Part 1: Propaganda

What “Irish slavery” myths have Irish Central promoted for approx five years?

Niall O’Dowd and Irish Central promote the following claims made in a Global Research article which they first publicised on their website in 2012. Irish Central present this bogus “history” to their readers as coming from an “expert” source.

That an “Irish slave trade” operated from 1625 to 1839. A different Irish Central article states that it was initiated in 1612.

That “the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did.”

That “Ireland was the greatest victim of [the] British slave trade…” (the sub-heading of a 2013 iteration)

That “Irish slaves” were treated “worse” than enslaved Africans.

That “Irish slaves” were “cheaper” than enslaved Africans.

That Irish women were forced to breed with enslaved African men.

That this “forced breeding” practice “was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.”

That “if a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime.”

That “Irish slaves” were the victims of the Zong Massacre.

That “Irish slaves” were “burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives”

That “70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves”

That Ireland was “the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants.”

That “the majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white”

That from 1641 to 1652 “300,000 [Irish people] were sold as slaves”

That the use of the term “indentured servitude” is part of a conspiracy to cover up a history of “white slavery”

That the Irish are “the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot”

That the unknown author of this ahistorical propaganda, the content of which was mostly plagiarised from a blog published by an Irish American in 2003, is an “expert” on the history of slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic world.

I’ve debunked and contextualised each of these baseless claims in a seven-part series which you can find here (see articles № 6–12)

Therefore this is not a case of “far-right groups” co-opting Irish history. This is a case of a general public (mainly white America) adopting and deploying ahistorical propaganda promoted by Irish Central et al.

This is not a situation where a “historic reality” is “being taken over by white racists.”

This is a case of Irish Americans being prompted by the Irish Central media company to adopt and disseminate the myth that Irish people experienced the horrors of chattel slavery as much as African people and their descendants did in Colonial America and the United States.

This is a case of Irish Americans being grossly misinformed by the Irish Central media company that an “expert” said “Ireland was the greatest victim of the British slave trade” despite the fact that (a) there was no “Irish slave trade” and (b) British slavers brought approximately 5.5 million enslaved Africans into their Caribbean colonies over a 180 year period.

Note the original Irish Central subheading: “Ireland was the greatest victim of British slave trade…”

Irish Central editors describe their source as “expert”

Irresponsible and incompetent editorial decisions led to Irish Central presenting this bogus history to its readers as coming from an expert source. They remain the only website to append “expert” to this article which was an unforgivable deception that needed to be rectified years ago. Undoubtedly many people who trusted this website enthusiastically shared the article with their friends and family as they assumed the editor was competent and had verified that the author was indeed authoritative in this area. Irish Central editors simply did not bother to do the research, did not trouble themselves to check the veracity of their sources, did not care about the racism it was provoking in their comment sections, did not ask a historian for advice, and did not act when their error was pointed out. They just published, re-published, promoted and thus continued to reinforce this false narrative, the consequences be damned. For one of their editors and founder to continue to stand over these fabrications and exaggerations while attempting to anoint himself a defender of the integrity of Irish history is as contemptible as it is laughable.

The call is coming from inside the house

By doubling down on their original article Irish Central have now committed themselves to the signal boost of a false historical and moral equivalence of black chattel slavery with white servitude to a mainstream audience. From here it is inevitably and continually mainlined into everyday debates (both online and offline) to derail discussions and delegitimise the history and legacies of American slavery i.e. racism and socio-economic inequality. The end result is all too often the seepage of a “slavery is slavery” reductionist fallacy into popular consciousness, which is then used reflexively to equate the transatlantic slave trade and centuries of racialised perpetual hereditary chattel slavery with indentured or penal servitude.

Thus it has been through ignorance, stubbornness and amateurism, rather than ideology or intent, that Irish Central have aided the far-right by acting as a bullhorn for this particular piece of bad history.

Compare the rhetoric of the American neo-Nazi leader Kevin Alfred Strom who stated that the

“Living and labor conditions for Black slaves, bad as they often were, were usually far better than those for White slaves”

with Irish Central who claim that the

“…the treatment of Irish slaves was thought to be more cruel than that of African slaves. If an Irish slave was beaten by their owner, it wasn’t considered to be a crime.”

Compare the “Irish slaves” propaganda published by the Holocaust denial journal The Barnes Review in 2013

“You think blacks had it tough with slavery in the Americas? Even tougher was the fate of Irish men, women and children forced across the Atlantic Ocean and into bondage on these shores.”

with the article that Irish Central have promoted for five years

“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.”

Irish Central are thus partly responsible for the heightened visibility of this base propaganda, which represents one of the most significant cases of the historical negationism of the transatlantic slave trade on record. The editorial decision to stand over this poison masquerading as “history” for five years (and counting) is indefensible and unconscionable.

Irish Central are also partly responsible for making this bad history more difficult to tackle by promoting the associated conspiracy theory that denounces a grand “cover-up” of “white slavery” in Colonial America. The propaganda they have promoted wraps its exaggerations around a paranoid conspiracy theory which encourages those inculcated to shun history books, historians and academics. Thus anyone clarifying or refuting its falsehoods is then instantly deemed to be part of the conspiracy. This makes debate difficult, if not impossible.

The result is that there are now many people out there, who are not neo-Nazis or even associated with the extreme right, parroting a far-right talking point about chattel slavery and defending it using the same internal logic as far-right ideologues.

Surveying the impact of Irish Central’s propaganda

What happened when Irish Central shared this ahistorical “Irish slaves” article on numerous occasions on their social media channels between 2012 and 2016? It provoked a reaction that was invariably angry, resentful and racist. I’ve transcribed a sample of the more overt racist comments that were left when it was shared on the Irish Central Facebook page on 29 September 2014 and 28 March 2015. The anti-black racist vitriol of these individuals revealed itself in reaction to the propaganda that these social media users were consuming on the Irish Central site and social media channels.

Sample of the transcription

“Tell that to the blacks.”

“Send that to black America!”

“Proud the Irish overcame and moved on. Unlike others.”

“You don’t hear us crying about it!”

“Maybe we should loot and riot every time a black person commits a crime on us……oh wait we’re civilized.”

“You don’t hear us blaming this generation (just saying)”

“I have always said this, you don’t hear the Irish whining about it, or using it to get pity!”

“Irish don’t use their backgrounds as some do to get free rides.”

“See and you don’t hear me crying about that….”

“You don’t hear any of the [Irish] descendants staying in the slave mode.”

“Irish are civil about it, not victim Americans.”

“Irish let it go unlike others, it’s all over now, baby blue!”

“A lot of blacks need to think about that for a while! And, NO! You are not special!!!”

“We’re too busy working to play the slave card lol”

“Sometimes [they] would put the Irish in the lower deck under [the] black slaves.”

“White people was sold on the block before blacks come into the USA. So suck it up, stop your crying and go to work [and] stop asking for handouts.”

“What about my pay? I had more enslaved relatives than any black did.”

“The Irish are too proud to use their past history as a crutch… they learned from the past, worked hard, got educated, bought their own land and the rest is just ‘history’.”

“So it’s agreed that black & white slaves were treated unjustly. But there is a difference between the two, hundreds of years later the whites aren’t burning down towns and calling for police blood.”

“Now! Black people, read this and still contend that you are the only ones being persecuted.”

“Yet you do not see us acting the way some other races act over slavery that took place several hundred years ago.”

“Every time someone mentions the race/slavery card we should point out this bit of information!! where’s my check!?! lol”

“We the Americans of IRISH descent have been proven to be treated worse than the African Americans Slaves and sold much more of us “white slaves” !!! But, do you hear this mentioned in history books or talked about amongst our children! NO! You do Not Hear a Freaking word of this un-justice and yet we are always plagued by the name racist!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!”

“Blacks have laid claim to being persecuted and they have….. But they still keep living it playing the race/slave card. Level the playing field, it’s not a colored thing, so get over yourselves, it’s HISTORY.”

“And the Irish are too proud the lay around expecting for the world to take care of them. I don’t think there’s any Al Sharpton’s they can run to when somebody “offends” them.”

“I had an argument with a Rastafarian one day. He couldn’t believe our people were slaves in the Caribbean long before the Africans, except we don’t want pity from anyone.”

“The ones who want reparations are sitting around collecting welfare funded by the taxes paid for by the rest of us.”

“So do you hear us whining for compensation for the hell our Irish ancestors went through? No.”

“Never heard one Irish child (I know many) ranting in the streets, marching with signs reminding us all of their ancestors who were slaves. We have black history month, why not Irish history month??? Whites must suffer in silence…”

“Absolutely true! More white slaves in America than blacks when the Civil War started. Far worse treatment than black slaves because they sold for 1/5th as much.”

“You will never see that on telly…the blacks would rise up…they lay claim to being the only slaves ever in history…poor poor them.”

Full list of comments transcribed here