Since the mid-16th century there have been small numbers of Black people resident in Ireland, mainly concentrated in the major towns, especially Dublin. Many of those in the 18th century were servants of wealthy families. There were other Africans in Ireland who were not slaves, notably Olaudah Equiano (also spelled Olauda Ikwuano), who not only lived in Belfast, but wrote and self-published best selling accounts of his experience in and with slavery.
Lord Edward FitzGerald was saved in 1781 by Tony Small, a freed slave, after the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Small returned with Lord Edward to Ireland, and in 1786 his portrait was painted by John Roberts.
Black slavery was rare in Ireland at this date, although the legal position remained unclear until a judgement in England in 1772, the Somersett's Case. Others were tradesmen, soldiers, travelling artists or musicians. Never very numerous, most of them were assimilated into the larger population by the second third of the 19th century.
Famous quotes containing the words black, people and/or ireland:
“Every time I embrace a black woman I’m embracing slavery, and when I put my arms around a white woman, well, I’m hugging freedom. The white man forbade me to have the white woman on pain of death.... I will not be free until the day I can have a white woman in my bed.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)
“The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better.... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That’s not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It’s just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.”
—Dodie Smith, and Lewis Allen. Roderick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland)