anti-racist campaigners could point to the sometimes

1

forgotten history of antisemitism in Ireland,1 as well as to

the racist practices and attitudes of settled Irish people

towards the indigenous 30,000 strong Traveller community. As

minority ethnic groups, both Irish Jews and Travellers are

white. That it could be accepted that they were victims of

racism allowed for the beginnings of a relatively

sophisticated analysis that racism is not dependent on the

simple fact of skin colour.

This argument was enhanced by the increasing acceptance from

the early 1980s on that the traditional prejudice against

the Irish in places like Britain was also a form of racism.

That the Irish, who were white, could be the victims not

merely of discrimination but of racism made it easier to

conclude that racism could exist in Ireland even in the

absence of people of colour. Finally, by the 1990s it became

increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that racism

existed in Ireland. Economic prosperity led to the ending of

emigration which had been a significant feature of Irish

society for generations. As young Irish people stayed for

the new careers on offer and some who had emigrated

returned, others were attracted to Ireland – economic

migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, some from Africa,

others from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. A level of

popular opposition to these migrants soon became apparent.

Although there were some organized anti-immigration groups,

2

such as the Cork-based Immigration Control Platform, for the

most part, unlike in other European countries, opposition to

migrants was more diverse and sporadic. At the same time,

newspapers such as the Irish Independent,2 railed against

the ‘flood’ of asylum seekers, despite statistical evidence

to the contrary. And politicians rushed to implement

controls despite the small numbers of immigrants involved,

thus helping to create the popular moral panic. So, many

ordinary people were quick to accept the myth that Ireland

was too small to take any more emigrants. Racist attitudes

increased, with people questioned in the North, for example,

admitting to being more racist than sectarian.3 It was only

a matter of time before racial attacks began, and in January

2002, the first racially-motivated murder occurred – that of

Zhao Lin Tao, a Chinese student in Dublin, beaten to death

by a group of white youths. As Lentin and McVeigh conclude,

‘racism had moved from the margins of Irish political life

to the centre …’4

For many observers it seemed astonishing that ‘Ireland of

the Welcomes’ should have changed so drastically and

rapidly. It almost appeared as if racism was a virus which a

society could catch simply by being carried along on the

wave of globalisation, an inevitable consequence of

modernisation and postmodernism. But much more plausible is

the recognition that if today racism ‘cannot be abstracted

3

from people’s lived experiences’,5 then that was always the

case. Racism is not new in Ireland because, despite being an

island, Ireland has never been that isolated from

international intercourse and therefore encounters with

people from different ethnic origins. Colonialism in

particular ensured that the island was incorporated into a

global empire and that its people both benefited and were

victimized as a result of that incorporation. For centuries,

many outsiders have come to Ireland – as traders, soldiers,

travellers, entertainers, etc. – and as a result the Irish

have been introduced to people of colour. In addition, the

Irish have travelled – as missionaries, workers, soldiers,

adventurers, students, etc. – and in doing so have met

people of many different ethnic backgrounds, including

people of colour. What the Irish have made of these

encounters, both on and off the island, depended ultimately

on the relations of power between them and the people of

colour. Were the Irish subordinate, or did they dominate?

Was there any level of equality – even an equality of

powerlessness – between the Irish and those people of colour

they encountered? Colonialism has meant that the Irish have

stood between two worlds,6 both racialized themselves and

involved in the racialisation of others. In that dual

experience have been the roots of both international

solidarity and racism. Both tendencies run deep in Irish

history.

4

The way in which both progressive and racist views coexisted

historically can be viewed through the visit of two black

abolitionists to Belfast – Olaudah Equiano in 1791 and

Frederick Douglass in 1845.

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, was born in

modern day Nigeria around 1745. When 11 years old he was

enslaved, held captive in Africa for seven months, and then

sold to British slavers who shipped him to Barbados. He was

later sold to a British naval officer in Virginia in whose

company he travelled widely, engaged in a number of sea

battles and was involved in the Phipps Expedition’s search

for the north-west passage in 1772. He became a proficient

seaman and eventually earned enough money to buy his

freedom. Settling in England, he involved himself in the

struggle for the abolition of slavery for the rest of his

life. He was appointed by the British government as a

commissary, an official on the ship that transported 500

former slaves from London to Sierra Leone where they

established the settlement of Freetown. But his greatest

contribution to the abolitionist cause was his autobiography

– The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Oloudah Equiano

5

or Gustavus Vassa, the African. During his lifetime the

autobiography went though nine editions, and was a best

seller in Germany, Holland and America, as well as England.

