A brand new exhibition at Epic, Dublin’s Irish emigration museum, explores connections between Ireland and the Caribbean. Entangled Islands goals to inform “the tales of a variety of Irish individuals who traversed and settled within the Caribbean”, whereas additionally outlining “our intersecting histories of colonisation and resistance”.
The exhibition was partly impressed by rising tutorial analysis into connections between Ireland and the Caribbean within the final 20 years. Such analysis, because the exhibition explains, “complicates understandings of the Irish diaspora as a traditionally marginalised individuals”. The extent of this scholarship is obvious throughout the exhibition, though the tone is accessible all through.
One outstanding theme is a reevaluation of Ireland’s function within the transatlantic slave commerce. The subject has beforehand been tackled in books corresponding to Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1812-1965 by Nini Rodgers (2007) and Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean (2023), edited by Finola O’Kane and Ciaran O’Neill.
Trailer for Entangled Islands.
The exhibition focuses primarily on the tales of particular person Irish individuals within the Caribbean, with some restricted exploration of the broader context. While there are references to the positions of energy many Irish individuals held below the colonial system, the extent of this truth – or its brutalities – don’t occupy a big portion of the exhibition.
For instance, an early panel explores Howe Peter Browne, the second marquess of Sligo, who turned governor of Jamaica in 1834. This is a big date on condition that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was coming into impact when he arrived.
The exhibition makes a lot of the truth that Browne must implement the brand new legal guidelines of the act, which required the “previously” enslaved over the age of six to work 40.5 hours unpaid per week for 4 to 6 years. It notes that, Browne, like different enslavers, obtained compensation for lack of “property”, whereas additionally mentioning that Browne supported abolition.
Images on the panel of enslaved individuals struggling punishment on a treadmill and Brown’s ancestral house, Westport House in Mayo, are suggestive of the interrelationship between the horrors of enslavement and the Irish higher lessons. Though nothing within the accompanying textual content makes this express.
Browne is positioned in a post-emancipation framework and portrayed considerably positively, removed from the best way he’s described by Finola O’ Kane as a “less-than-mature” marquess, with “a combined status as an bettering landlord”.
The Irish slave delusion
The exhibition is extra express is in its dialogue of the “Irish slave” delusion. This refers to a web-based misinformation meme that falsely claims Irish individuals have been enslaved within the Americas however have managed to succeed, however.
As one exhibition panel explains, the parable “persists within the face of opposite proof”. The exhibition declares that: “White nationalists and racists, specifically, have seized on the parable in an try and undermine the distinctive struggling of enslaved Africans.”
The power of this assertion is notable, however maybe as a result of the meme stays hottest in North American territories, quite than within the UK and Ireland, a way of distance permits for such unequivocal language.
There is a detailed consideration to language throughout the exhibition, such because the constant use of “enslaved”, instead of “slave(s)”. This is welcome and displays reconsiderations, each in academia and past, of the extent to which the transatlantic slave commerce was foundational to the making of contemporary Europe.
The layered meanings of “entangled” within the exhibition’s title are evident within the exploration of a variety of connections from journalistic, to literary, in addition to enslavement and colonialism.
At the identical time, because the exhibition exhibits, there have been moments of solidarity between Ireland and the Caribbean, areas related by their colonial pasts. Abolitionists corresponding to Dubliner James Field Stanfield and Belfast man Thomas McCabe characteristic prominently, the latter ensuing an all-island perspective is included.
The go to in 1791 of Olaudah Equiano, a previously enslaved man whose memoir would turn into a key textual content for the abolitionist motion in Britain, can also be described.
Elsewhere, Entangled Islands has fascinating tales to inform about particular individuals from Ireland within the Caribbean. There’s journalist James O’Kelly and his time in Cuba. And Kay Donnellan and Eleanor Frances Cahill, academics from Ireland who turned concerned within the nation’s labour motion. There’s additionally a nod in the direction of Che Guevara’s Irish heritage, through his grandmother.
Towards the tip of the exhibition, there’s a flip in the direction of literature. Figures corresponding to St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and former poet laureate of Jamaica Lorna Goodison are showcased as poets who’ve drawn inspiration from Irish writers corresponding to James Joyce and W.B. Yeats.
The exhibition ends with a video of 4 younger combined heritage Caribbean-Irish individuals speaking about hyperlinks between the 2 areas. They talk about each the racism they expertise in Ireland and the fascinating factors of contact they discover right here with the Caribbean, from language to music. It is each joyous and confronting in equal measures and is a crucial addition to the story.
On the entire, it is a obligatory and worthwhile exhibition that has fascinating tales to inform concerning the Irish within the Caribbean, which are sometimes not broadly identified. More stress might have been positioned on the portrayal of Irish enslavers, however however, guests are prone to come away with a contemporary perspective. Entangled Islands is a well-researched, fascinating exhibition that ends by echoing the concept of Irish and Caribbean entanglement into the current day.
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Ellen Howley doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.