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  • #16
    Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
    Cork was not a slave hub. It was a convict hub. Subtle differences.
    The Irish merchants built fine homes on the Île Feydeau, which still stand today, but the profits were spread far beyond Nantes: they made fortunes for the ports of Bristol, Liverpool and Amsterdam. To their great credit, the merchants of Belfast, under the future United Irishman William Putnam McCabe, refused to take part in the inhuman slave trade. However, the merchant princes of Cork, Limerick and Waterford profited by victualling the ships, feeding the slavers and slaves alike to great reward and family fortune. Huge family fortunes were built in Cork, the city centre was rebuilt and some of those dynasties that were built on the backs and bellies of millions of slaves are still with us today. And so it went on for decades, with the wealth of nations and Empires built up on unimaginable human misery.

    From a book by Joe O’Shea

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    • #17
      Originally posted by CTU View Post
      The problem I have with this is where do you stop?
      Slavery didn't just start after the discovery of America, Do you get rid of statues of the various Roman Emperors that are around the world, and what about the monuments around the world that were built by Slave Labour in Ancient Times. It's a lot more complicated then what people think but I can see this turning into a History vs Modern argument in the same way that Science vs Religion did in the past.
      According to the UK based NGO Anti-Slavery International and backed up by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch there are more people enslaved today than ever. Some 25 million which is twice the Colonial era slave trade that spanned 4 centuries.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by Anzac View Post
        According to the UK based NGO Anti-Slavery International and backed up by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch there are more people enslaved today than ever. Some 25 million which is twice the Colonial era slave trade that spanned 4 centuries.
        Indeed.

        You could contend that if somebody genuinely cared about slavery (as opposed to merely being seen to care about it), they'd focus their energies on this, rather than on the events of two hundred years ago.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
          Cork was not a slave hub. It was a convict hub. Subtle differences.
          Often, you know, the difference was in name only.

          Thousands from Ireland and the UK were sent to Australia as convicts for such crimes as stealing a loaf of bread.

          The punishment was clearly disproportionate in these cases, but it didn't matter - expendable labour was needed to build infrastructure in the new colony.

          I'm not sure what prominent figures were responsible for this policy - if statues of them exist though, I somehow doubt that anybody today will be agitating for those ones to be torn down.

          There'd just be no cachet in it.
          Last edited by FCA Trooper; 12 June 2020, 07:03.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Anzac View Post
            According to the UK based NGO Anti-Slavery International and backed up by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch there are more people enslaved today than ever. Some 25 million which is twice the Colonial era slave trade that spanned 4 centuries.
            You're spot on. I've been working with this group for 5 years now - https://www.stopthetraffik.org/. We've struggled to get State and Non State organisations to display any level of interest. If people devoted 10% of the energy currently being expended on historic angst and applied it to this problem we could help millions of real people today. The data flows on human trafficking are terrifying and Dublin is a significant location for financial transfers associated with this trade.
            “The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.”
            ― Thucydides

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            • #21
              Originally posted by sofa View Post
              The Irish merchants built fine homes on the Île Feydeau, which still stand today, but the profits were spread far beyond Nantes: they made fortunes for the ports of Bristol, Liverpool and Amsterdam. To their great credit, the merchants of Belfast, under the future United Irishman William Putnam McCabe, refused to take part in the inhuman slave trade. However, the merchant princes of Cork, Limerick and Waterford profited by victualling the ships, feeding the slavers and slaves alike to great reward and family fortune. Huge family fortunes were built in Cork, the city centre was rebuilt and some of those dynasties that were built on the backs and bellies of millions of slaves are still with us today. And so it went on for decades, with the wealth of nations and Empires built up on unimaginable human misery.

