Open letter to Irish Central, Irish Examiner and Scientific American about their “Irish slaves” disinformation
To whom it may concern,
As you are aware, the Irish Central, Irish Examiner (since removed) and Scientific American (since revised) websites currently host articles about the allegedly “forgotten white Irish slaves.”
- Irish Central, “Irish are ‘the forgotten white slaves’ claims expert”, 27 March 2015
- Irish Central, “Irish roots in the Caribbean run deep”, 20 November 2015
- Irish Examiner, “100,000 Irish children sold for slavery during 1650s”, 29 January 2013 (update: article has been removed without explanation)
- Scientific American, “It’s True: We’re Probably All a Little Irish — Especially in the Caribbean”, 17 March 2015 (update: article has been revised with explanation)
The Irish Central and Irish Examiner articles quoted extensively from an op-ed article published on the “Global Research” website based in Canada. This website supports the 9/11 Truther movement and its “Irish slaves” article, apparently authored by John Martin for opednews.com, is an exercise in racist ahistorical propaganda. The Scientific American blog used an older and equally ahistorical article from a Kavanagh family genealogy site. This blog post entitled “Irish slaves in Caribbean” was evidently an important source for the “Global Research” article.
It is imperative that newspapers and scientific journals aim for truth and accuracy in everything they publish. It is thus our duty, as historians, scholars and interested parties, to inform your shareholders and your customers that you have failed to carry out any semblance of fact-checking on this particular article. More damaging still is that your promotion of it, for a number of years, has added a veneer of credibility to what is a well known white nationalist conspiracy theory more commonly found on Neo-Nazi and Neo-Confederate forums.
Journalism and scholarly historical research differ in various ways but they share one thing in common. If they are not based on reliable sources, they are worthless. Readers who may not be privy to the source of the information will likely take it at face value. Sometimes, the result is merely misinformation, but more dangerously, it can be used disingenuously to propagate a political myth. Scholarly articles undergo a process of peer review to make sure that they are evidence based and accurate. We do not expect newspapers to exercise the same level of rigour but a degree of common sense is called for since lifting material from such websites, which have no sources and are written by an unknown author, is poor journalistic practice.
Furthermore we are deeply disturbed to find that the Irish Central article (shared on social media over 150,000 times) asserts in its headline that this “Irish slaves” disinformation comes from an “expert” source. What underlines this baseless claim is the fact that every single line of the quoted article is a distortion, or a fabrication or an egregious exaggeration. We will not go through the inaccuracy of each line here, that is your responsibility, but we will ask you two questions. Do you, the editors of Irish Central and the Irish Examiner (update: now withdrawn) stand over the claim that an “Irish Slave Trade” was abolished in 1839? Or that “Irish slaves”, not enslaved Africans, were the victims of the Zong Massacre?
The intent of the article is thus patently clear; to insidiously equate indentured servitude or penal servitude with racialised perpetual hereditary chattel slavery. This is an obscene rhetorical move which decontextualises and dehistoricises the exploitation of both groups. There have been many different forms of slavery, across space and time. That is not the issue here. We are addressing the mainstream endorsement of a growing white nationalist campaign built on the reductionist fallacy of “slavery is slavery” which is inevitably used to justify racism in the present. For example, the spurious “we went through the same thing, but we don’t complain” sentiment which is now frequently deployed to silence debate and to mock demands for justice and truth-telling.
This has little to do with remembering the brutality of indentured servitude and all to do with the minimisation of the scale, duration and legacy of the transatlantic and intercolonial slave trade. The racist contemporary application of such bad history can be observed spreading like a virus across social media on an hourly basis.
Thus your mainstream endorsement of this distorted version of history has consequences. We therefore call on you to revise these articles, to correct the errors and to remove the false claims.
Signed
Susan Dwyer Amussen, Professor of History, University of California, Merced
Ana Lucia Araujo, Professor of History, Howard University
Catherine Barry, Historian and Philosopher, Kildare
Stephanie Boland, PhD candidate and editor, London
Rodney Breen, Archivist, Dublin
Dr. Margaret Brehony, President of Society for Irish Latin American Studies (SILAS)
Dr Conrad Brunstrom, Maynooth University
Emma Burns, Doctoral Researcher, CDLP, NUI Galway
Dean Buckley, Poet, Tipperary
Susan Campbell, retired prof. of Caribbean History, Vancouver, Canada
Dr Brian Carey, Researcher, University of Limerick
Jasmine Chorley, MGA Candidate, University of Toronto
Alexis Coe, Author, New York
Zoe Coleman, BA Hist (UCD), MLitt Art Hist (Glas), Dublin
Aidan Connolly, Engineer, Cork
Patrick Corbett BA, Galway
Laurence Cox, Lecturer, Maynooth University
Gerard Cunningham, Freelance journalist, Kildare
Patrick Denny, Adjunct Prof. of Electronic Engineering, NUI Galway
Dr Seán Patrick Donlan, University of the South Pacific
Dr Timothy R. Dougherty, Assistant Professor of English, West Chester University of PA
Paul Duane, Producer/Director, Screenworks, Dublin
Dr Katherine Ebury, Lecturer in Modern Literature, University of Sheffield.