Equiano died in 1797 at the age of 52.

In 1791 Equiano toured for almost nine months in Ireland

promoting his book. He found the Irish very welcoming and

open to his message, selling 1900 copies of the book and

recording that he was ‘exceedingly well treated, by persons

of all ranks’; the people were ‘extremely hospitable,

particularly in Belfast’.7

Belfast at the time was a town bustling with radical

political debate. Meetings on the abolition of slavery drew

large audiences, and a leading Belfast abolitionist, Thomas

Digges, was one of Equiano’s hosts. The Society of United

Irishmen had been founded in Belfast in 1791, and one of its

most radical thinkers, Samuel Neilsen, editor of the

Society’s paper, the Northern Star, was also a host for

Equiano’s visit. Neilsen was, along with Dublin lawyer,

Theobald Wolfe Tone, in the more radical camp of the United

Irishmen on a range of issues. Admiring the democratic

revolutions in France and America, they espoused an

inclusive interpretation of the Enlightenment ideal of ‘the

rights of man’ and argued that these rights must apply to

all, including Catholics and slaves.

6

Not all in the United Irishmen were equally tolerant. What

united the movement was the pursuit of economic and

political advancement for the Irish Presbyterian middle

class, blocked by a combination of the Anglican ascendancy

in Ireland and British laws constraining Irish economic

development. But under that umbrella could be accommodated

not only the radical Tone, but also people such as William

Sinclair, a leading Belfast industrialist and linen

producer. He was a gradualist in relation to the issue of

Catholic emancipation and was not an advocate of the

abolition of slavery. The latter is perhaps not surprising

given that his wealth was in part built on the provisioning

of slave plantations in the Caribbean.

Belfast’s trade links with the Caribbean date to the very

beginnings of economic development of the town in the 17th

century. Those links became invaluable in the 18th century

as an outlet for the development of Belfast business. A

series of Navigation Acts had been enacted in the British

parliament in 1663, 1670, 1685 and 1696. The Acts were

designed specifically to enhance the economic development of

Britain at the expense of any rivals, real or potential.

Among such potential rivals was Ireland. The Navigation Acts

specified the use of solely English ships and crews in trade

with the Caribbean, and further that the loading and

7

unloading of cargo to and from the Caribbean could only take

place in English ports. These Acts ought to have arrested

the development of Irish trade permanently, but were

difficult to enforce, thus encouraging the development of

smuggling and other illegal trade. In addition, Irish

merchants were forced to develop other markets and did so

successfully in Scandinavia and continental Europe.

Significantly, the Acts did not outlaw the provisioning of

English ships in Ireland, an opportunity seized on by Irish

merchants who quickly came to dominate the provisioning of

the slave plantations of the Caribbean. ‘Irish agriculture

and its associated provisioning industries benefited more

directly from demands in the islands than did their

counterparts in England’.8

Many of the industries which were the bedrock of the

industrial take-off of Belfast were tied into the

provisioning of Caribbean plantations – rope making, meat

packing, flour milling and the salting of beef and fish.

Thus, although there was no slave-trading company in Belfast

as in Liverpool or Bristol, and the external evidence of the

incorporation of Belfast’s merchant class into the system of

slavery was less evident than in those other cities, the

wealth of Belfast’s merchant class was undoubtedly dependent

on slavery. As Rodgers concludes, ‘Caribbean connections

played a key role in promoting the growth of the town and in

8

launching it upon the course that would transform it into a

city’.9

Within that dependency the political contradictions of a man

such as William Sinclair can be explained – support for the

rights of man alongside reticence over the abolition of

slavery. The contradiction is equally stark in the case of

Belfast’s leading industrialist of the era, Waddell

Cunningham.

Cunningham was born in County Antrim and emigrated to New

York where, with his cousin Thomas Greg, he built up what

was to become one of New York’s most successful shipping

companies. Greg and Cunningham was involved in legitimate

trade, as well as smuggling, transporting slaves between the

islands of the Caribbean10 (although not trans-Atlantic

transportation) as well as trading with both the French and

the British during the Seven Years War. Cunningham also

owned a slave plantation on the island of Dominica. In 1765

he returned to Belfast where he remained for the rest of his

life, a central figure in the town’s economic and political

life. He was involved in imports and exports, sugar

refining, flour milling, salting of herrings, breeding of

pack horses, banking, insurance, and smuggling, as well as

being a landlord. Old habits clearly died hard as he managed

to ship linen for uniforms to the American forces during the

9

War of Independence from Britain. He was founding President

of Belfast Chamber of Commerce and first President of the

Harbour Board, as well as being an officer in the Belfast

Volunteers. But he did not join the Society of United

Irishmen. This last fact displays the man’s conservative

politics. While prepared to support the economic and

political advancement of Belfast’s merchant class, he was

far from radical in relation to a number of key political

issues of the day. For example, he opposed the United

Irishmen on Catholic emancipation. Cunningham’s path and

that of Wolfe Tone crossed on this issue on at least two

occasions. On the first, Tone was in Belfast for the

formation of the United Irishmen in 1791 and had dinner at

the home of Samuel and Martha McTeir; Waddell Cunningham was

also a guest. Tone writes in his journal that he and

Cunningham had ‘a furious battle, which lasted two hours, on

the Catholic question’.11 The following year, there was a

meeting of Volunteers in Belfast which both Tone and

Cunningham attended. Tone records that he was awakened from

his sleep by a furious Samuel Neilsen who brought him to

Cunningham’s room. There they witnessed ‘delegates from the

country corp, with Waddell haranguing against the

Catholics’. Tone’s opinion of Cunningham is succinct:

‘Waddell a lying old scoundrel’.12

10

Cunningham was no more progressive on that other issue dear

to the hearts of United Irishmen like Tone and Neilsen, the

abolition of slavery. One effect of the Navigation Acts was

that no slave-trading company had been formed in any Irish

town. The repeal of the Acts in 1780 left the way open for

the formation of a slave-trading company and four years

later, Limerick merchants duly attempted, though

unsuccessfully, to set up such a company. Two years later,

in 1786, it was Belfast’s turn. Predictably, Waddell

Cunningam was the instigator. He called a meeting which was

disrupted by a jeweller named Thomas McCabe, later a member

of the United Irishmen. McCabe recounted the story of his

intervention to the leading United Irishman, Dr William

Drennan, who in turn wrote to his sister Martha McTier.

‘I had a letter lately from T[homas] McCabe to tell me of an

association planned by Waddell Cunningham for carrying on

the slave trade at Belfast to which he had got several

subscribers, but which Tom had knocked up completely by

writing in the proposal book: “May G__ eternally damn the

soul of the man who subscribes the first guinea”. I could

not but smile at receiving this letter and anecdote in Mrs

C’s presence.’13

Cunningham’s politics never managed to transcend self-

interest; hence the apparent contradiction of his opposition

11

to the stranglehold of Britain on Ireland’s economic and

political development alongside anti-Catholic and anti-black

prejudice. But others in Belfast’s merchant class were much

more principled, concluding that it was hypocrisy to demand

rights for their class while opposing the emancipation of

Catholics and slaves. Although Oloudah Equiano on his visit

to Belfast was hosted by the radical section of the merchant

class and was received enthusiastically by them, the irony

cannot have been lost on him of Belfast’s incorporation into

the system of slavery of which he had once been a victim.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (originally known as Frederick Bailey)

was born in Maryland in 1818, the son of a slave woman and a

white father. As a teenager he was sent to work

in Baltimore shipyards as a caulker, from where he escaped

in 1838. He settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and

within four years had made his name with the Massachusetts

Anti-Slavery Society as an impressive orator. One of his

first major public engagements was on 28 January 1842, when

he spoke at the centre of Irish political power in Boston,

Faneuil Hall. The occasion was a discussion of the Great

Irish Address – a petition organized by Irish nationalist

Daniel O’Connell, with 60,000 signatures urging Irish

Americans to oppose slavery – which black abolitionist

12

Charles Remond had brought back on his return from Ireland.

The leading abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison himself

introduced Douglass with the words: ‘It is recorded in holy

writ that a beast once spoke. A greater miracle is here

tonight. A chattel becomes a man’.14

In 1845, Douglass published what was to become the first of

three autobiographies – The Narrative of the Life of

Frederick Douglass: An American Slave – and quickly became

America’s most famous black abolitionist. The publication of

his autobiography drew a great deal of attention. He was an

escaped slave, and his friends feared that his public

profile would bring him to the attention of his erstwhile

owners who might then seek the return of their ‘runaway

property’. It seemed expedient that Douglass should leave

the United States for a while, so on August 16, 1845, he set

sail for Liverpool. It was almost two years later, April

1847, before he returned to America. This European sojourn

was highly influential in Douglass’ intellectual and

political development. He gave countless lectures and

perfected both his oratorical and political skills.

