Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE VOTES HAVE been cast, the tallies have been done, and now the results are starting to come in.
It’s a bad day for the government parties with both Fine Gael and Labour losing seats in constituencies across the country. Fianna Fáil have surged, Sinn Féin has had some strong results, and smaller parties and independent candidates have had a hugely successful election.
Join us as we follow the news, results, reaction, winners and losers in the 2016 General Election. Our earlier liveblog from Saturday can be read here.
Well, this has been quite the day so far, hasn’t it?
This is Christine Bohan (still) here with you into the evening for what has been a dramatic election count day. Got any thoughts or comments? Let me know in the comments section, tweet me or mail me at christine@thejournal.ie.
Daragh O’Brien has been elected in Dublin Fingal, making him the first Fianna Fáil TD in Dublin after the party lost all their TDs in the capital over the past five years.
Clare Daly looks likely to be elected soon having finished in second place, but Minister for Children James Reilly is in trouble – he’s currently in 6th position in the five-seat constituency.
Gerry Adams has been talking about his party’s result – and in particular whether Sinn Féin would have done better if his performance in the televised debates had been stronger.
The party looks set to bring home around 27 seats - a significant improvement on its showing in 2011 when it returned 14 seats.
Speaking to Sharon Ní Bheoláin, Adams said:
Well I think if you were putting that question [about his performance] to Enda Kenny or the Labour leader, you might have a point.
Obviously, you can always improve… We’ve increased our vote by 50%. This is the start of a realignment of politics. Some people lent their votes from Fianna Fáil to Fine Gael… some of them went back.
Stephen Donnelly is the first TD to be elected in Wicklow, topping the poll with 14,348 votes. All three sitting Social Democrats TDs have now been returned to the Dáil and all three have topped the poll in their constituencies.
Here’s where the parties stand right now with 20 of the seats decided:
Fianna Fáil have won a lot of the early seats, but Fine Gael and Sinn Féin will see their numbers increase over the course of the evening.
In Galway East, Seán Canney (Ind) and Ann Rabbitte (FF) have both just been elected on the second count. Canney had topped the poll with 19% of the vote, while Rabbitte benefited from a large proportion of redistributed votes when running mate Colm Keaveney was eliminated.
Some constituencies haven’t even returned a first count yet but Laois is already finished. The constituency had just six candidates running for three seats and the final result threw up no surprises (you can read more here about why it was so predictable).
Seán Fleming (FF), Charlie Flanagan (FG) and Brian Stanley (SF) have all been deemed elected.
Michael Lowry topped the poll in Tipperary, in what was perhaps one of the only predictable results in what has been an unpredictable election. But what does he make of his victory?
“I did what Kilkenny never could, I’ve done the five in a row,” he told Newstalk a few minutes ago. “Tipperary has had a love for me for over 28 years now”.
Regarding the speculation at the start of the campaign about whether he would be needed to support Fine Gael in government, Lowry said he was ‘amused’ by it:
It was always irrelevant. I was amused at the amount of publicity it got – I predicted it would be irrelevant, other politicians were using me for their own purposes.
It’s been a very bad election for the government. Fine Gael made a major mistake in their strategy – they said they were a safe hand on the economy, but then in week one they went with auction politics and lost all credibility.
Joanna Tuffy, one of the Labour TDs who have lost their seats today, has a convincing theory about why she lost:
What do you do when you get to the polling station and decide you don’t like the look of any of the candidates?
For one Dublin West voter, the answer was simple: write ‘Conor McGregor’ at the top of the list, draw your own box and add a tick. Nice try.
Mary Lou McDonald has been elected in Dublin Central after topping the poll and getting almost twice the number of votes of her nearest competitor, Paschal Donohoe.
And speaking of poll-toppers: Leo Varadkar has just been elected in Dublin West
Fianna Fáil’s bright young hope Jack Chambers looks likely to be elected there shortly, while Labour leader Joan Burton, Socialist Party’s Ruth Coppinger and Sinn Féin’s Paul Donnelly battle it out for the third and fourth seats. There are currently just 22 votes between Burton and Coppinger.
Anyone at the RDS count centre lose some jewellery?
Richard Boyd Barrett becomes the first TD to be elected in Dún Laoghaire and the first AAA-PBP TD elected to the 32nd Dáil.
No being-hoisted-up-onto-shoulders or wild cheering at the countcentre, though – just a round of applause and some big smiles.
Galway East is the second constituency to fill all of its seats:
Big news for the Green Party: deputy leader Catherine Martin has just been elected in Dublin Rathdown, becoming the party’s first TD in this Dáil (and the first since they lost every one of their Dáil seats in the 2011 general election).
Here’s an interview we did with her last year, soon after she was elected as a councillor.
This has been a good election for the Greens. Leader Eamon Ryan is still in the running to take a seat in the hugely competitive Dublin Bay South, and the party has exceeded the 2% of the vote it needed in order to secure State funding.
The other big news from Dublin Rathdown: In a shock result, former Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has been eliminated.
The Fine Gael TD missed out on the final seat after being beaten into fourth place in the 3-seater by Shane Ross, his own running mate Josepha Madigan, and Catherine Martin of the Green Party.
Shatter had been one of the most high profile Fine Gael TDs, but had resigned as justice minister in 2014 following the Guerin report into alleged malpractice in An Garda Síochána.
He had been elected to the Dáil at his first attempt in 1981, when he was just 29 years old. He served as a TD for 30 of the last 35 years and before today, he had only lost one of 10 Dáil elections, in 2002 – when he was defeated by the Green party’s Eamon Ryan.
Another Labour TD bites the dust: Joe Costello has been eliminated in Dublin Central after finishing in 7th place in the 3-seater.
Costello had served as a TD from 1992 until 1997 and from 2002 until today. His elimination will see his 2,345 distributed among the remaining candidates, in what has become a tight battle for the remaining two seats (Mary Lou McDonald was elected there several hours ago after topping the poll).
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has just been elected on the first count in Mayo with 13,318 votes, exceeding the quota of 12,730.
There has been no sign of him all day – perhaps unsurprisingly, given the results so far – but my colleague Orla Ryan, who is in the Mayo count centre, says that he is due to speak to the media shortly.
Bit of info, stats fans: Enda Kenny has now won all 13 Dáil elections since the by-election of 1975, when he took over after the death of his father Henry.
He entered the Dáil at the age of 24 and has now spent almost 41 years as a TD in Mayo. He will be the most electorally successful – as an individual, that is, not as a party leader – and longest-serving member of the next Dáil.
Let’s have a look at where the parties are at right now:
With 34 seats decided so far out of 158 (around 21% of the total number of seats), Fianna Fáil are still in the lead with 13 seats, followed by Fine Gael (8), SF and Independents (both on 4) and Social Democrats (3).
Perhaps most striking: Labour has still not returned a single TD.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has topped the poll in 5-seater Louth on the first count.
With 10,661 votes, he is fewer than 600 votes away from the quota.
Adams looks likely to bring in his running mate Imelda Munster too, but Labour’s Ged Nash is in trouble. The Minister for Business and Employment is currently in sixth place and will face a tough task to muscle in to the top five.
And two more results: John McGuinness, the outspoken FF TD, has taken the first seat in Carlow-Kilkenny:
And Heather Humphreys, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has kept her seat in Cavan-Monaghan and is deemed elected on the first count.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny spoke to the media in Mayo moments ago as the first count was read out (in which he topped the poll and was deemed elected).
It was the first appearance form the Fine Gael leader all day. He told the waiting journalists that he was “disappointed” and felt “sorrow” for many Fine Gael candidates.
Democracy is always exciting but it is merciless when it kicks in. That said, at the same time, we’ve had substantial results in a number of constituencies. It more or less puts Fine Gael back to where we were in 2007.
Suspect a lot of Fine Gael members won’t exactly see it in such a positive light.
Sitting Fianna Fáil TD Robert Troy has been re-elected in Longford – Westmeath, keeping the seat he gained for the first time in the 2011 election.
In Wicklow, Simon Harris (FG) and John Brady (SF) have joined Stephen Donnelly (SD) to make up three of the five TDs in the constituency.
Labour leader Joan Burton has just arrived at the Dublin West count centre, which is due to announce a new count in the next few minutes.
Paul Hosford, who is in the count centre, says that tallies are looking strong for her and she is likely to take the third or fourth seat in the 4-seat constituency.
My colleague Dan MacGuill points out that Joan Burton’s day today is uncannily similar to the election of February 1987, when Dick Spring – who was leader of the Labour party and Tánaiste – survived an even bigger scare in Kerry North, hanging on for the final seat by just five votes, after a full recount.
Six votes in the other direction would have effectively ended his political career, but five years later he led the Labour party to its most successful election ever, and became Tánaiste again. Joan Burton will be hoping history can repeat itself.
We’re into the 13th hour of the count now with exactly one quarter of the seats filled. If you’re looking to sum up what’s been a dramatic day so far, here are the main talking points
My colleague Paul Hosford in the Dublin West count centre says there’s “lots of hugging” among Joan Burton’s supporters. “They’re relieved and happy,” he says.
Mary Lou McDonald has just arrived there too. “Today is another milestone for us,” she told the media. “We’re not going away, you know”.
There’s going to be a lot of analysis in the coming days about where it all went wrong for Labour and Fine Gael, and what they could have done differently.
Richard Boyd-Barrett has been talking on RTE radio to Joanna Tuffy (who was one of the first sitting Labour TDs to lose her seat earlier today) about what he thinks the party did wrong:
Even now, I don’t think Labour get it. They were elected to protect the less well-off, something they failed catatrophically to do – and now they’ve paid the price.
My colleague Hugh O’Connell has been talking to Shane Ross about Independents’ Day and the “arrogance of the government”.
The Independent Alliance’s putative leader says he and its three sitting TDs – Finian McGrath, Michael Fitzmaurice, John Halligan – will all be re-elected. Seán Canney has taken a seat in Galway East and he expects Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran to get a seat.
So we’ve got six, we’re looking at a few others. I’d say we’re the largest small group, which puts us in a pivotal position to put our principles and policies on the table.
On the government’s campaign, he adds:
I think it serves them right. I think the arrogance of the government in this campaign was quite staggering. I thought the way they conducted it was utterly wrong and condescending and I’m not surprised. I think the people reacted against the presumption of wealth in the country that it spread everywhere, which it hadn’t.
Only two constituencies in the country haven’t announced a first count yet: Kerry and Dublin Bay North.
To be fair, they’re both massive constituencies. Kerry has changed from two 3-seaters to one 5-seater, while Dublin Bay North has a massive battle ongoing between its 20 candidates.
But still.
Just in: Labour leader Joan Burton has kept her seat in Dublin West.
The Tánaiste had been under increasing pressure in recent weeks over the party’s lacklustre campaign, but has made it in on the fourth count, along with Ruth Coppinger (SP) and Jack Chambers (FF).
Major relief for Joan Burton. Random fact: she’s the first Labour TD to be elected today.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (FF) and Fiona O’Loughlin (also FF) have just taken the second and third seats in Kildare South.
Wicklow and Tipperary are both calling it a night. Both count centres have adjourned until tomorrow morning.
Is Alan Kelly in trouble? TCD professor Michael Gallagher thinks he could be.
Michael Lowry is currently the only TD to be elected in Tipperary. Mattie McGrath was 173 votes away from the quota when the count was adjourned until tomorrow – but after that, there is a battle between 4 candidates – including Kelly – for the remaining 3 seats.
Josepha Madigan, who took out her running mate Alan Shatter in Dublin Rathdown, is trying out her new title:
Minister for Children James Reilly is down but he’s not definitively out. That’s the word from the Dublin Fingal count centre, at least, where my colleague Daragh Brophy has been all evening.
“Talked to various teams at Dublin Fingal. James Reilly still in with a slim chance, they say. It’s complicated,” he says.
The Social Democrats have won three seats so far and are hoping for one more, with Gary Gannon in serious contention in Dublin Central.
Could they enter government? Stephen Donnelly isn’t ruling it out:
We want to build a better Ireland based on better democratic values. Anyone who wants to enter that conversation, can enter that conversation. But we won’t accept that status quo.
Clare Daly has been re-elected in Dublin Fingal.
There was a huge welcome for the Green Party’s new TD Catherine Martin as she arrived at the RDS just now:
It’s a sign of how bad things are for Labour that party stalwart Willie Penrose, who has been a TD for the party since 1992, looks unlikely to keep his seat in Longford-Westmeath.
“As a betting person, I wouldn’t be laying much of a wager on my chances,” he said just now.
Clare Daly says she is personally delighted about her re-election, especially as it is her first time running as an independent.
Speaking to RTE radio, she was realistic about what the gains for the small parties and independents mean.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has become increasingly pragmatic in his media appearances this evening as the numbers repeatedly point to the fact that the only possibility for a majority government is a Fianna Fáil – Fine Gael coalition (FF aren’t quite as pragmatic about it, repeatedly ruling it out).
Speaking to RTE radio a short while ago, Kenny said:
It’s my responsibility and duty as Taoiseach to attempt to provide a government for the people. The people didn’t want an overall majority for anyone, they didn’t want the current government; the over-riding requirement is that the country has a government, it’s my responsibility to provide that.
That sounds like he’s open to almost any government partner, doesn’t it?
How are your nerves right now? Want some added drama?
After 10 counts in Dublin Central, there are 8 (!) votes between Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats and Maureen O’Sullivan (Ind).
There’s disappointment for former Dublin lord mayor Christy Burke (Ind) who was in the mix right up until this 10th count. His votes will now be redistributed – but it could go any way. Recount, anyone?
Scenes from the Mayo count centre where Stephen Manning, a candidate for Integrity Ireland, has been forcibly removed from the building:
Here’s the state of play at 10.45pm with almost exactly one third of the 158 seats filled:
Fianna Fáil is still in the lead. Labour still only has 1 TD.
This is what relief looks like:
The oldest candidate in the election, 85-year-old Ian McGarvey, has just been eliminated in the latest count in Donegal.
85! I’m tired even thinking about that.
Damien English (FG) has been elected in Meath West, filling the last of the three seats there.
And two high-profile eliminations just in: Áine Collins, a sitting Fine Gael TD in Cork North-West, has just been eliminated on the seventh count, while Senator Fidelma Healy Eames of ‘wiffy‘ fame has also been excluded.
Still with us? Sure what else would you be doing at 11.19pm on a Saturday night.
If you’ve any thoughts, comments, reactions, rants or observations, head to the comments section, tweet me @christinebohan or mail me: christine@thejournal.ie. Or just send me some good gifs. I’m open to all forms of human interaction at this stage.
Two quick updates:
We knew it was going to be big but this is huge.
Michael Healy Rae has topped the poll in Kerry with a massive 20,378 votes, smashing through the quota. That’s the single highest first preference vote of any candidate today.
His brother Danny Healy Rae is in second place in the 5-seat constituency with 9,991 votes, and will comfortably get in when Michael’s surplus is distributed.
It’s taken 14 hours and 20 minutes but we have a first count from Dublin Bay North (the last constituency to return a first count, fact fans).
The quota is 12,271 in this 5-seater, and while the first two seats look clear cut, there’ll be a fight for the remaining three. Here are the contenders:
And after teasing us with a first count, the count has now been adjourned until 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.
If there is a more dramatic story than that of Maureen O’Sullivan (Ind) today, we’ve yet to hear it.
The Dublin Central TD was in 7th place in the 3-seater after the first count, and her team had apparently gone home to drown their sorrows, assuming that she’d lost.
Turns out: she hadn’t. She has just been deemed elected at the RDS, after edging out Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats for the final seat.
O’Sullivan joins Paschal Donohoe (FG), who has also just been re-elected, and Mary Lou McDonald (SF) in the constituency.
Nothing like PR-STV for some last-minute drama, is there?
We haven’t had a good old newly-elected-TD- hoisted-up-on-the-shoulders-of-supporters video for a while, have we?
Two more updates:
Just in: Renua leader Lucinda Creighton has been eliminated in Dublin Bay South.
The former Fine Gael TD, who set up Renua last year, was eliminated after the fifth count at the RDS.
Full story is here.
Three more updates:
More on Dublin Bay South:
Lucinda Creighton‘s transfers will be pivotal in deciding who gets over the line in the 4-seater constituency. The first three seats look likely to go to Eoghan Murphy (FG), Eamon Ryan (Green) and Kate O’Connell (FG).
However there are just 104 votes between the remaining three candidates. Going to be a long night for Jim O’Callaghan, Kevin Humphreys and Chris Andrews. Count has been adjourned until tomorrow morning.
Dessie Ellis (SF) has taken the second seat in Dublin North West.
The final seat is a battle between two candidates: Paul McAuliffe (FF) and Noel Rock (FG). McAuliffe is currently ahead by 227 votes, but Rock is likely to benefit when the votes of sitting TD John Lyons (Lab) are redistributed.
Still to close to call either way. The count, like others in the RDS, has been adjourned for the night and will resume at 10am.
Five more seats filled in the last few minutes:
Two sitting Fine Gael TDs, Regina Doherty and Helen McEntee, have been re-elected on the 9th count in Meath East.
It’s winding down for the night at the RDS, with counts to resume at 10am tomorrow morning for Dublin North West, Dublin Bay North, Dublin Bay South and Dublin South Central.
Missed this cry for help from one of our reporters at the National Show Centre in Swords for the Dublin Fingal count a little while ago. Haven’t heard from them in a while. Should probably check on them.
It’s neck and neck between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael right now with 47% of the seats filled.
Both parties are on 23 seats right now, Sinn Féin is on 10 and Labour is still on just 1 (Joan Burton). The remainder are spread out between independent candidates and the smaller parties.
12 constituencies are continuing to count overnight.
Paul Murphy (PBP-AAA) has taken the second seat in Dublin South West just now.
In Waterford, occasional renegade Fine Gael TD John Deasy has been elected, edging out Minister of State Paudie Coffey for the final seat.
Mayo has just announced the results of the seventh count there with two sitting TDs – Michael Ring (FG) and Dara Calleary (FF) - looking set to be elected in one of the next counts.
My colleague Orla Ryan, who is at the count centre, says that the final seat is a battle between sitting FG TD Michelle Mulherin and newcomer Lisa Chambers (FF). Here are the figures:
The returning officer has called it a night and counting will resume tomorrow.
Labour has taken its second and third seats in close succession just now: Brendan Howlin has taken the first seat in Wexford, while Jan O’Sullivan has taken the last seat in Limerick City.
Michael Noonan took the third seat in Limerick City, just ahead of Jan O’Sullivan, but he didn’t make it easy for himself.
Michael Moynihan and Aindrias Moynihan (both FF) have both been elected on the 9th count in Cork North West.
They’re coming in fast now. Joan Collins (Ind) has been re-elected in Dublin South Central.
In Clare, Michael Harty (Ind) has taken the second seat. He ran on a No Doctor No Village platform as part of a campaign to secure local GPs in rural Ireland.
Carol Nolan of Sinn Féin has been elected in Offaly, taking the third and final seat.
People in Cork have been lighting bonfires to celebrate the election of independent TD Michael Collins in Cork South West:
Which led one of our journalists still here in the newsroom to note the power of the familiar name of the new TD:
My girlfriend’s mam lives in Cork and she told me yesterday that she voted for him literally because his name is Michael Collins
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The count in Dublin Fingal has been adjourned for the night after Independents 4 Change candidate Barry Martin requested a recheck (full story here - including how Fine Gael’s James Reilly looks like he could lose his seat). The count will resume at 10 o’clock tomorrow.
Dublin South West has just elected its third TD out of a total of five: Seán Crowe of Sinn Féin.
The final two seats look likely to be filled by Colm Brophy and Anne-Marie Dermody (both FG). However Peter Fitzpatrick, who was just eliminated, was an independent candidate, and his transfers may prove a boost to fellow independent Katherine Zappone. All to play for here.
From my colleague Rónán Duffy: Long-time Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery, who wasn’t involved in this campaign, says that the party took “a bad beating today”, adding that “it is a very severe political setback”.
“Consequently, it is very much a crossroads time for the party in every respect,” he told RTÉ just now.
Asked about Enda Kenny’s future as Fine Gael leader if he isn’t able to form a government, Flannery said that:
I think, if for any reason another taoiseach emerges, then my personal opinion would be that Enda Kenny would take that opportunity to resign. If you look back through history, you will see that Fine Gael leaders have always done that.
Strong words there from the man who masterminded a number of Fine Gael’s previous election campaigns.
Sitting TD Catherine Byrne (FG) has kept her seat in Dublin South Central, taking the third seat just now.
The final seat will be between Catherine Ardagh (FF) and Bríd Smith (PBP-AAA) and will be decided by Byrne’s surplus.
Did Sinn Féin make a mistake running three candidates in Donegal?
The 5-seater count has just now been called off for the night, with only one TD (FF’s Charlie McConalogue) elected so far. Pearse Doherty is going to get in soon, but fellow SF TD Padraig MacLochlainn will be in a battle with independent TD Thomas Pringle for the final seat.
MacLochlainn will do well from the redistribution of the votes of the third SF candidate – but will it be enough?
Front page of tomorrow’s Sunday Independent suggests both Enda Kenny and Joan Burton will face leadership challenges following the results for Fine Gael and Labour.
James Browne (FF) has been elected on the 10th count in Wexford and, we can only assume, told the count centre that he “feels good” about it*.
That means that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are neck and neck once again, with 26 seats each.
*Sorry
Ok, we were joking – or at least, what passes for a joke at 2.35am in the morning – about James Browne (FF) feeling good… but he clearly wasn’t.
I’m going to hand over to my colleague Susan Daly for the rest of the counts still going on, but thanks to everyone for the comments, tweets, and cat gifs (or just for reading up until now).
Coverage will be continuing here throughout Sunday (and probably into Monday too) with breaking news and analysis as it happens. Thanks for sticking with us.
Hi all – Susan Daly here with the welcome news that another constituency has delivered a final result.
Roscommon-Galway has now filled all three seats with Fianna Fáil’s Eugene Murphy taking the final one on the eighth count of the night. He joins Denis Naughten and Michael Fitzmaurice who took the first and second seats respectively.
So that’s two independents and a Fianna Fáil TD for Roscommon-Galway; not an uncommon trend in the results we have been seeing today.
Dublin South-West has decided to do us all a solid and elect the remaining two TDs of its five seats with independent senator Katherine Zappone and Fine Gael’s Colm Brophy getting over the line on the 16th – count it, 16th – count.
However, Fine Gael have requested a recount so the returning officer will have a think about that at 10am.
This of course was the constituency where Fianna Fáil’s John Lahart topped the poll in a pretty surprising surge of 9,647 first preferences.
Counting in Donegal – where they are on the eighth count with just one of five seats filled by Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McConalogue very early on – has been suspended for the night.
We too are going to put this liveblog to bed, folks, and resume again early in the morning to bring you more analysis and news from this most astonishing of general election results weekend.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
They were sent against their will, they were bought and sold. Forced to work, treated badly, and may not survive long enough to see their freedom. But it was not slavery because the Africans had it worse? Sound to me like we had a better job title but the same f€ckin job
I remember reading a book on this subject a few years ago.
