Ireland's slave-owning past, and present (part 1)

From 2009-2012, researchers at University College London embarked on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project — and out of this has grown the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBC).

This project, and the work being done at CSLBC is, in my opinion, some of the most important and necessary research work being carried out in academia (and more broadly) today. The research gives the general public the opportunity to easily search and view British families who participated in slave ownership in the Caribbean between the years 1763 and 1833. This allows those of us living in what was once “Britain” to map how our infrastructures, built heritage and communities of influence were sculpted by slave-ownership, and how white people profited and continue to profit from the legacies of slave-ownership.

Some context

The British Parliament abolished slavery in the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape in 1807. Instances like the Zong Massacre in 1781 (as dramatised in the excellent 2013 film Belle) undoubtedly galvanised the abolitionist movement in Britain - but the implementation of abolition was an incredibly slow-moving process, taking another 26 years from 1807 to effect the emancipation of the enslaved in 1833. Indeed, even after 1833, while most enslaved persons in the Caribbean were “freed” - many were forced into “apprenticeships” (akin to the indentured servitude¹ experienced by some white Irish) where they were tied into unfree labour for fixed terms.²

One of the terms of slave abolition in Britain in 1833 was the “compensation” of the loss of “property” to slave-owners, paid for by the British taxpayer. In all, £20 million was spent by the British Treasury in 1833 - equating to approximately £2,150,000,000 in currency today.

British taxpayers (this includes myself when resident and working in Northern Ireland) repaid this debt to the Treasury in 2015.

A replica of the Zong, an 18th-century enslaver's ship, sailing past Tower Bridge, London. https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/zong-massacre-trial/

Reparations

From now on in this post, I will be calling these “compensations” by their rightful name - reparations. I do this specifically to rebuke the outcry of racist tropes that sees white people shriek and stomp their feet when the merest mention of reparations for African-Americans in the United States occurs. Research from the Pew Research Centre has found that, “three-in-ten U.S. adults say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way, such as given land or money. About seven-in-ten (68%) say these descendants should not be repaid.”³ This majority figure against reparations is despite the fact that we can see how from political dynasties to the individual on the street, swathes of whites profited from slave-owning and reparations - with Dr. Nick Draper from UCL going as far to term the applications for reparations in the 1830s as a “feeding frenzy.”⁴

In the twenty-first century, institutional and infrastructural discrimination still exists - for example, school buses in the United States are often not routed through predominantly Black areas, depriving children of access to education.⁵ This actively harms communities that already face disproportionate poverty and hardship due to racism. In a British context, a 2024 report critiquing the English national curriculum highlights the higher rates of BAME children being suspended from schools compared with white British students⁶ as well as the legal duty on the part of schools to tackle racism - which is not being done.

When we consider these ongoing inequalities, the call for reparations - especially when contrasted with the excessive wealth accumulation by slave owners in the 1830s - is not a radical demand. While the fight for reparations has not yet made it to the contemporary British mainstream consciousness, you can read more about the NAACP’s vision for reparations here.

Ireland’s enthusiastic participation in colonialism and white supremacy

Ireland, as a small country on the westernmost coast of Europe often aligns itself with the oppressed when it comes to global strife and brutality. We see it currently in the case of our solidarity with Palestine - I have been at fundraising and awareness-raising events in Dublin where white Irish people have come up on the stage and declared that we know exactly what the Palestinians are experiencing because of our own experiences with British colonialism.

It’s true, the history of the island of Ireland is one full of oppression, violence, killing, forced emigration and suffering. I do think as a people, we are political (especially northerners) and our general distrust of, for example, the police, is a by-product of our history - knowing that State actors can harm, can break humanitarian laws, and can order and cover up State-sanctioned killings.

It is possible however, for Ireland to have been a victim of the colonial project - as well as an enthusiastic participant in it.

For, as much as we were one of the first blueprints for settler-colonialism, it is important to remember that we white Irish were also profiting heftily from the jobs and opportunities afforded by colonisation and its bedfellow, white supremacy. Take for example, this typical white Irish emigrant story - Irish folk fleeing Ireland in search of a better life. Francis Rogan, son of Hugh Rogan originally of Urney, Co. Tyrone, is one such emigrant.

In an excellent blog for the Ulster American Folk Park, curator Liam Corry writes:

In 1860, Francis Rogan possessed legal ownership of 71 enslaved individuals, making him one of the most prolific enslavers in the state of Tennessee at the time. The value of his real estate was calculated at $46,600 and the value of his personal property, including those he enslaved, was valued at a further $46,030. Collectively, this would equate to over $3 million in today's money.