One reason for Douglass’ visit to Ireland was that the

Quaker, printer and publisher Richard Davis Webb had agreed

to publish an Irish edition of his autobiography. Webb was a

prominent member of the Hibernian Anti-Slavery Society,

13

founded in Dublin in 1837,15 and had gathered around him a

group of people who delighted in the label of ‘anti-

everythingarians’ – anti-vivisectionists, vegetarians and

abolitionists.

As in England, abolitionists in Ireland were white,16 middle

class and non-Catholic –Methodists, Presbyterians and other

Protestants, and Quakers. Catholics, by far the majority

religious group in Ireland, were much less likely to be

involved in the abolitionist cause. The Catholic church was

at best suspicious of abolitionism, citing the involvement

of evangelical Protestants in the campaign as just reason

for suspicion. In New York, Tyrone-born Bishop John Hughes

summed up the church’s case when he said that an

abolitionist is also ‘an anti-hanging man, women’s rights

man, an infidel frequently, bigoted Protestant always, a

socialist, a red republican, a fanatical teetotaler …’17 He

might well have been describing Richard Davis Webb’s ‘anti-

everythingarians’!

Frederick Douglass arrived in an Ireland where there were

many social and political problems. The Great Famine had

begun, even though it was two years after his visit before

it would reach its peak. Although he moved in the more

genteel middle class world of the urban abolitionists, he

could not help but notice, and comment on, the rural

14

disaster. He wrote to William Garrison: ‘I see much here to

remind me of my former condition and I confess I should be

ashamed to lift my voice against American slavery , but that

I know the cause of humanity is one the world over.’18

In the political arena, much had changed since Olaudah

Equiano’s visit. The 1798 United Irishmen rebellion had

convinced the British to ‘solve’ the Irish problem through

the Act of Union of 1800. Ireland’s parliament, almost

powerless anyway, was dissolved and Ireland became an

integral part of the United Kingdom. This had profound

effects on the development of politics in Ireland. For a

start, it defused the threat posed by the Presbyterian

middle class, who came to see the political and economic

advantages of the Union. Eventually, that class espoused

unionism wholeheartedly and opposed, under the threat of

armed insurrection, later attempts to establish Home Rule

for Ireland. Protestantism and unionism became increasingly

synonymous throughout the 19th century.

There was similarly a convergence of Catholicism and

nationalism, finally laying to rest the United Irishmen

ideal of the unity of ‘Protestant, Catholic and dissenter’

against Britain. The Act of Union allowed for Irish

representation in the British parliament, an opening

exploited to great advantage later in the century by the

15

Irish Parliamentary Party under Charles Stewart Parnell.

What came to be known as ‘constitutional nationalism’ thus

owed its existence to the Act of Union. But physical force

republicanism did not die away. In fact, it experienced a

resurgence with the Young Irelanders. They looked for their

inspiration to radical bourgeois nationalist movements

elsewhere in Europe, but in many ways were also the last

chapter of the United Irishmen saga. Their leading thinkers

and writers were Protestant, and in 1848, following in the

footsteps of the United Irishmen, they organized an armed

rebellion to establish a sovereign and independent nation.

The rebellion was suppressed and many of the leaders were

imprisoned or transported.

However, the Irish political scene was dominated in the mid-

19th century by one person, Daniel O’Connell, lawyer, member

of the British parliament and life-long campaigner. In 1829

he had succeeded in gaining Catholic Emancipation, thereby

realising one of the aspirations of Wolfe Tone. In 1840 he

turned his attention to the Repeal of the Act of Union, a

campaign that did not succeed. But O’Connell was no mere

narrow-minded constitutional nationalist. He repeatedly

revealed a commitment to internationalism in his politics.

For example, in 1839 he helped found the British India

Society, which sought to focus attention on the abuses

carried out by the East India Company. He was also a life-

16

long campaigner against slavery. Unusual in terms of

abolitionism in Ireland – a Catholic rather than a

Protestant of Quaker – he stuck to his principles even at

the expense of his own political self-interest. Thus, in a

situation where the influence of Caribbean planters in the

British parliament was huge, he refused the support of MPs

with Caribbean connections for his other political causes in

return for ceasing his attacks on slavery.19 He rejected the

support of American slave-owners for his campaign to repeal

the Act of Union: ‘I want no American aid if it comes across

the Atlantic stained in Negro blood’.20 He went further and

vowed to ‘send back the money’ to America if it was donated

by slave-owners. Some of his American supporters advised him

to tone down his abolitionism, but in 1844 he was centrally

involved in drawing up the ‘Great Irish Address’, a petition

of 60,000 signatures of Irish citizens urging Irish-

Americans to reject slavery. Some of the Repeal groups in

the US subsequently withdrew their support for O’Connell.