              From a book by Joe O’Shea
              Now without reading the book I'm reluctant to comment, but most of the "Merchant Princes" of Cork came from a Quaker Background, to whom slavery (like military service) was abhorrent. Their names remain all over Cork today. Thompsons, Cudmores, Halls, Carrolls, and Penrose to name a few.
              Now many ships would have passed through the naval port over the centuries, but to call it a Slave Hub is a bit of a stretch.
              For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Anzac View Post
                According to the UK based NGO Anti-Slavery International and backed up by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch there are more people enslaved today than ever. Some 25 million which is twice the Colonial era slave trade that spanned 4 centuries.
                Ah but it's not cool to go after those who are practising modern day slavery. Where would the wealthy go on holiday?
                For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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                • #23
                  History is just that - history. It is littered with people shitting on one another from a greater or lesser height, sometimes on purpose, sometimes with the best of intentions. It’s more important to recognise and endeavour not to repeat those actions, intentional or careless, than to point fingers at the past and demand repentance from people who are long dead.

                  I personally don’t have a problem with renaming streets and removing statues, as towns and cities are dynamic places and people’s priorities change (look at all the renaming that went on in Ireland post 1922).
                  'He died who loved to live,' they'll say,
                  'Unselfishly so we might have today!'
                  Like hell! He fought because he had to fight;
                  He died that's all. It was his unlucky night.
                  http://www.salamanderoasis.org/poems...nnis/luck.html

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Flamingo View Post
                    History is just that - history. It is littered with people shitting on one another from a greater or lesser height, sometimes on purpose, sometimes with the best of intentions. It’s more important to recognise and endeavour not to repeat those actions, intentional or careless, than to point fingers at the past and demand repentance from people who are long dead.

                    I personally don’t have a problem with renaming streets and removing statues, as towns and cities are dynamic places and people’s priorities change (look at all the renaming that went on in Ireland post 1922).
                    Plenty of people still head down Westland Row to get the Train to Kingstown.
                    The current Name of the Cork harbour town does nothing but cause confusion. Thousands of tourists wandering around cork City wondering where they can get the Train to Cob - H.
                    For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
                      Ah but it's not cool to go after those who are practising modern day slavery.


                      Not cool to go after them but certainly brave. HRW are pretty blunt in their assessment and they will probably pay for their honesty.

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                      • #26
                        Recently, a statue of the industrialist Matthias Baldwin was defaced in Philadelphia, with 'Colonizer' and 'Murderer' scrawled across it.

                        Baldwin was an abolitionist who had no truck whatsoever with slavery - so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the (incidentally white, probably rich) people who defaced his statue are not interested in redressing past wrongs, but are just boofheads who know nothing about history and just want to destroy things.

                        I'm confident that this question will go ignored, grand, but do you really think that crimes of this nature wouldn't happen in Ireland if we started taking down statues? Would those crimes be worth the warm and fuzzy feelings and the pats on the head?

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                        • #27
                          We love " moving statues " in Ireland , does wonders for the Rosary beads sales .
                          Don't spit in my Bouillabaisse .

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by FCA Trooper View Post
                            Recently, a statue of the industrialist Matthias Baldwin was defaced in Philadelphia, with 'Colonizer' and 'Murderer' scrawled across it.

                            Baldwin was an abolitionist who had no truck whatsoever with slavery - so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the (incidentally white, probably rich) people who defaced his statue are not interested in redressing past wrongs, but are just boofheads who know nothing about history and just want to destroy things.

                            I'm confident that this question will go ignored, grand, but do you really think that crimes of this nature wouldn't happen in Ireland if we started taking down statues? Would those crimes be worth the warm and fuzzy feelings and the pats on the head?
                            The problem is Education. There are many statues about of historic figures, yet apart from their name, and sometimes the year they were born and died, there is little information about who they were or what they did.
                            Trafalgar square is a prime example.
                            Next to Nelson, is Charles Napier. Why? What did he do to share a space with the Hero of Trafalgar, Jellicoe and Beatty? Why was the Inventor of the Smallpox Vaccine moved elsewhere and not this statue or another unknown, Henry Havelock?
                            The problem we have in Ireland more recently is not of who the statue represents, but the absolute absence of likeness to the person they are supposed to be.
                            For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
                              The problem we have in Ireland more recently is not of who the statue represents, but the absolute absence of likeness to the person they are supposed to be.
                              So your telling me that the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, The Prick with the Stick and the Tart with the Cart look nothing like they're meant to be? For me who has been in tourist mode to Dublin a few times that is a shame.

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                              • #30
                                No, they had to be toned down for public decency.
                                For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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