To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland by Sean O’Callaghan
It is a very good read for anybody who is interested.
The book to hell or Barbados has been debunked
The first slaves to the Carribean were Irish, shipped there by Cromwell.
Ireland was the ‘laboratory’ for British colonial expansion.
All of the techniques used by the British to conquer territory worldwide (such as plantation) were developed in Ireland
Zoe Daly, it was James 11 who was responsible for the first Irish slaves, when he sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His proclamation of 1625 required Irish prisoners to be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.
In one single decade from 1641 to 1652, the Irish population fell from 1.5 million to 600,000.
James II wasn’t born until 1633.
True, Dave.
Then when it grew back, they purged again and again.
Is that why the majority of the population are so docile – genetic selection from continuous artificial extinction events?
Why the fear of stating that whites were also enslaved? I am so sick of this white guilt PC phenomenon that has infected people. Acknowledging the fact that white irish were enslaved doesn’t detract from the fact black Africans were enslaved in any way. The word slave is rooted in the word ‘slav’, Slav being a distinct grouping of people originating from eastern Europe. Oliver Cromwell sent 1000′s of irish to Barbados of all places yet the authors make no mention of this, why? They weren’t sent on a holiday. They were sent to work sugar plantations for the rest of their lives. If that isn’t slavery then what is? Surely it cannot be considered racist to say that there were white slaves. The origin of the word ‘redneck’ is believed to have come from the fact that pale skinned irish burnt very easily & quickly under the Caribbean sun (obviously our summers were crap back then too). This article is unbalanced & wants to rewrite history. If we attempted to belittle the experience & suffering experienced by black Africans who were slaves there would quite rightly be uproar so don’t do the same to a part of our history some prefer to see hidden. Slavery is slavery no matter the colour of those wearing the chains & those who facilitated it were only interested in green (gold).
The Irish sent to Barbados were released in what the Brits call ‘the restoration’ i.e. when Charles II took the throne, and they were never chattel slaves.
No one deny’s that there were not Irish in the Caribbean including a layer of Irish slavers and plantation owners. But the ‘Irish were slaves too’ claim is misleading at best
Andrew, it goes back to James 11′s time when he SOLD Irish prisoners to the New World. If you are sold you are a slave. No amount of dancing around words or splitting hairs will change it.
I think you mean James I.
White slavery existed. Millions of white Europeans from Eastern and Western Europe were taken by the Ottomons, the Barabary states and the Golden Horde. That is indisputable fact.
The Muslim raid on Baltimore being the tip of the iceberg.
“Having sailed for two months and with little to show for the voyage, Janszoon turned to a captive taken on the voyage, a Roman Catholic named John Hackett, for information on where a profitable raid could be made. The residents of Baltimore, a small town in West Cork, Ireland, were resented by the Roman Catholic native Irish because they were settled on lands confiscated from the O’Driscoll clan. Hackett would direct Janszoon to this town and away from his own. Janszoon sacked Baltimore on June 20, 1631, seizing little more than 108 persons whom he doomed to be sold as slaves in north Africa. Janszoon took no interest in the Gaels and released them, only enslaving English.”
The planters of Baltimore got a taste of their own medicine if you ask me.
Facts don’t matter; the intention is to spread White guilt.
Then again we did steal St Patrick from Wales, everyone was at it at some stage.
But remember only whites are evil, tis why we all have to go, and be replaced via immigration and the new rapugees
Even the word ‘slave’ come from a baltic or eastern european ‘slavic’???
1.
a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2.
a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person:
The Irish were slaves. Not as bad as the Africans but slaves nonetheless
@Sertorius: Agreed. Barbary Pirates cruised the coasts of Britain. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thyomas Wentworth had all of his goods nicked by the Pirates.
You may not like this, but Oliver Cromwell started a fund to free Christian Slaves from pirates.
The authors are completely missing the point. If one is not free to leave and seek other employment, then one is a slave.
Exactly, I doubt the “indentured servants” would have cared about the fact that the law defined them slightly differently to slaves.
They were still living the life of slaves, the semantics of legal terms doesn’t diminish what they experienced, and for the authors to try and suggest that is reprehensible.
Typical Brit apologists with a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Funny how they omit this:
“As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.”
Our cousins were treated worse than the Africans, along with their being totally unsuited to the climate of the Caribbean.
Can I ask what book or article that’s from?
This “forced breeding” narrative is a racist myth.
https://medium.com/@Limerick1914/the-racist-myth-within-a-racist-myth-8eac2c890e92#.99an1uoml
I’m not sure why you’re searching months old comments to reply to other than to drive traffic to your blog though I fundamentally disagree with the notion that the Irish weren’t slaves. Perhaps many were not. Though their legal definition would have been of little bearing on their reality. If you sought discussion I might have been happy to entertain it though sending a link to a five part series of articles while calling a not particularly widely held belief a racist myth isn’t likely to inspire it. Your article seems only to show exaggeration of the overall claim of Irish slavery. Not debunking as you say. That and the fact that it’s tagged as related to the blacklivesmatter movement has me questioning your motives. To create an accurate account of Irish history and the difficulties faced by the Irish people is fine. Even if that diminishes their suffering in the eyes of history. To attempt to erase that suffering on a technicality as you appear to do. That’s racism.
Or a prisoner
@Liam Hogan:
We have your number,Hogan!
You are working in:
Limerick City Library
Public Library
The Granary,
Michael St
Limerick.
(061) 407 510
@Daphne: There was a difference. Scots who went to Massachusetts as indentured Servants would serve 5 or seven years and then, they would become free men. The laws of Boston said that the Master should provide shelter and the means to earn a living. In a number of cases, the Master bought himself and the Servant out of the contract because the servant was of such use to him that he would employ him on a formal basis.
The Irish in the Barbadoes fared less well but they were still Indentured servants who, unfortunately didn’t know what to do with themselves when the Indentureship ended.
People keep on saying that the English killing of the Irish was from 1641 but it wasn’t. It was a bloody civil war with people changing sides. Tens of thousands of Irish, both Protestant and Catholic died between 1641 and 1658,
The Scots with the necessary nous and the Irish with similar nous were successful slavers.
The Scots had first hand experience of Slavery in their own country. Colliers and Salters were bound to their masters without the opportunity to be free. Their Children would be similarly enslaved. 1602 to 1799.
All u have to do is go to an island called Grenada, amazing place, 100% black population, president is a Flanagan, airport is Sister Foley airport I think, everybody has irish names like Shannon or Aoife, I asked Shannon is her name irish but she had no idea of her islands history or even who the irish were
Irish slaves were sent there by the British from galway to pick sugar, and of course they re-populated the place!
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Barbados and other Carribean Islands like Antigua were penal colonies in the centuries before Australia was discovered. There are plenty of court records availabe which show how people were ‘exported’ for relatively minor crimes like stealing.
as most African slave traders did not venture past ports in Africia and purchased slaves, captured by mostly north africian gangs, then transported those slaves to the ‘new world’ at great expense. This made the Africian slavs a more expensive ‘commodity’ than the Irish white legs who had been transported there free of charge by British government policy. The less valuable ‘commodity’ is always treated with less care and more abuse than its more expensive counterpart. .
This article is qay more offensive than Meryl Streeps t shirt could ever be.. It attempts to use the vagueness of English language and hypocrisy of English laws to differentiate between both enslaved people of Ireland and Africa. When any human beings free will is forcefully removed by whatever means then they have been enslaved.. fancy convoluted words cannot mask that fact!
Slavers often raped slaves and if there were children as a result those children bore the slavers name. There were certainly slaver families with Irish names. The source of Irish names, if it is from the period of slavery, indicate some sort of connection with Ireland but not one we can safely be proud of.
