The Public History of Slavery in Dublin

Dr Ciaran O'Neill, Ussher Assistant Professor of History at Trinity College Dublin, delivered the 24th annual Sir John T. Gilbert commemorative lecture on 26 January 2021.

Dublin was one of the largest and busiest ports in Britain or Ireland throughout the era of the triangular slave trade and yet slavery barely figures in popular memory or heritage. The following lecture will examine the many reasons for this ‘invisibility'.

John T. Gilbert's valuable library of mainly 17th and 18th century books and manuscripts relating to Dublin and Ireland was purchased by Dublin Corporation after his death in 1898. It forms the nucleus of the special collections of Dublin City Libraries.

The Q&A was moderated by Deputy City Librarian Brendan Teeling. Ciaran mentions three books in the Q&A for anyone interested in learning more:

• Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1612-1865 by Nini Rodgers.  (2007)
• If the Irish Ran the World. Montserrat, 1630-1730. Donald Akenson (1997)
• Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference by Jenny Shaw. (2013)

A short bibliography for those interested in Ireland and Slavery.

The best overview of the topic in general is Nini Rodgers, Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1612-1865. Palgrave, 2007. Combining that with one of the collections of edited letters by Jonathan Wright (2019) or Mark Quintanilla (2019) would be a really great introduction to the topic for those who are new to it. I include the other texts here for those who want to develop an even deeper understanding of the topic. Those interested in doing research on Irish slaveowners in the British Empire can begin by checking out the invaluable Legacies of British Slave-ownership Database. 

Ciaran O’Neill, TCD, January 2021

Books

• **Nini Rodgers. Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1612-1865. Palgrave, 2007.
• Donald Harmon Akenson, If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630–1730 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997).
• Eve Walsh Stoddard, Positioning Gender and Race in (post) colonial Plantation Space: Connecting Ireland and the Caribbean  (Palgrave, 2012.) 
• Jenny Shaw, Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the construction of difference Athens, GA., University of Georgia Press, 2013
• Maria McGarrity, Washed by the Gulf Stream: the historic and geographic relation of Irish and Caribbean literature (Associated University Presse, 2008)
• Oscar Recio Morales, Ireland and the Spanish empire 1600-1825 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010)
• Zacek, Natalie A. Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, 1670–1776. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• David T. Gleeson. The Irish in the South, 1815-1877. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Edited Books

• **Jonathan Jeffrey Wright, An Ulster Slave Owner in the Revolutionary Atlantic: The Life and Letters of John Black, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2019
• **Mark S. Quintanilla, An Irishman's Life on the Caribbean Island of St Vincent, 1787– 90: The Letter Book of Attorney General Michael Keane, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2019
• Alison Donnell et al, Caribbean Irish Connections: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (University of West Indies Press, 2015).
• David Lloyd and Peter O’Neill, The Black and Green Atlantic: Cross-currents of the Irish and African Diasporas (Palgrave, 2009).
• David T. Gleeson, ed. The Irish in the Atlantic world. University of South Carolina Press, 2012.
• Fionnghuala Sweeney et al (eds) Ireland, Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Empire. Routledge, 2018.

PhDs (available online)

• Jennifer McLaren, Irish Lives in the British Caribbean: Engaging with Empire in the Revolutionary Era, unpublished PhD thesis. Macquarie, 2018
• Joe Regan, Irish immigrants in the Rural U.S. Slave South, unpublished PhD thesis. NUI Galway, 2015
• Karst de Jong Ba, “The Irish in Jamaica during the long eighteenth century (1698-1836)”, unpublished PhD thesis. Queen's University of Belfast, 2017
• Margaret Brehony, ‘Irish Migration to Cuba, 1835-1845: Empire, Ethnicity, Slavery and 'Free' Labour’ unpublished PhD thesis. NUI Galway, 2012.
• Orla Power, Irish planters, Atlantic merchants: the development of St. Croix, Danish West Indies, 1750-1766, unpublished PhD thesis. NUI Galway, 2011
• Shona Helen Johnston, ‘Papists in a Protestant World: The Catholic Anglo-Atlantic in the Seventeenth Century’ (Georgetown University, PhD, 2011)

Special Issue Journals & Online Resources (open access)

• SLAM Database 
• Legacies of British Slave-ownership 
• Slave Voyages 
• Irlanda y Cuba: Historias Entretejidas / Ireland and Cuba: Entangled Histories, 2019
• Sweeney et al, Slavery & Abolition, 37:3 (2016)

Articles

• Aubrey Gwynn, ‘Documents relating to the Irish in the West Indies’, Analecta Hibernica (1932), 139–286.
• Aubrey Gwynn, ‘Early Irish Emigration to the West Indies (1612-1643).’ Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review (1929): 377-393, 648-63; 
• Aubrey Gwynn, ‘Indentured Servants and Negro Slaves in Barbados 1612-1650’ Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review , (December, 1930). pp. 279-294;
• Hilary Beckles, "Irish servants in Barbados, a “riotous and unruly lot”." William and Mary Quarterly 47 (1990): 506.
• Joe Regan (2020) The large Irish enslavers of antebellum Louisiana, American Nineteenth Century History, 21:3,211-235.
• John C. Messenger, The Influence Of The Irish In Montserrat, Caribbean Quarterly, 13:2 (1967), 3-26 
• Nini Rodgers,"Ireland, slavery, antislavery, post-slavery and empire: an historiographical survey." (2016): 489-504.
• Rodgers, Nini. "The Irish in the Caribbean 1641-1837: an overview." Irish migration studies in Latin America 5, no. 3 (2007): 145-156.
• W.A. Hart, ‘Africans in eighteenth-century Ireland’, in Irish Historical Studies, 33 (2002-3)