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LAST UPDATE | 21 Oct 2021
DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL has installed a commemorative plaque in the city centre, to honour anti-slavery leader Frederick Douglass.
It was unveiled earlier today by Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland at the Irish Film Institute (IFI), Eustace Street, Temple Bar, formerly the location of the Friends’ Meeting House.
Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 and went on to escape in 1838. He later published his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself in 1845 and visited Dublin the same year.
Fear of being captured and returned to slavery, as well as the success of his book in Europe, led him to visit Ireland and the UK between 1845 and 1847.
When in Dublin he was a guest of Dublin’s Quaker Community and in September 1845 Douglass spoke at the Friends’ Meeting House.
Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland remarked: “I am proud that Dublin City is honouring the memory of Frederick Douglass here today, with a plaque that tells all who see it that back in 1845, he found himself welcomed with, in his own words, ‘a total absence of all manifestations of prejudice…’ and was treated not as ‘as a colour, but as a man.’”
Professor Margaret Kelleher, chair of the IFI, said: “On 9th September 1845, in this building which is now home to the IFI, Frederick Douglass delivered a stirring oration against slavery and in defence of human liberty.”
“We at the IFI are very proud to mark today not only such a historic event but also his continuing legacy and inspiration,” she added.
During his time in Ireland, Douglass met Daniel O’Connell, a firm opponent of slavery, and the two men spoke at O’Connell’s Conciliation Hall, on Burgh Quay.
The plaque commemorating Douglass was proposed by Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha, chair of the Dublin City Council Commemorations & Naming Committee.
Councillor Mac Donncha said: “This plaque to Frederick Douglass sees the great African-American anti-slavery leader recognised by our City for his immense contribution to human liberty and progress. It is appropriate that this site links the United Irish Society which met here in the 1790s, the Society of Friends which hosted Frederick Douglass and still meets on this street, and the Irish Film Institute, a cultural hub of Dublin.”
“Acts of commemoration such as this serve to remind us that while slavery was abolished in the United States, racism persists and needs to be opposed vigorously in all countries including our own,” he added.
After visiting Ireland and the UK, in 1847 Douglass returned to America. He later went on to become a leader of the abolitionist movement, a writer, a government official and a renowned orator.
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Just more virtue signalling.
@Raymond Barry: just more cynicism .
@Tedburns: Not really cynicism Ted. I read about this man many years ago and it is a fascinating story. Hard to figure how he surfaced in various parts of Ireland and gave inspirational speeches where ever he appeared. I’m sure the sight of such an articulate black man was of huge curiosity to Irish people of the day.
All that said I can not see how he could possibly be considered a part of Irish history in the sense that his fleeting visits warrant a memorial statue in such a place of prominence.
I’m quite sure that many people were inspired by his words but there is no evidence to suggest that this shaped Ireland’s influence on the path of slavery.
Hard not to agree with Raymond on this one.
Wokey Paddy at it’s best. …
@Gavin Linden: I see what you mean, but maybe in such a multi cultural society which we have become, it’s a nice reminder to people of the history of slavery beyond our shores. And sadly, slavery is still a massive world problem. Sometimes it’s not just about our history, but human history.
@Tedburns: We have more cultures than 20 years ago, but it’s a stretch to paint us as some great cultural melting pot.
@Gavin Linden: there’s a plaque commemorating the Austrian philosopher Ludvig Wuttgenstein in the Botanic Gardens, which he liked to visit while briefly living in Ireland in the late 1940s. He has no other connection with this country but he’s one of the biggies in 20th century philospphy so he gets a plaque. I see no harm in doing the same for Frederick Douglass. Personally, I’m much more exercised about tearing commemorations down.
That’s a lovely message. Nice to see love and light in the middle of so much anger, fear and uncertainty.
A strange choice given he’s American and very few people here would know the name. The cynic in me thinks this is related to attracting American tourists
@Mickety Dee: actually he’s very well known in Cork because of his visit there. He was hugely inspired by the Women’s Rights Movement in Cork and the Workers Rights movement. You can ship the statue down there if you like.
@Mickety Dee: Well maybe now people will get to know the name and his story. It’s not all about 1916 or saints when it comes to commemorating people nowdays
We have a very multicultural society nowdays and slavery is still a massive problem in the world. Let’s send a positive message.
@Mickety Dee: read his story,great man, he came here to speak against slavery ….
@Mickety Dee: she will be coming around the mountain when she comes, know thst tune? It comes from a corkwoman who put the fear into american mine owners, railroad bosses, she was a corkwoman who fought for the common worker .. Go search
@Mickety Dee: also well known in Waterford where there is a commemorative plaque on the side of city Hall for very many years.