The mistake made is the basic one of nationalism. Ireland in that period was no more populated by a single class than it is today. Just as now there was a wealthy elite and there were people with nothing. Some of the elite were slavers and plantation owners. Some were people who were transported as indentured servants.
So basically if you’re taken against your will, you’re “unfree”, not a slave, and if you do not want to cover up this part of Irish history… you’re a racist.
Also, because these slave traders had racist laws in favour of white Irish slaves…. apparently that’s
something which doesn’t make them slaves?
Pathetic attempt at being an iconoclastic “myth” buster. Kevin Myers would be proud.
According to Liam Hogan’s twitter account he’s whinging along with “Niamh Purseil” that we’re all racist for questioning his “facts”. Boo hoo.
A right of reply from an actual historian might be appropriate by the journal.ie
So let’s get this right: According to Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney, and Matthew Connor Reilly, If you were shipped to another country against your will, and forced to work against your will, and you never saw freedom again, and you were white – you were not a slave!? Hmmm…
It is all very simply for you racists. ( I can say you are racist, bcz you’re white)
1. If you’re white you are racist (nevermind whites ended slavery, blacks and jews actually wanted to keep it going. Blacks enslaved other blacks in Africa, Arabs took over 100 million African slaves and Jews ran much of the transatlantic slave trade)
2. Only whites are evil and cannot possibly ever have been slaves (including the 1 million Europeans taken by Arabs as slaves and usually raped)
So to summarise – whites = evil, evil, racist, nazis and bigots. And not the most compassionate race on the planet.
We know this cause Hollywood and the TV says so.
John Creen you said Grenada is an amazing place, 100% black population.
You’d never say any country that was 100% white was….an amazing place. You’re such a patronising ar$e-licking gimp for anything non-white
I put up a comment yesterday criticising the accuracy of this piece and asking that the journal contact other historians in this area as a right of reply. It received about a 100 likes.
It’s been taken down.
For all it’s talk of free speech and rights….
The journal’s a joke.
Grenada was a French colony until 1763. You cut sugarcane, you don’t pick it. There were no “Irish slaves” sent from Galway. The Irish owned plantations and slaves in Grenada. If you check the UCL slave-ownership database you will find the following names claiming compensation in Grenada (1834) Boyle, Burke, Cleary, Cuming, Dalton, Doherty, Dunn, Flynn, McDermott, McDonnell, McGowan, Sullivan, Walsh.
it’s still there and over 200 likes now
You do not make sense
@Liam Hogan:
OK, Hogan,
that’s 13 Irish named slave owners!
They don’t define the 5,000,000 Irish who were starved to death in Ireland, between 1845-1850:
Is Britain’s cover-up of its 1845-1850 Holocaust in Ireland the most successful Big Lie in all of history?
The cover-up is accomplished by the same British terrorism and bribery that perpetrated the genocide. Consider: why did former Irish President Mary Robinson call it “Ireland’s greatest natural disaster” while she concealed the British army’s role? Potato blight, “phytophthora infestans”, did spread from America to Europe in 1844, to England and then Ireland in 1845 but it didn’t cause famine anywhere.
Ireland did not starve for potatoes; it starved for food.
Ireland starved because its food, from 40 to 70 shiploads per day, was removed at gunpoint by 12,000 British constables reinforced by the British militia, battleships, excise vessels, Coast Guard and by 200,000 British soldiers (100,000 at any given moment). The attached map shows the never-before-published names and locations in Ireland of the food removal regiments (Disposition of the Army; Public Record Office, London; et al, of which we possess photocopies). Thus, Britain seized from Ireland’s producers tens of millions of head of livestock; tens of millions of tons of flour, grains, meat, poultry & dairy products; enough to sustain 18 million persons.
The Public Record Office recently informed us that their British regiments’ Daily Activity Reports of 1845-1850 have “gone missing.” Those records include each regiment’s cattle drives and grain-cart convoys it escorted at gun-point from the Irish districts assigned to it. Also “missing” are the receipts issued by the British army commissariat officers in every Irish port tallying the cattle and tonnage of foodstuff removed; likewise the export lading manifests. Other records provide all-revealing glimpses of the “missing” data; such as: …
From Cork harbor on one day in 1847 2 the AJAX steamed for England with 1,514 firkins of butter, 102 casks of pork, 44 hogsheads of whiskey, 844 sacks of oats, 247 sacks of wheat, 106 bales of bacon, 13 casks of hams, 145 casks of porter, 12 sacks of fodder, 28 bales of feathers, 8 sacks of lard, 296 boxes of eggs, 30 head of cattle, 90 pigs, 220 lambs, 34 calves and 69 miscellaneous packages. On November 14, 1848 3, sailed, from Cork harbor alone: 147 bales of bacon, 120 casks and 135 barrels of pork, 5 casks of hams, 149 casks of miscellaneous provisions (foodstuff); 1,996 sacks & 950 barrels of oats; 300 bags of flour; 300 head of cattle; 239 sheep; 9,398 firkins of butter; 542 boxes of eggs. On July 28, 1848 4; a typical day’s food shipments from only the following four ports: from Limerick: the ANN, JOHN GUISE and MESSENGER for London; the PELTON CLINTON for Liverpool; and the CITY OF LIMERICK, BRITISH QUEEN, and CAMBRIAN MAID for Glasgow. This one-day removal of Limerick’s food was of 863 firkins of butter; 212 firkins, 1,198 casks and 200 kegs of lard, 87 casks of ham; 267 bales of bacon; 52 barrels of pork; 45 tons and 628 barrels of flour; 4,975 barrels of oats and 1,000 barrels of barley. From Kilrush: the ELLEN for Bristol; the CHARLES G. FRYER and MARY ELLIOTT for London. This one-day removal was of 550 tons of County Clare’s oats and 15 tons of its barley. From Tralee: the JOHN ST. BARBE, CLAUDIA and QUEEN for London; the SPOKESMAN for Liverpool. This one-day removal was of 711 tons of Kerry’s oats and 118 tons of its barley. From Galway: the MARY, VICTORIA, and DILIGENCE for London; the SWAN and UNION for Limerick (probably for trans-shipment to England). This one-day removal was of 60 sacks of Co. Galway’s flour; 30 sacks and 292 tons of its oatmeal; 294 tons of its oats; and 140 tons of its miscellaneous provisions (foodstuffs). British soldiers forcibly removed it from its starving Limerick, Clare, Kerry and Galway producers.
In Belmullet, Co. Mayo the mission of 151 soldiers 5 of the 49th Regiment, in addition to escorting livestock and crops to the port for export, was to guard a few tons of stored meal from the hands of the starving; its population falling from 237 to 105 between 1841 and 1851. Belmullet also lost its source of fish in January, 1849, when Britain’s Coast Guard arrested its fleet of enterprising fishermen ten miles at sea in the act of off-loading flour from a passing ship. They were sentenced to prison and their currachs were confiscated.
The Waterford Harbor British army commissariat officer wrote to British Treasury Chief Charles Trevelyan on April 24, 1846;
“The barges leave Clonmel once a week for this place, with the export supplies under convoy which, last Tuesday, consisted of 2 guns, 50 cavalry, and 80 infantry escorting them on the banks of the Suir as far as Carrick.”
While its people starved, the Clonmel district exported annually, along with its other farm produce, approximately 60,000 pigs in the form of cured pork. …
I’m not quite sure what the purpose of the article is . If anything it makes a great case for what has been termed white slavery .
It’s a fine case of propagating the White Man’s Guilt complex. As another person said; “same job, different job title”. Basically, both peoples were treated appalling and it’s essentially a pissing competition over who had it worse..
Two mistakes there old man, firstly the Irish Slave trade owners were the English Ascendency living in Ireland and thirdly an ‘Indentured servant’ is in fact a slave…..so deck off….why not just say your anti- the confederate flag…..