O’Connell’s stance on slavery also led to confrontation with

the Young Irelanders. As a constitutional nationalist, he

and they did not see eye to eye on the use of violence for

political ends. But, when it came to slavery, unexpectedly

the constitutionalist proved to be more radical than the

radical republicans. The Young Irelanders were ostensibly

opposed to slavery, not least because they judged Ireland to

17

be enslaved by Britain. But beyond the metaphor, they made

it clear that the abolition of American slavery was not a

cause they were about to support in that such a campaign

would alienate American support for Irish freedom.

Notwithstanding the slavery of the negro, America is

liberty’s bulwark and Ireland’s dearest ally … Ireland knows

that she has no Quixotic mission to hunt out and quarrel for

(without being able to address) distant wrongs, when her own

sufferings and thraldom require every exertion and every

alliance.21

For them, radicalism was confined to the home front.

… we have really so very urgent affairs at home – so much

abolition of white slavery to effect if we can … that all

our exertions will be needed in Ireland. Carolina planters

never devoured our substance, nor drove away our sheep and

oxen for a spoil … Our enemies are nearer home than Carolina

…22

This combination of radicalism at home and conservatism on

wider international issues is apparent also in the political

life of leading Young Irelander, John Mitchel. He was

arrested for his part in the disturbances of 1848 and

transported to Tasmania. But he escaped and settled in the

18

US. By 1857 he was producing a newspaper in Tennessee, the

Southern Citizen, and used it to put forward his views on

slavery.

I consider Negro slavery here the best state of existence

for the Negro and the best for his master; and I consider

that taking Negroes out of their brutal slavery in Africa

and promoting them to a human and reasonable slavery here is

good.23

During the Civil War Mitchel was jailed for supporting the

Confederacy and his son died fighting Union troops.

It is easy to see why American abolitionists would have

sided with Daniel O’Connell rather than the Young

Irelanders. After Britain abolished slavery in 1834,

O’Connell turned his attention to American slavery, much to

the delight of American abolitionists such as William Lloyd

Garrison who came to regard O’Connell as their most

important supporter in Europe.

Black American abolitionists likewise knew and admired

O’Connell. One of them, Robert Purvis, co-founder of the

American Anti-Slavery Society, had been introduced to

O’Connell in London in 1836. O’Connell mistook Purvis for a

white man on account of his light complexion, and refused to

19

shake hands with him. When his error was pointed out to him,

he apologized to Purvis and explained that it was his custom

not to shake the hand of an American until he had discovered

that person’s attitude to slavery.24 The incident clearly

impressed Purvis immensely. Thirty years later, he urged the

American Anti-Slavery Society to emulate O’Connell and

refuse to shake hands with an English or Irish person

without first ascertaining their stance on slavery.

O’Connell by this point had died, a loss acknowledged by

Purvis. ‘O’Connell has gone, and, alas! his spirit with him.

The foulest and bitterest enemies of freedom and the black

man are countrymen of the great Liberator’.25

Frederick Douglass was equally frank on the loss to the

abolitionist cause which resulted from O’Connell’s death.

Clearly sharing O’Connell’s opposition to the Young

Irelanders, he wrote:

… the cause of the American slave, not less than the cause

of his country, had met with a great loss… [O’Connell] was

succeeded by the Duffys, Mitchells [sic], Meaghers, and

others, men who loved liberty for themselves and their

country but were utterly destitute of sympathy with the

cause of liberty in countries other than their own.26

20

Douglass’ appreciation of O’Connell dated from his visit to

Ireland in 1845. He clearly idolized the Liberator, and

visited Kilmainham Jail to see where O’Connell had been

imprisoned. He also attended a repeal meeting in Dublin’s

Conciliation Hall to hear O’Connell speak. ‘I have heard

many speakers within the last four years – speakers of the

first order; but I confess, I have never heard one by whom I

was more completely captivated than by Mr O’Connell’.27

O’Connell introduced Douglass to the audience as ‘the Black

O’Connell of the United States’.28

Douglass clearly enjoyed his time in Ireland, not least

because he encountered little by way of racial prejudice. He

wrote to William Garrison in September 1845:

I go on stage coaches, omnibuses, steamboats, into the first

cabins, and in the first public houses, without seeing the

slightest manifestation of that hateful and vulgar feeling

against me. I find myself not treated as a colour, but as a

man – not as a thing, but as a child of the common Father

of us all.29

The following December, in a further letter to Garrison, he

repeated the words that Garrison had used to introduce him

at the Faneuil Hall meeting in 1842.