As is usual, the Ulster American Folk Park purchased and brought the Rogan homestead back to Ireland, piece by piece, so that it could feature in the immersive open-air museum that visitors can walk around. Corry writes, “when the house was being dismantled in order to relocate it to the Ulster American Folk Park, two bricks were discovered to have a handprint and a footprint on them. It is likely that these were left behind by enslaved children.”

Red brick with imprint of child's hand, OMAFP.2023.5.1

The Rogan story is not an unique one. Many Irish emigrants who emigrated to slave-owning nations became slave-owners themselves, and by embedding themselves into the police in the United States, as well as acquiescing to the racist hierarchies of America, they abandoned any notion of solidarities with those people who experienced similar oppressions to them and punched down on persons of colour - enthusiastically embracing the privileges afforded by their whiteness.

White Irish exceptionalism

But what of the imprint of slavery on the island of Ireland? The family-friendly Westport House made its fortunes through slavery - as evidenced by the two front doors of the building being made of Jamaican mahogany.

The Westport House museum lauds the history of owner, Howe Browne, the 2nd Marquess of Sligo - calling him a heroic “emancipator.” That is, until we dig deeper and note how Dr Ciaran O’Neill, Ussher Associate Professor in the Nineteenth-century History of Ireland at TCD, clarifies the Browne family’s role in slavery: “the idea that Browne was at the forefront of the abolition campaign is a rank overstatement of his interest in this debate, which he shamelessly endorsed out of political nous rather than from any real altruistic impulse […] It is not as if he gave the people of Jamaica back their money or atoned for the generations of enslaved people that were worked to death under his family’s watchful Irish attorneys and overseers.”⁷

It seems white Irish exceptionalism - where we know what the Palestinians are going through and the Irish were slaves too - has engrained itself in how we see ourselves and our histories. And with Trump’s recent declaration of March as “Irish-American History month,” clearly in a bid to pit the white Irish emigrant experience against that of Black History Month (in a world where Black histories and Critical Race Theory have been actively banned), there’s really no clearer indication of white Irish victimhood.

Perhaps the true nature of the white Irish experience comes from Trump’s own mouth: “they voted for me, so I like them.”

Legacies of slavery in Ireland

Instead of calling ourselves emancipators and “Champions of the Slaves,” we could instead talk about Charles McGarel, of Larne, Co. Antrim. McGarel’s profits from slavery resulted in the building of Larne Town Hall and his brother (and fellow slave-owner) Peter donated to the construction of the railway line between Belfast and Ballymena.

The McGarel Larne Town Hall

So, the next time you’re sitting on the train heading up to the north coast, know that the monies used to create the line come directly from slave-owning profits. Better yet, you can visit Magheramorne Estate - you can even get married there! - and enjoy the same sumptuous surroundings Charles McGarel did when he lived there.

In order to get a real sense of the presence of slave-owning in Ireland, more needs to be done to highlight the infrastructures, buildings and social and economic dynasties that got their funds from slave-labour.

Using the University College London Legacies of British Slave-ownership project, I devised a walking tour of Dublin City Centre to profile some of the physical reminders the city has of its slave-owning past, and its presence today.

In my next blog post, I will detail that route and the persons profiled: persons ranging from Anglo-Irish investors to Catholic merchants, clergymen, wealthy widows and chancers. The range of people illustrate how deeply embedded Irish society was in slave-ownership in the Caribbean in the 1800s - and how the payment of reparations plots a distinct map that demolishes any notion that the white Irish were somehow exceptional and did not participate in the spoils of the work of colonialism and white supremacy.

1. Trinity College Dublin (2019) The myth of the Irish slave, white supremacy and social media. Available at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/news/2019/the-myth-of-the-irish-slave-white-supremacy-and-social-media/ (Accessed: 05 March 2025).

2. For more information about the context of the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean, see: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/project/context

3. Blazina, C. (2022) Black and White Americans are far apart in their views of reparations for slavery, Pew Research Center. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/11/28/black-and-white-americans-are-far-apart-in-their-views-of-reparations-for-slavery/ (Accessed: 08 February 2025).

4. NAARC. (2021) Britain’s colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition, National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). Available at: https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition/ (Accessed: 08 February 2025).

5. Browne-Marshall, G.J. (2019) 20 years after busing ended, schools are again segregated, Time. Available at: https://time.com/5673555/busing-school-segregation/ (Accessed: 08 February 2025).

6. Gov.uk. (2024) Suspensions. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/absence-and-exclusions/pupil-exclusions/latest/ (Accessed 08 March 2025).

7. O’Neill, Ciaran. (2020). Not So Innocent, The Dublin Review. Available at: https://drb.ie/articles/not-so-innocent/ (Accessed 08 March 2025).