business
Diana Mahabir-Wyatt
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, celebrated in most of the British Commonwealth, and of course in non-Commonwealth countries such as the USA, in New York. which often appears to be a country of its own with strong Irish roots. and where traditionally a large parade takes place through the streets of that city.
The Irish, like the Trinidadians, have a diaspora that can be found almost anywhere on the globe. In Montserrat, St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday. since so many of its early settlers came as forced laborers from Ireland and their descendants, those who survived the volcanic eruption in 1995, are still there.
The Irish diaspora is as visible as that of most island peoples. Before the Great Famine of 1847, during which over a million Irish people starved to death, the Irish were sent to the West Indies as forced laborers after the abolition of slavery in 1834.
Just as people from India were rounded up by press gangs and sent to the colonies to replace emancipated slaves, the Irish, treated as somewhat lesser people, were arrested for trespassing on private property or being drunk and disorderly. (which they often were). and were sent to distant colonies, separated from their families for life, destined to work as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
BV Lass, a historian from India wrote about it thus: “With regard to the British Empire, the largest and most concerted expression of agreement took place between 1834 and 1920, when two million Indians and thousands more from all over Asia, Africa and Africa, and Oceania was exploited under a system intended to replace African enslaved labor in the Caribbean and Mauritius. Thousands of Irish, English, and Scots were also forced into work in the New World.”
However, we don’t read much about them in our textbooks.
Although diversity is a feature of Trinidadian culture and society that is often boasted now, there are many Trini who are not even aware that they have Irish DNA. Prominent historians such as Fr de Verteuil, who has been the main preserver of this country’s history, a gift he has given to the nation, writes of the Irish presence in Trinidad as early as the late 1700s.
In fact, after periods when the Royal Irish Regiment was sent to Trinidad to put down rebellious locals, Fr de Verteuil noted that they left behind more illegitimate than legitimate offspring. Only of the legitimate, anyone with an ancestor with a surname like Kernahan, Fitzgerald, Devenish, O’Connor, Waldrond, Kelly or Lloyd can trace their Irish heritage to the TT, some dating back to before the abolition of slavery and conscription.
The Irish, known as hotheads, were mentioned in the local press, from which we get our data. In fact, an Irish youth was recorded in 1870 as being advised of assaulting a newspaper editor. An Irishman named Laughlin was the editor of the Port of Spain paper at the time. I have often wondered if he was the one who was attacked.
Reading the dailies in 2022, it might seem that hot-headed Irish DNA is even more prevalent than recorded. Irish men are known for their alcohol-fueled pub life, which often ends in a fight or brawl that can happen outside any bar in TT on a Saturday night.
Irish culture is strong in drama, music and literature. If you bother to look at Trinidad’s ability to display dozens of new calypso, art exhibits, amazing carnival designs, stories and poetry like the Bocas Lit Fest, the film festival and even a truncated semi-carnival, one wonders if the Energy of the high that leads to creativity may not be contained in the various strands of DNA we have received over the generations. It cannot be denied that education from village primary schools to the most prestigious secondary schools and the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture had deep roots in the missions that sent teachers here from Ireland.
The connections have continued into this century. Historian Brinsley Samaroo has recorded resonant accounts of the Irish presence here in the 1900s. How many truly great Trini doctors like the legendary Dr Maria Bartholomew and Prof Courtenay Bartholomew trained in Dublin? How many nurses like the scary nuns who, until it was closed, cared for patients in the leprosarium at Chacachacare? And founded and ran schools for girls, at a time when girls’ education was not considered a priority by most families?
Irish and Trini personalities resonate with each other for a reason.
Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, who was actually born in Scotland, was himself a slave for the early part of his life, was put to work as a child shepherd, but returned to Ireland as an adult, making him a type of defender. saint of immigrants. This seems appropriate, since most citizens of Trinidad are descendants of immigrants, either those seeking a better life than the one they left behind, or refugees fleeing religious persecution, war, or racial discrimination. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So St. Patrick’s Day should be a day when any family with ancestral roots in another country, or, as is the case with almost all Trinidadians, several other countries, should honor Ukrainians fleeing war in Europe, or Venezuelans fleeing an economic downturn. that contemporary social scientists and economists tell us may be our fate in the not too distant future.
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