21

Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical

government. Instead of the bright blue sky of America, I am

covered with the soft grey fog of the Emerald Isle, I

breathe, and lo! The chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in

vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me

as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab – I am

shown into the same parlor – I dine at the same table – and

no one is offended. No delicate nose grows deformed in my

presence.30

Douglass travelled widely in Ireland, delivering 50 lectures

in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and eventually Belfast. The

Belfast lectures – seven in all – were delivered at

Christmas 1845. He had been invited to the city by the

Belfast Anti-Slavery Committee and its chair, James

Standfield, and was quick to accept the invitation. As he

wrote to Richard Davis Webb: ‘The field here is ripe for the

harvest; this is the very hotbed of presbyterianism and free

churchism, a blow can be struck here more effectually than

in any other part of Ireland’.31 Douglass’ insight was that

the religious fervour of Presbyterian Belfast could be

mobilized easily to the abolitionist cause by means of

pointing out the hypocrisy of so-called Christian slave-

owners. He made this point in a number of his Belfast

lectures, but in none more forcefully than his fifth

lecture, on 23 December 1845. He spoke for more than two

22

hours and paid careful attention to the case of the Free

Church of Scotland and its leader, Rev. Thomas Chalmers. It

was Chalmers’ ambition to carry out a major missionary

campaign to convert Scotland’s urban poor to his brand of

Presbyterianism, and he funded the campaign in part from

£3000 raised in the US, mostly in slave-owning southern

states such as South Carolina.32 The Belfast Anti-Slavery

Society had already entered the fray by criticising Chalmers

for accepting donations from slave-owners. It was Douglass’

opportunity to force home the message of Chalmers’ hypocrisy

in front of a knowledgeable and sympathetic audience.

My motto is, “No union with the slave-holder”. (Cheers)

Because, I believe there can be no union between light and

darkness… I may be told, “judge not, that ye be not judged?”

I admit the truth of this part of Scripture, but those who

read it to me should read a little further, where it is

said, “by their fruits ye shall know them”. (Cheers) I do

not judge you when you cut me, if I cry out that you hurt

me. (Hear) It is not judging the state of your soul, when I

tell you that you have done me an injury. I know that, by

injuring me, you are acting contrary to Christianity, and

when you tell me that there are some Christian slave-holders

in the States, I tell you as well may you talk of sober-

drunkards. (Laughter) … there is no greater calamity than

being the slave of a Christian slave-holder. (Hear) … A man

23

becomes the more cruel the more the religious element is

perverted in him … if they are women-whippers, cradle-

plunderers, and man-stealers before their conversion, they

are women-whippers, cradle-plunderers, and man stealers

after it – (hear) – and that “religion” is to them but an

additional stimulant to re-enact their atrocious deeds.33

Taking a slogan from O’Connell’s repertoire, he repeatedly

called on the Free Church to ‘send back the money’, to the

clear delight of his audience. After Belfast, he moved on to

lecture in Scotland, making the same point about hypocrisy

and urging the return of money collected from slave-

owners.34 The Free Church of Scotland struck back by

picketing abolitionist meetings in Belfast carrying placards

which read, ‘Send back the nigger’.35 There is no evidence

that the Free Church ever did return any of the money.

Back in the United States, Frederick Douglass remained

politically active for the rest of his life. He edited

newspapers and was active in numerous reform movements. He

was the only man present at the meeting in Seneca Falls in

1848 which launched the women’s rights movement, recruited

black troops during the civil war, and was US consul to

Haiti. He was twice nominated as a vice-presidential

candidate in US elections, once by the Liberal Party in

1852, and again by the Equal Rights Party in 1872, on a

24

ticket headed by Victoria Woodhull. In 1878, Frederick

Douglass died in Washington, D.C., aged 60.