When you look at the names of the Irish slavers many are not ascendancy family names.
Slavery is hardly just white vs black. Asians had slaves, Africans had slaves
I actually thought that I was going to read this article and discover that Irish people were not in fact slaves in the Caribbean. What a load of absolute tripe! White liberal guilt alive and well…
If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a ….., if it was sold like a slave, treated like a slave, it’s a .,… Article written by 3 supposedly professionals in their field clutching at straws..
But the Irish in the Caribbean didn’t walk like a duck or talk like a duck’ in comparison with the black chattel slaves. They weren’t enslaved for life, their children and their grandchildren were not born into slavery, they could not be murdered with ease or tortured as punishment.
So only being enslaved for most of their lives means they weren’t slaves? Ever? African slaves were freed on occasion too. Does that mean those individuals were never slaves either? The logic of your statement appears to be lacking.
What is the point in these 3 writers coming together to pen this article ? I mean, look at the little summary of each of their backgrounds at the bottom of the page. Not one of them comes from any sort of academic background which would allow them to speak with authority on the subject. A librarian and 2 archaeologists ? Next week, the journal.ie are letting me take a crack at finally nailing cold fusion
“Arguably the closest point between white servitude and black slavery”
Even without parsing this particular article, are we pretending that Barbary pirates from Africa didn’t abduct people from European shores? That’s just one example. The Romans, Vikings, Mongols and plenty of others had Caucasian slaves.
This is a pathetic, long-winded form of the “black people cant be racist and women any be sexist” line of thinking
this is a period in history the powers that be would rather we forget…………………its getting in the way of the emotional blackmail they are trying to use on us re immigrants.
I’m sorry but I disagree with this article. From readings and even a very interesting documentary I heard on Rte 1 it’s clear the Irish were slaves. Firstly slave gangs literally kidnapped a whole village in the north of Ireland leaving only the elderly. These villagers were stripped naked and sold. Families sold off separately. Children never seeing their parents again. White women were sold for ” comfort”. While it’s true that many white slaves did not work in the fields it was because of their fair skin and they just didn’t do so well. Most were house slaves. Women who gave birth gave birth to slave children so even if they could get theur own freedom they wouldn’t leave their children behind. There are also reports of plantation owners breeding black slaves with white Irish slaves in order to produce lighter skinned slaves that were in demand. This was opposed by slavers who wanted to sell their dark skinned African slaves So it was eventually stopped. There were wealthy Irish in the carribean but they didn’t much care about the Irish slaves as they were the lowest rung on the ladder in society anyway.
More pathetic white self hatred.
“Oh sure, you guys were taken against your will from your homes and families, brought to foreign countries, separated from any unfortunate family members who were captured with you, and forced to work for free by people who considered themselves your owners.
The same thing happened to us, but we were treated *way* worse than you guys, so obviously your experience isn’t all that relevant and you don’t deserve to be upset about it nor to bring it up in modern discussions about slavery and its ripple effect into current generations. The law was on your side at the time, so you’ve got no grounds for complaint. Also some Irish people may have had direct involvement in the slave trade (including of Irish slaves), so that pretty much wipes out any arguments you might have about being treated poorly.”
What a waste of words
So Rihanna is part Irish then!!
No, she uses an umbrella. The Irish attitude to weather is one of hope over experience, so any preparation for rain is frowned upon..
I understand that during the period it was illegal to own a white slave. So white slaves were generally referred to as “indentured servants” for bookkeeping purposes. To say that they were not slaves is insulting to what they had to endure.
And by recognising White Slavery, does it in no way , or did it ever, detract from the plight of the “Black Slaves”.
As others have pointed out, most were indentured to the point that they could never be free. The work they carried out for which they were paid (on paper only), covered the cost of their food and board, meaning they never actually received any coin into their hands.
The fact there was a big bad Irish White overseer means nothing in this context as there were many black slave traders and black overseers.
The author(s) would have us believe that “sure, these white Irish people just applied for the Jobsbridge of their time. Nothing to see here folks!”
You can be a slave, oh sorry “servant”, without being whipped and beaten.
I think the authors are doing some language gymnastics to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion. If it looks like a duck……………
Bit of revisionism of a Tuesday
A spade is a spade.
You don’t have to look that far back in our history or to the Caribbean to find irish slavery. When did the last magdalen laundry or mother and baby homes close (1996or so)..but we’ll keep that one on QT..
Ahhh Global Research, that reputable source of all truth and virtue on the internet…..
It never ceases to amaze me how many people fall for the junk pushed out by the likes of Global Research, Alex Jones and their ilk, which is designed to prey on peoples’ gullibility.
Whilst there’s often a kernel of truth at the heart of their stories its generally exaggerated, distorted and sensationalised to the point that its totally meaningless.
This is nothing to do with liberal white guilt. It’s about confronting one of the methods used to shut down black claims of systematic inequality in the US going back to the time of slavery by saying, “the Irish were slaves too, we got over it, you should too.”
But are these authors not trying to do the same thing? By saying the Irish weren’t “slaves” they were technically “indentured servants” is that not trying to shut down the argument that other cultures have also experienced slavery and minimise what happened?
I agree with you that telling people to get over their history of slavery is a pathetic excuse for an argument, but it seems to me that these authors are trying a similar tack.
I don’t feel they are trying to minimise the situation or that indentured servitude is intended to be a euphemism. To me it’s about clarifying a historical situation that is entirely misrepresented in a modern political conflict in the US. I don’t see any desire to denigrate the Irish experience on the authors’ behalf.
They’re calling the idea of Irish slaves a myth because of a technicality in legal language in one particular country, that’s pretty clear diminishing to me.
The way I see it, the fate of Irish slaves/indentured servants in the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries is irrelevant to the modern civil rights situation in America. It is spuriously introduced to the argument to downplay the institutionalised racism that is a direct legacy of black slavery in the US. I think this article is a useful contribution in this context, which I understand to be the intention behind it.
I agree you wholeheartedly that the experiences of chattel slaves and the huge legacy of what happened in America cannot be compared to other forms of slavery, nor dismissed because other forms of slavery exist/existed.
But I disagree that basing arguments on semantic differences adds anything other than pointless technicalities to the discussion. Calling Irish slavery a myth because other people had it worse is just as bad.
And yes, a history of Irish slavery it largely irrelevant in America I agree, but this article was posted to an Irish audience and invited them into discussion. Without the context and nuance of American politics here, you can see why commenters are taken aback.
I’m definitely more liberal than conservative when it comes to these types of topics but this is just populist liberal popular rabble rousing. Did generations of Europeans not get taken as slaves in centuries past? Taking up the cause of a persecuted group is obviously noble but don’t attempt to achieve it by belittling the woes of another. A good point was missed by this author.
The north siders from Dublin were treated like the blacks of Ireland
Mr Planter may I go now, my seven years service are up. Please check my contract
Why certainly Ms Riordan, Indeed it is! well done on surviving several years of back breaking work. Which killed off your menfolk
Thank you Mr Planter, what about my daughter by Toby-
Oh she is still my property-Toby is my slave
Ok
So what do I do now.
Well having learnt English and literacy, despite working from sun up till sundown. You can now pursue a career in a brothel by the docks. Farm a bit of swamp-or keep working for me
Okay Mr planter I will keep working for you.
Good girl, but keep your certificate of freedom. The courts have to know I freed you
For what it’s worth. My grandmother told us stories that had been passed down the generations to her since the mid 1600s about family that had been taken as slaves to the Caribbean. I’m going back nearly 50 years since I first heard it. A Cork/Limerick family.
I’m sure it might be argued that there was some degree of choice, but that is certainly not the story we grew up on, which included tales of young men been branded.
I did look into this some years ago and if you look at correspondence from the time, island governors back to the admiralty, you might find references to the fact that the Irish kept escaping to America and that there was a need for more slave labour. Particularly one that couldn’t disappear so easily.
