Documentary on Irish Slaves in Barbados to air on TG4

[The Iceman]

The Red Legs of Barbados were a group of Irish Slaves whose descendants survive today in horrible conditions in Barbados.  Interesting article below if you have time to read it and a documentary on TV soon....

I WAS DELIGHTED that Caroline Walsh focused on the plight of Ireland's lost tribe, the Red Legs, in her article a couple of weeks ago on Barbados. This group, made up of the descendants of 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into the white slave trade between 1652 and 1659, have been largely ignored, apart from in Seán O'Callaghan's wonderful To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland , published almost 20 years ago.

They were innocent Irish people who were rounded up from across the country by teams of Oliver Cromwell's "man-catchers", bound in chains and shipped to Barbados to work on sugar plantations.

Their descendants are still there today – some of them in absolute poverty – isolated, unassimilated and uneducated. It is about time we acknowledge them, our beleaguered kinsmen, innocent victims first of British injustice, then of landlord cruelty and now of our lack of interest.

I've wanted to go out and visit them for a long time, and perhaps make a documentary about them, but I was warned off by O'Callaghan's stories of outsiders being driven away with hoes and pitchforks from the isolated, rundown settlements in which they live.

Thankfully, a braver group, Moondance Films, has made a documentary, which will be aired on TG4 soon. I'll be intrigued to find out what it learned. So little known is about the Red Legs. Like any oppressed people, they were too focused on survival to have had the luxury of documenting their history. Their connection with Ireland was cut off many centuries ago; their surnames were taken from them and they were forbidden to practise their faith. Perhaps all that remains is their red hair, freckles and blue eyes.

Most accounts refer to their arrogance and alcoholism. One describes them as "lazy, worthless drunks of unworthy Irish/Scots origin, who have neither ambition nor intelligence, yet are white and proud. They believe they are a cursed people."

Of course, some Red Leg families thrived when they were eventually emancipated, in 1834, when slavery was abolished. Illustrious island families such as the Mayers

and Goddards proudly trace their lineage back to slave ancestry, but most tend to be poorer than the black population. They farm smallholdings of sugar cane on the arid eastern coast of the island or live in Bridgetown, the capital, drinking in local grog shops or running white brothels for middle-class blacks.

I must stress that all of this is based mostly on rumour and on research done 20 years ago. We will know the truth only when TG4's documentary is aired.

In the meantime what we know is that Cromwell decreed that troublemakers – the poor, the hungry, clergy and Catholic landlords who refused to move to Connacht – be sent to Barbados. They were herded south into holding pens in Cork and Waterford, then crammed into African slave ships in chains. One in five died en route; those who survived were scrubbed in readiness for the slave mart. The women – nuns, soldiers' wives, Catholic gentry and teenagers – were stripped and checked for virginity. Good breeders were sold to studs, to make future slaves and brothel girls. The men were checked for muscle tone and strength of teeth, then branded with their owners' initials.

Ironically, the Irish are now returning to Barbados, the elite of Ireland's post-boom aristocracy – Desmond, Magnier, Smurfit, O'Reilly – converting old plantations into luxury resorts. Who knows how many of our ancestors were whipped to death right on the sites of these new pleasure palaces?

http://bajan.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/red-legs-in-barbados/

[Donagh]

Cheers Iceman.

Read an article in the IT about this last year when they were planning to make it. Have been looking out for it ever since.

[maddog]

read that "To Hell or Barbados", good book on a subject i have to say i knew nothing about.

[muppet]

read that "To Hell or Barbados", good book on a subject i have to say i knew nothing about.

http://www.eason.ie/look/9780863222870/To-Hell-or-Barbados/Sean-O-Callaghan

A must read book on a part of our history that is taught nowhere as far as I can see.

[carribbear]

Very interersting indeed. Plenty of Kellys, O'Connors, McCarthys etc in the caribbean who dont quite fit the usual profiles!

[ludermor]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k7t42

Not sure if anyone seen this programme? Taken from the bbc website.

The west coast of Barbados is known as a favourite winter destination for British tourists, ranging from the upmarket Sandy Lane resort to the all-drinks-included package holiday crowd arriving by economy class. Many will come from Scotland, but few will realise that just fourteen miles away on the rocky east side of the island live a community of McCluskies, Sinclairs and Baileys who are not, as might be expected, black Bajans bearing the family names given by slave owners centuries ago, but poor whites eking out a subsistence existence.

Known as the Redlegs, they are the direct descendants of the Scots transported to Barbados by Cromwell after the Civil War. Scottish author and broadcaster Chris Dolan went to meet them to discover why they are still here 350 years later, what they know about their roots, and what their prospects are today when they are the poorest community on the island.

Chris speaks to leading historians in Barbados and Scotland about how their ancestors were treated when they first arrived. Was their plight as severe as that of the black slaves from Africa? Nearly two centuries after emancipation, this Redleg community has yet to find a role on the island, where it is damned by association with the days of slavery, even though many of its forbears were victims themselves. In recent years, it has begun to come out of its racial isolation; could there yet be a hopeful future for this lost Scottish tribe?

[nrico2006]

Never knew anything about this, very interesting though.  Looking forward to the documentary.

[Hardy]

Aren't our own "travellers" also said by many (including themselves) also to be descended from those dispossessed by Cromwell. Presumably the contention is that they escaped being rounded up and transported.

I don't know if there's any truth in this (or in the other contentions I've heard that they are descended from evicted tenants of the 19th century or from people made destitute by the famine). Isn't it time we had some research on this?

[red hander]

Was in Montserrat a couple of years ago for St Paddy's ... you get your passport stamped with a shamrock and everyone's called Quinn or Kelly ...

There were three of us - a Dungannon man, an Ardoyne man and a Ballymun man.  Government House heard the three of us were on the island (it's a small place) and delivered hand-written invites to the governor's exclusive Paddy Day celebrations with all the great and the good ... needless to say the east Tyrone man and the north Belfast man, mindful of 800 years of oppression in our own land, refused point blank to hobnob with the British colonial establishment and didn't bother our holes going ... also needless to say, the Jackeen betrayed his people, went to the bash and got completely wrote off - we haven't let him forget it either 

[Roger]

What is a Jackeen? Is it the opposite of dinosaur or something?

[ludermor]

What is a Jackeen? Is it the opposite of dinosaur or something?

Its the first cousin of a rat

[muppet]

What is a Jackeen? Is it the opposite of dinosaur or something?

Known as Buddus Cheekius it is a member of the rodent family. 'True Jackeens' are members of the genus Rattus and share many characteristics with their cousins the Shiny Shelled Weasel.

The best known species is the Navy backed Jackeen seen in early summer in large numbers in around certain city parks but their numbers fall dramatically by late summer. Jackeens are often unfairly blamed for anti social behavior such as media hype and the Leaving Certificate but scholars now believe Jackeens have little connection with either.

[John C]

Damn again another Documentary I would love to watch.......... sure wish there was some way that i could watch RTE / TG4 ect here in london
If anyone know's of any Streams please PM link 

[thejuice]

www.tg4.tv

[Hound]

What is a Jackeen? Is it the opposite of dinosaur or something?

A non-saddo, with no chip on shoulder, who would gladly accept a hand of friendship from a stranger who is holding fesitivites to honour Ireland, rather than throw the kind invitation back in his face.