@Carol Conway: Plaque. Cork can buy their own statue.
@Gerry campbell: Came here to sell his book.
Crazy
@Gerrard: why?
@Gerrard: We have a monument to Wellington.
@Garret Fawl: did we build it or the brits
@Gerrard: As you already know Wellington was Irish and had many links with this country. The irony of erecting a statue to someone with only tenuous links to this country and denying the validity of a statue to an Irishman is comical. Many of us are proud of our military achievements in the service of empire.
@Michael Drennan: Wellington disowned his irishness. Fredrick Douglas was an important slavery abolitionist, the first time he every felt like an actual human and not property was an extended stay in Ireland, is that not some thing to celebrate.
@Garret Fawl: who was a real hero
Cue finding out that he underpaid an employee once by accident/on purpose when he was 22 and hungover……. “mass” protest of dozens demanding he be wiped from the history books.
@Disco Inferno: He was devoutly religious. That’s enough to get him cancelled these days. He also believed in free speech without any of the many caveats we apply in modern society.
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
A truly great American!
@Will: as a child of the industrial school system, i have tons of religious friends sime very very right of right thinking, i dont want to cancel them, but i do want the dogma cancelled, a bit like the dogma that said i was inferior my mother was fallen, the dogma that said dancing was the devils work etc etc etc, get out of the bubble
@Disco Inferno: Genuinely waiting for the day that the Americans start removing all monuments to George Washington because he was a white slave owners.
Why do we need that here Ireland never had slaves Irish were the slave under colonial laws, if their going to but up statues then make one of those who gave their lives for the freedom of the country, not someone no one actually knows about and actually has no part in Irish history.
@JK: We had slaves in Celtic times. Saint Patrick was a slave, a Daer Fuidhir.
“FIDHIR was a name applied to all who did not belong to a clan, whether born in the territory or not. This was the lowest of the classes of the non-free people. This also was sub-divided into saer and the daer fuidhirs being the class most closely resembling slaves.”
@JK: it’s not a statue, it’s a plaque. Stop reading headlines
@JK: Irish people were never enslaved and it’s an insult to Black Americans to put our suffering on a par with theirs. Many slave owners and their descendants were Irish which is why many black people carry Irish surnames to this day.
@JK: Go on with you. Throughout the 11th century, Viking Dublin was the biggest slave market in Europe. Irish kings are said to have sold prisoners of war there.
@Michael Drennan: sack of baltimore, to name but one time. No one was ever excluded when it came to slavery
@David Jordan: Yes I never said we did not have slaves but as you mentioned an Welsh man was enslaved, by Irish chieftains way back and much the same the other way also, but we never enslave the people this statue represents that is the point I was making, he maybe part of US history not my History.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: And the same practice was practiced in Africa where prisoners of war between tribes were used as slave, the native Americans did the same, the Romans did the same, the Greeks did the same, the only thing it still happens in some African countries where they enslave their own for blood diamonds, maybe blm should address that
@Tedburns: Thanks I stand corrected sorry about that
A blue plaque commemorating Frederick Douglas’s visit to Waterford has been on place on the exterior of Waterford City Hall since 2013.
Good to see this great man honoured here finally. While we suffered under british rule there is no comparision to the awful brutality suffered during slavery. Anyone who thinks otherwise should educate themselves
@marianne ryan: maybe you should educate yourself first before lecturing other people. There is no hierarchy of pain and suffering…
@marianne ryan: Your ignōrance of what was inflicted on us Irish under the brütality of British rule is staggering and sad. Please educate yourself.
@Paul Jude Redmond: Says who? A woke teenager on tictoc? You? Of course there are degrees of suffering.
So in 1847 the genocide of the Irish people wasn’t hard .. ok good man
I think the fact he was black and it’s trendy to honour black people as we haven’t got any off our own, we now have a guy who had a holiday here so better than nothing
Statues are ok but it’s important how they’re positioned etc. The new one of Casement in Dun Laoghaire is awful, far too prominent, reminds me of Saddam in his heyday.
@Hotirish: it’s a plaque
@Hotirish: “in his hey day” haha, ah Sadam! He never built on his achievements. Peaked and plateauxed. Had the potential to be a lot more lol
Fredrick Douglass thought poverty in Ireland was the worst thing he had ever seen. though “the cordiality with which members and ministers of various religious bodies, and of various shades of religious opinion, have embraced me, and lent me their aid—the kind hospitality constantly proffered to me by persons of the highest rank in and the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the color of my skin—contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition.”
Remember that when the US left exports an ideology which not only ignores Irish history, but contends we have the same history because of “whiteness”.
Great to see a great man is being honoured in this city.
“It’s easier to build strong children- than to repair broken men.”
F. Douglass
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