Yes there was, and they often lived in conditions worse than those from Africa. Some really good short docu on YouTube showing the Redlegs. It’s weird as some still have a very Irish lilt.
Good old British colonialism. ….It has a lot to answer for
If you check the phone book of the Caribbean island of Monserrat you’ll see its full of Barrys, O’Sullivans, Keohanes and all the major Cork surnames. Imagine my surprise when I asked a local on a visit to the island, if he spoke English and got the reply in a pure Cork accent, ‘Of course I do, boi!’
We need to stop this slavery thing no matter where your from we all treated badly by someone at sometime in history, like today so many of us are controlled by a few. It was always a few who treated us all badly.
Black people feel it most and white feel sorry for them cause they were the most recent in history of slavery.
Take a look at most Irish families, I have aunt that was sent off in the 60s what happen to her and the other women there is just bad as slavery. But she doesn’t go blaming white people she blames the organization.
We must not hold anger we must leave but not forgotten and learn to go forward together.
using fancy language does not mean that the Irish were not slaves.
There had been a prevailing myth for sometime now that African-Americans with Irish surnames are descendants of Irish ‘slave masters.’ This couldn’t be further from the truth. There is compelling evidence to suggest that mixed African Irish slaves migrated on mass to the southern states of America towards the end of the 17th century from the Caribbean.
And let’s not forget the slaves sent from Ireland to Australia. From a global perspective, the slave trade was a class conflict not a race conflict.
Did I sense an agenda…?
I think some people missed the point. Indentured servitude was voluntary and for a limilted tim, I dont think african slaves had either luxury. Indentured servitude was a labor system whereby people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a certain number of years. It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North America and elsewhere. Slavery, bondage, servitude refer to involuntary subjection to another or others.Slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control by a master: to be sold intoslavery. Bondage indicates a state of subjugation or captivity often involving burdensome and degrading labor: in bondage to a cruel master
One of the ways plantation owners got around the limited time indenture was to charge ‘room and board’ at a cost higher than the indentured persons weekly/monthly worth meaning they could never pay their way to freedom and so remained indentured for the rest of their lives….in other words….slaves.
This permanent indenture system was also used by unscrupulous wealthy land owners around the British colonies, including cases in Australia to keep those transported from leaving the big estates or ever getting paid.
Excellent and true comment Al Ca.
in the 17th century thousands of Irish people were forcibly transported to the West Indies. They did not go of their own free will. They were treated as unpaid labour there. Many spoke only the Irish language and had no idea that they had any ‘legal’ status. In the 19th century it was transportation to Australia. It was used as a means of sending people who might be rebellious to the Crown far away from Ireland. This article is not comparing like with like.
An excellent article that attempts to educate the uneducated. Shinner types prefer to wallow in their own ignorance.
Yawn…zzzzzzz. 5 years now Pat same comments daily. Have you no new material?
Sorry about that Chief.
Indentured servitude was the closest the Irish got to being enslaved in the Western Hemisphere, yet as argued, it is NOT slavery, nor was it anywhere near the scale or barbarity of the African slave trade. It is an important to distinguish between them today…why?
Because whenever situations arise in the U.S where racial issues become high, like Ferguson for example, the myth and use of the line that “the Irish were slaves, and they did just fine”, infers that the Black population in the U.S today only have themselves to blame for their position in society, for if the Irish can make it, then anyone can.
This argument overlooks the institutional racism that is alive and well in the U.S today and assumes that we live in a post-racial society where differences like skin colour don’t matter anymore. The thing is, the Irish were never slaves like the Blacks, and differences like skin colour do still matter today. It is a straw man argument based on the myth as the authors have shown.
Great article.
It is a straw man argument, based on a myth.
If people are going to be this pedantic about the meaning of the word, then technically no one but the Slavs are entitled to use the word ‘slave’ since it originates in their history of slavery.
It’s not pedantic, there is a big difference as mentioned in the article. Slavery was hereditary and a slave was denied personhood. Indentured servitude on the other hand was finite and the person was granted legal rights.
Jam Goldie, if people are SOLD it is slavery, nothing else. The Irish were SOLD to plantations. Myth me townhalls.
My understanding of slavery is that it involves forced servitude and being treated as property/a commodity.
I don’t see how limited legal rights and a finite contract (that by the author’s admission many people didn’t live to see) makes someone any less a slave if they have been kidnapped, sold, and forced to obey a master.
They are just different types of slavery, neither should diminish the other.
Again, there is a big difference between indentured servitude and slavery.
There’s a difference between indentured servitude and chattel slavery.
Both are types of slavery.
@jam like theres a big difference between performance related award scheme and Bonus.
Correct
It is Like most of the critical commentators did not read the article. Indentured servitude is not the same as slavery, for all the reasons the authors give.it is really indisputable.
it’s all good lads. we where privalaged white slaves. sorry I mean indentured servitude… why do keep i reading the journals exclusively progressive tripe. the point people are trying to make by referencing this history.is so black America can no longer blame this generation for their ancestors crimes. racism exists. but noting like the extent the media would like you to believe.
I agree with this article. Read a great book by Matthew Parker called “The Sugar Barons”. It is a history of the Caribbean sugar trade and the treatment of both slaves and indentured servants. It’s a riveting narrative and the author clearly explains the difference between slaves and indentured servants. A top quality read for those interested.
#Claims #ReadSomeBooks #RhiannaIsTheBestEvidence #TrustMe #Historians
The best part of this is the fact that anyone thinks that they have the right to feel personally victimised by something that has fcuk all to do with them,and happened generations before them!
Firstly, indentured servitude is not slavery. You can repeat yourself A thousand times, but you are still wrong.
Secondly, you are aware that you are playing into the hands of the most racist people in America and their Irish fellow travelers?
Thirdly, none of this takes away from the horrible oppression in 17th century Ireland, which was basically ethnic cleansing on an almost genocidal scale, combined with prejudice and religious persecution, and mass expulsion and indentured servitude.
Fourthly, as bad as that was,The Atlantic slave trade was many times worse.
Fifth, as a white Irish person you could transition into being a white north American. Descendants of African slaves to this day can never do that. The racism in America is incredibly old and deep rooted. Please do not allow certain Dubious Irish characters to bring this racism into Ireland, where it has no place.as the most oppressed of white people, it would be horrible if we allow racism to infect Ireland.
Finally, to repeat myself, do not let your sympathy for the oppression of the Irish be co-opted by southern American white racists, and their Irish fellow travelers, of whom there seems to be more all the time.
Thank you, and may your God go with you.
With all due respect, the Irish are not “the most opressed white people”. There were serfs in a lot of Europe up to 1860s, not to mention the slave markets in Istanbul. Rasist attitudes shouldn’t be fought by ignoring the historical facts.
Wow I am not impressed by your comment. It seems petty. I was not doing mathematics. This was obviously not my main point. I should have said, amongst the most Oppressed white people.. Since you refer to the 1860s, you must be aware that from 1845 to 1910, the population of Ireland decreased from 8 milliontwo 4 million, amongst the worst demographic disasters in modern European peace time.
Thank you.
Eminent historian like John Prendergast’s, ‘The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland’ Sean OCallaghan’s “To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland”. The likes of John O’Shea’s book Murder Mutiny and Mayhem covers a later Jacobite period when Irish where used as indentured slaves. and seems to get the the entire 17th century confused.
Cromwell gets blamed for a lot of things where Ireland is concerned…..
Chris, Get the boat!
