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The Irish were never slaves lads. We have a profound history of oppression. But we were never considered property across generations. It just didn’t happen. Please don’t spread that Myth, it disrespects our history and is used to diminish the impact of chattel slavery
Follow @Limerick1914 . Liam is and has been doing incredible and original research in this area.
There’s well intentioned people in the mentions who legit believe this myth. I once believed it too, because the books on it were bad history. The Irish were never chattel slaves. Ie Property across generations. Not by Vikings, Algerians or in the Caribbean. It’s a harmful myth
Some people seem to need or want a sad story in our history, I can’t understand this. For those people, you have the penal laws. There’s your multigenerational systemic oppression of your ancestors, you can have that.
If you want a good book that contextualises the Irish experience in carribean and the America’s, read “how the Irish became white” by Noel Ignatiev
Also, re the penal laws. One of them specifically excluded Irish Catholics from entering trinity college. So if you’re a student there now, you may proudly scratch your arse on the carpets, like a Jack Russell would, and do communion wafers. As a radical expression of liberation
Still getting huge replies and quote tweets from this thread. Mostly from people who genuinely have a well intentioned misreading of history, especially re the Caribbean. There should be a twitter bot that responds to the word "Irish Slave" with Liam Hogans well sourced research
To anyone sending me links about Irish Slaves in the Caribbean. medium.com/@Limerick1914/…
I was full on evangelical about the transportation of the Irish to the Caribbean and their slave experience a few years ago because I'm not a historian, & had read books that placed interesting stories above historical accuracy.Then I saw Liam Hogans work and cringed at myself
Saying that an Irish indentured servant, taken from their home, shipped to Caribbean, and forced to work on sugar plantations was not a chattel slave, doesn't take from their suffering.But conflating them with chattel slaves, romanticises their suffering and erases Black history
No one is saying it didn't happen, Jamaican people have Cork accents for fuck sake. But the Irish indentured servants, once free, often became slave owners and overseers, and then benefitted from and propped up a system of power based on whiteness. We have to acknowledge that.