He also remained deeply interested in Irish issues, and

bemoaned the displacement of black workers from jobs by

Irish emigrants:

Perhaps no class of our fellow-citizens has carried this

prejudice against color to a point more extreme and

dangerous than have our Catholic Irish fellow-citizens, and

yet no people on the face of the earth have been more

relentlessly persecuted and oppressed on account of race and

religion than have this same Irish people.36

He appeared on platforms in America with Charles Stewart

Parnell and supported Home Rule for Ireland. And he returned

to Ireland again briefly in September 1886. On this

occasion, he noted that the people who treated him so

generously over forty years previously ‘were now all gone,

and except some of their children, I was among strangers’.37

Irish Racism and Anti-Racism in the 19th Century

The visits of two prominent black abolitionists around the

first half of the 19th century present us with a timely

insight into the state of racism and anti-racism in Ireland.

25

Both Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass recorded that

they were received openly, and Douglass in particular

commented on the remarkable absence of racism. That as

visiting dignitaries they were probably somewhat immune to

the everyday experience of poor black people living in

Ireland is undoubtedly true; at the same time, their view of

Irish society was not totally unrealistic. There were many

political activists in Ireland who were all too aware of

what colonialism and imperialism had done to the country and

its development and who indeed referred to their situation,

albeit metaphorically, as one of slavery. For many, it was

not a major step to identify with the lot of former slaves

such as Equiano and Douglass and to agitate for abolition.

For them, nationalism and internationalism were twin parts

of a coherent political position.

The 19th century is thus full of examples of Irish political

activists siding with others who sought to struggle against

colonialism, imperialism and repression. For example, Daniel

O’Connell’s involvement in the British India Society has

already been mentioned, and Michael Davitt of the Irish

Republican Brotherhood’s Supreme Council campaigned

unsuccessfully to have Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian, returned

to the British parliament from an Irish constituency.38

26

Indeed there are some remarkable instances of symmetrical

solidarity, with colonized Irish and blacks in the Empire

offering mutual support to one another. In 1865, recently

emancipated slaves in California, meeting in their State

Convention, telegrammed the Fenians to offer 40,000 black

soldiers to help in the fight for Irish freedom.39 And

fourteen years later, the Irish Republican Brotherhood

considered supplying South African Zulus with one million

cartridges and military instructors.40

The political atmosphere was such that Daniel O’Connell’s

support for the abolition of slavery in America was matched

by Frederick Douglass’ empathy with the plight of the Irish:

‘They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that

prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondsmen,

makes it impossible not to sympathize with the oppressed of

all lands’.41 But the generosity of outsiders was not always

reciprocated. An apposite example from the early 20th

century is that of Marcus Garvey, who telegrammed Eamon De

Valera stating that ‘we believe Ireland should be free even

as Africa shall be free;’42 there is no evidence that De

Valera replied with support for Garvey’s United Negro

Improvement Association. Garvey also wrote to Arthur

Griffith congratulating him on the signing of the Anglo-

Irish Treaty, but this seems to have done little to blunt

Griffith’s enthusiastic defence of the racism of John

27

Mitchel, the Young Irelander: ‘… his views on Negro-slavery

have been deprecatingly excused, as if excuse were needed

for an Irish Nationalist declining to hold the Negro his

peer in right’.43

19th century Ireland was not populated solely by anti-

racists, as a perusal of the wider society at the time of

the visits of Equiano and Douglass reveals. The Belfast

whose citizens welcomed Equiano also had citizens like

Waddell Cunningham attempting to establish a slave-trading

company. And the Ireland which pleased Douglass was also a

country some of whose most vocal political activists saw no

need to support the abolition of slavery.

None of this should come as a great surprise. While some of

Irish subjugated within the British Empire sought to subvert

the imperial project, others played a key role in

maintaining British imperial rule globally; for example, in

1830, when the Irish constituted 32 per cent of the

population of the United Kingdom, 45 per cent of the British

Army throughout the Empire was Irish.44 Ireland in the 19th

century stood between two worlds – colonized itself and yet

playing a key role in the colonization of others. In that

contradiction lies a major part of the explanation of racism

and anti-racism in Ireland.

28

29

1

Endnotes

Hyman, Louis. The Jews of Ireland: from earliest times to the year

1910 (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972); Keogh, Dermot. Jews in

Twentieth-Century Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998).2 Pollak, Andy. ‘An invitation to racism? Irish daily newspaper

coverage of the refugee issue’. In Kiberd, Damien (ed). Media in

Ireland: the Search for Ethical Journalism (Dublin: Open Air, 1999),

33-46.3 Connolly, Paul and Keenan, Michaela. Racial attitudes and prejudice

in Northern Ireland (Belfast: Northern Ireland Statistics and

Research Agency, 2000).4 Lentin, Ronit and McVeigh, Robbie (eds). Racism and Anti-Racism in