Article sort of gets there, but this is a complicated subject, not least because our understanding of things like “race” are not the same as they were then. We are talking about two different things when we talk about slavery based on colour, or slavery based on circumstances such as war. When we talk about black slavery that is a phenomena in itself and something that was developed in the Caribean in the 17 th century. To understand this it is necessary to realize that slavery based on the colour of your skin was a new idea that came out of the unique circumstances in the Caribbean at the time. Before this no one had thought to base servitude on such an arbitrary thing. You could be a slave for any reason, mostly through capture in war or for criminal reasons, but your skin colour did not matter. Slavery was equal opportunities to put it in modern parlance.
Now, in the 17th century the small number of settlers found themselves on islands with increasing numbers of “servants”, workers etc as the sugar industry began to take off. Initially this was a dumping ground for Irish “rebels” and criminals sent as labour. Africans were few at first and no law based on colour existed so some who survived indenture became free and in rare cases even owned slaves themselves. However, the numbers of African and Irish transporters increased enormously under the Cromwellian republican regime and by 1660 s the settlers were in a panic, they were afraid of the increasing fraternization between their Irish and African servants/slaves so they looked for ways to keep them separate. The Irish were particularly threatening as they had military experience and a long history of resistance to the English settlers and, were they to combine with the numerically superior Africans the colonies could be eliminated.
Hence the response was the first explicit laws created in 1661 on Barbados declaring chattel slavery to be based on skin colour, and the other type of servants were to remain as indentured. Many of mixed origin now became chattel slaves by default. These laws spread throughout the Caribbean and into the southern United States creating the slavery based on colour and hence modern racism that we are so familiar with today. The Gaelic Irish were indeed forcibly transported and used as slave labour in the Caribbean, but the first generation immigrants escaped the colour laws, however their mixed descendants were not so lucky. Later Irish immigrants could be more socially mobile thanks to their skin colour. It is however ludicrous to use the Irish experience to negate the African one. Their experiences started out similar but diverged over time as the laws made to seperate them worked their magic as they continue to do to this day. people forget is that how it is now is not how if was then, many in the USA who think they are Irish are in fact descended from Scots or English settlers who were part of the suppression of native Irish and enslavement of Africans. And also populations are far more mixed than we now imagine.
You write well Dilean and raise very good points that clarify the situation on a confusing period of history.
Liam Hogan’s obsession with equating the concept of slavery explicity with the phenomenon of chattel slavery is so bizarre that he has argued Jewish victims of the Holocaust, branded subhuman and pressed into labour for the war economy were not actually slaves, but merely “forced labourers”
a gang of travellers kept homeless men in shabby conditions but fed them and provided them with food and work. they were jailed rightly for slavery! just because they were treated differently than others or some other Irish participated in the use of slaves the fact still remains the same!
Guys, in my primary school days I can remember a story studied of men who came ashore in rowboats, oars muffled by sacks, to a village in Cork who ransacked the place and took the residents “into slavery”. Can anyone else remember this? Does anyone know the event I’m referring to? Or the book that it came from?
After a bit of digging, I came up with the Sack of Baltimore. This was the event I was referring to. Barbary piracy predates the events in the article above. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore
So erm.. what about the people conscripted into Prussian service, after 1798. Then sent to the salt mines?
Yes indentured service on paper is not slavery. A lot of people used it to make a start in the new world. Yes Montserrat was peopled by Irish tobacco farmers. For a while the Irish of Montserrat rose in rebellion and were free. Is it totally beyond the bounds of reason to suppose that the Irish sold into servitude as Cromwellian prisoners had a particularly bad time of it
Also per Wikipedia Rhianna has Irish blood
http://www.joe.ie/life-style/rihanna-is-irish-really/8680
Indentured servitude occurred later and was preceded by large scale enslavement of the Irish in the 16th and early 17th century. Hundreds of thousands of Irish were actually sold into slavery as chattels, stop kidding yourselves.
Read……. To Hell or Barbados by Sean O’Callaghan…..The ethnic cleansing of Ireland…..good read. …
If anybody wants to read the real truth on how badly the Irish slaves were treated, try reading this book
To Hell or Barbados – Sean O’Callaghan
Just a note for the author, White Irish were force bred with black Africans. That is where the original word ‘Mulatto’ comes from. An indentured servant was a slave but normally had a deadline of several when they would become free. However, the tobacco/sugar planters didn’t not want to give them their freedom and they promised small patch of land so most were beaten or starved to death as they reached the end of their indenture.
Virginal Tobacco, when it was first created had white slave Irish working alongside the blacks. The Virginia museum has hundreds of copies of old warrants for runaway Irish slaves, offering reward for their capture.
A Quaker from Waterford named John Perrot dedicated his entire life attempting and buying thousands of Irish slaves freedom. A true Saint of the Irish. When he approached the Vatican for help, they fearing this new religion had him and his friend locked in a mad house until the intervention of King Charles. Instead of turning bitter he immediately returned to his life of trying to end Irish slavery. He died and is buried in a papist grave in Barbados.
This man did more to ease the horrific suffering of the Irish that we will ever know. RIP
Denying history to absolve yourself of the shame of defeat, ethnic cleansing and slavery does not do us, nor our ancestors, any service. Easy for glib historians to revise history with selected sources, but make no mistake, the Irish were treated like cattle, the only difference was that they could assimilate more easily if clever, in a way an African could not. Shoddy research, even worse assertion that somehow the experience was somehow less traumatic than the “other” experience.
An Irish politcal prisoner who arrive in Bababos and 1650 had not rights whatsoever. Also, many were isolated on isolated plantations where the laws of the land were probably not well known to the field work. Not every white person who ended up in Barbadoes had an endentured servant contract, or protection from the Anglocentric government. To this this way is ignorant. Where is the reference to the document that states that Irish “troublemakers” had any rights in Barbados. Many of the Irish, for some period of time, no matter the laws of the apologists, were defacto slaves. They could be beaten, raped and murdered without little of no recourse. Who would document thier rape, murder, and abuse? Not the English plantation owners,who were often the culprets. If the Irish were the sadisitic overseers this “historians” claim, they were still working for the man on Barbados: The English. To drag another island, with different laws, into this argument is not convincing. Some of the Irish were pretty much slaves, though because of the color of their skin, rape and intermarriage, they were able to morph into citizens with more standing, unlike the blacks. What is so fantastic is the shrill voices of those who claim the Irish were not slaves. Yes, they were, at least for a period of time on Barbados.
We Irish captured a British slave once upon a time.
He wasn’t much good at anything apart from throwing snakes into the sea and picking shamrocks.
A good mountain climber too.
We get a day off every 17th March because of him so at least he was some use to us.
To Hell or Barbados was debunked by a certain Liam Hogan. Check it out.
Do people honestly not know that the Irish made many a raid on English shores an capture slave’s to return to ireland for servitude …
Not on an industrial scale though ..
The book To Hell or Barbados was debunked by a certain Liam Hogan.
@Hamish McTaggart:
That would be Hogan the Informer! Nuff said!
Good day, Liam. This was definitely an interesting read and brings up a few valid points of contention, though as others have stated, the majority of those are around semantics. I have also noticed in your responses to comments that you often just state that something IS refuted, without actually giving sources or logic that shows that (to be fair, some of the comments have not done their fair share of specifically mentioning reliable authors/facts).
On that note, would you mind refuting, in detail the efforts and sources referenced in the following article: https://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/SLAVES.TXT
Thank you,
Eric
Indenture Collins English Dictionary definition below. There is a distinction and difference in the means of exploitation of the Irish and African “slaves”. Indentured or owned.
noun
1. any deed, contract, or sealed agreement between two or more parties
2. (formerly) a deed drawn up in duplicate, each part having correspondingly indented edges for identification and security
3. (often plural) a contract between an apprentice and his master
4. a formal or official list or certificate authenticated for use as a voucher, etc
5. a less common word for indentation
verb
6. (intransitive) to enter into an agreement by indenture
7. (transitive) to bind (an apprentice, servant, etc) by indenture
8. (transitive) obsolete to indent or wrinkle
have your say