Professor Bryan Fanning, University College Dublin
Ciarán Ferrie MRIAI, Rathmines, Dublin
Luke Field, PhD candidate and Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin
Dr Graham Finlay, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin
Stephanie Fleming B.Sc, Dublin
Tom Gallagher, History Postgraduate, University College Cork
Ultan Gannon, International Politics and Philosophy, UCD
David T. Gleeson, Professor of American History, Northumbria University.
Peter Gray, Professor of Modern Irish History, Queen’s University Belfast
Michael Guasco, Associate Professor of History, Davidson College, North Carolina
Johanna Haban, MA student in Gaelic Literature, University College Cork
Dr Brendan Halpin, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Limerick
Dr Brian Hanley, Historian, Dublin
Felicity Hayes-McCoy, Writer, Dingle, Co. Kerry
Domhnall Hegarty, MA Irish History, Saint Louis University
Liam Hogan, Independent Scholar and Librarian, Limerick
Matt Horton, Graduate student, UC Berkeley
Housemaid and The Fear (Helsinki, London, Dublin)
Professor Liam Irwin, Head of History (Rtd), Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
Evan Jones, Goldsmiths, University of London
Karst de Jong, PhD candidate, Queen’s University Belfast
Liz Loveland, Independent Researcher, Boston, Massachusetts
Dr Neil Kennedy, Associate Professor of Atlantic History, Memorial University, Newfoundland
Dr Sharon L Krossa, Scottish Medieval Historian, California
Naomi McArdle, Adare, Co. Limerick
Dr Laura McAtackney, Associate Professor in Sustainable Heritage Management (Archaeology), Århus University, Denmark
Kate McCabe, Director of Éist, Brooklyn, New York
Sarah McCrann, London
Dr Ken McDonagh, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
Simon McGarr, Solicitor, Dublin
Maria McGarrity, Ph.D, Professor of English, Long Island University
Thérèse McIntyre, Independent Oral Historian, NUI Galway
Patricia McIsaac, Teacher, Boston Massachusetts
Conor McLoughlin, BA Sci (TCD)BA English Phil (UCD), Dublin
Carly McNamara, MSc Medieval History, University of Edinburgh
Dr Damian Mac Con Uladh, Historian and journalist, Corinth, Greece
Erin MacLeod, PhD, Vanier College, Montréal, QC, Canada
Adrian Martyn, Independent Scholar, Galway
Dr Lucy Michael, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Ulster
Dr Joss Moorkens, Researcher, Dublin City University
John Moynes, Writer, Dublin
Dr John Mulloy, Lecturer in Art History, Heritage and Applied Social Studies, GMIT Galway & Mayo
Ruaidhrí Mulveen, Galway
Maeve O’Brien, PhD Candidate, Ulster University
Tomás Ó Brógáin, BA Hons Irish History and Politics, Ulster University
Aileen O’Carroll, Irish Qualitative Data Archive, Maynooth University
Carrie O’Connell, Lecturer of Media Studies, San Diego State University
John O’Donovan, Independent Scholar, Cork
Terry O’Hagan, Researcher, University College Dublin
Nicole O’Loughlin, Northwell Health Systems, New York
Dr John Ó Néill, Head of Lifelong Learning, IT Tallaght, Dublin
Dr Sean Phelan, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, Massey University, Wellington
Dr Juan J Ponce-Vázquez, Assistant Professor of History, University of Alabama
Dr Niamh Puirséil, Historian, Dublin
Dr Stephanie Rains, Media Studies Dept, Maynooth University
Dr. Robert L. Reece, Duke University, North Carolina
Dr Joe Regan, History Dept., NUI Galway
Dr Matthew Reilly, Brown University, Rhode Island
F. Stuart Ross, Political Historian, Queen’s University Belfast
Ms Ebony Ryan, Dun Laoghaire
Zoé Samudzi, Writer and Academic, University of California San Francisco
Barry Sheppard, Post Graduate scholar, Queen’s University Belfast
David Sim, Lecturer in US History, University College London
Sharon Slater, Historian (MA), Limerick
Catherine Sloan, D. Phil researcher, Oxford University
Dr Sheamus Sweeney, Lecturer in Film and Television, Boston University Dublin Programs
Dr Robert Taber, University of Florida
Dr Gavan Titley, Lecturer in Media Studies, Maynooth University
Michael W. Twitty, Culinary Historian, Washington D.C.
Natasha Varner, PhD, Historian and Writer, Duwamish Territory/Seattle, WA
Dr Brian Vaughan, Lecturer and Course Chair MSc Creative Digital Media, DIT, Dublin
Haydyn Williams, Independent Archaeologist and researcher (former RCAHMS & British Museum), Scotland
Professor Patricia Wood, York University, Toronto, Canada
Catherine Walsh, poet, Independent scholar, teacher, Limerick
Cormac Watters, MA, London