Ireland (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 2002), 3.5 Ibid, 6.6 Coulter, Carol . ‘Where in the world?’ In Caherty, Thérèse et al

(eds). Is Ireland a Third World Country? (Belfast: Beyond the Pale

Publications, 1992), 3-13.7 Quoted in Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: the History of Black People

in Britain (London: Pluto, 1984), 110.8 Truxes, Thomas. Irish-American Trade, 1660-1783 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1988), 4.9 Rodgers, Nini. ‘Equiano in Belfast: a study of the anti-slavery

ethos in a northern town”, Slavery and Abolition 18(2), (1997), 83.10 Truxes, Thomas. Letterbook of Greg and Cunningham, 1756-57 –

Merchants of New York and Belfast (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2001)

11 Chambers, George. Faces of Change: the Belfast and Northern Ireland

Chambers of Commerce and Industry 1783-1983 (Belfast: Northern

Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1983), 45.12 Bartlett, Thomas (ed). Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone (Dublin:

Lilliput Press, 1998), 133.13 Letter of 17 May 1806, in Agnew, Jean (ed). The Drennan-McTier

Letters, volume 3, 1802-1819 (Dublin: Women’s History Project, in

association with Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1999), 480.14 Blassingame, John W. (ed). The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series

One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. Volume 1: 1841-46 (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1979), 15-1615 Rice, C. Duncan. The Scots Abolitionists 1833-1861 (Baton Rouge,

Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 92-3.16 There is no evidence of the involvement in Irish abolitionism of

what remained of the 18th century black population of Dublin,

estimated by one historian as proportionately higher than in any

European city other than London: see Hart, W.A. ‘Africans in

eighteenth-century Ireland’, Irish Historical Studies 33 (129),

(2002)17 Wittke, Carl. The Irish in America (New York, Russell and Russell,

1970), 129.18 McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass (New York, W.W. Norton and

Co., 1991), 12619 Riach, Douglas C. ‘O’Connell and slavery’. In McCartney, Donal

(ed). The World of Daniel O’Connell (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1980),

177.20 Cited in O’Ferrall, Fergus. ‘Liberty and Catholic politics, 1710-

1990’. In O’Connell, Maurice (ed). Daniel O’Connell: Political

Pioneer (Dublin: 1991), 36.21 O’Connell, Maurice. Daniel O’Connell: the Man and his Politics

(Blackrock: Irish Academic Press, 1990), 124.22 Ibid, 126.23 MacCall, Seamus. Irish Mitchel: a biography (London: Nelson, 1938),

337.24 Fryer, op. cit., 432.25 Foner, Philip S. and Branham, Robert James (eds). Lift Every Voice:

African American Oratory, 1787-1900 (Tuscaloosa: University of

Alabama Press, 1998), 395.26 Foner and Branham, op. cit., 23827 Foner, Philip S. (ed). The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,

volume 1. Early Years, 1817-1849 (New York: International Publishers,

1975), 121.28 Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (New

York: Collier Books, 1962, originally published 1892), 237.29 McFeely, op. cit, 120.30 Ibid, 127.31 Foner, Philip S. (ed). The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,

volume 5. Supplementary Volume, 1844-1860 (New York: International

Publishers, 1975), 13.32 McFeely, op. cit., 12933 Belfast Newsletter, 26 December 184534 Foner, Philip S. (ed). The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,

volume 1., op. cit., (New York, International Publishers 1975), 6535 Rice, op. cit., 132.36 Douglass, op. cit., 54637 Ibid,,560

38 Moody, T.W. Davitt and Irish Revolution, 1846-82 (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1981), 54939 Foner, Philip S. and Walker, George E. (eds), Proceedings of the

Black State Conventions, 1840-1865, volume 2 (Philadephia: Temple

University Press, 1980), 178.40 O’Brien, William and Ryan, Desmond (eds). Devoy’s Post Bag (Dublin:

Academy Press, 1979), 410.41 Aptheker, Herbert (ed). A Documentary History of the Negro People

in the United States (New York: Citadel Press, 1969), 312.42 Hill, Robert A. (ed). The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro

Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1: 1826-August 1919 (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1983), lxxviii.43 Griffith, Arthur, Preface to Mitchel, John. Jail Journal (Dublin:

M.H. Gill and Son, 1913), xiii.44 Karsten, Peter. ‘Irish soldiers in the British army, 1792-1922:

Suborned or subordinate?’, Journal of Social History, XV11, (1983),

56.