The Sash My Father Wore

Throughout Northern Ireland today, one tune - above all others - was heard along the highways and byways: The Sash.

A thread of entwined history. 1/ I heard it this morning played by a very fine pipe band in my hometown of Newcastle for #TheTwelfth.

And whether or not you identify with the lyrics, the tune is infectious. A foot tapper. In modern club parlance, a banger. 2/

“We deny that it is a crime, or a wrong, to hold slaves, to buy slaves, to keep slaves to their work by flogging...”

- John Mitchel, white supremacist and pro-slavery advocate, honoured in present-day Newry, Co Down, with a prominent statue and two roads named for him. 1/ The toppling of the statue of slave-owner Edward Colston in Bristol has helped re-ignite the debate about the rightful place for such statues - atop a pedestal or at the bottom of a river. I'm going to focus on the one in my council area, that of John Mitchel in Newry. 2/

Who benefitted from slavery in Ireland? When it was abolished in British colonies in 1833, the equivalent of £millions of pounds was paid out in compensation to almost 100 slave owners at 80 addresses across Ireland, incl 21 addresses in what is present day Northern Ireland. 1/ Almost all the men and women awarded compensation for loss of 'property' (i.e. enslaved humans) under the 1833 Abolition Act are listed in a Parliamentary Return, an official reply to a request from Irish MP and anti-slavery advocate, Daniel O'Connell.

The remarkable story behind this photograph.

Zejneba Hardaga, a Muslim woman, guides Rivka Kavillo, a Jewish woman, and her children, down a street in Nazi-occupied Sarajevo, 1941. As they walk, Zejneba covers Rivka’s yellow star with her veil.
#HolocaustMemorialDay In April 1941 when the Germans invaded Yugoslavia, Sarajevo was bombed from the air. The Kavilio family home was destroyed. They fled to the hills and met Mustafa Hardaga, a Muslim friend. He immediately offered them to stay at his house.