To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland

As the Irish finally threaten to allow themselves become assimilated, this book - by an Irish journalist who worked on Fleet Street, and cannot be accused of blind anti-Britishness - stresses how vitally important it is that our anti-colonial impetus be maintained I review this book at much greater length in my forthcoming "Ireland: A colony once again?". Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 4u Meitheamh (san tSin 35 Bealtaine) 2009

A side of Barbadian history I needed to learn more about. O'Callaghan brings some of the dark to light.

The nonfiction book "To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland" by Sean O'Callaghan describes a moment in history that very few know about. In the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell (who took over England) encouraged the mass slaughter and enslavement of Irish men, women, and children for various reasons, one being that the Protestant English regarded the Catholic Irish as inhuman and unchristian. According to O'Callaghan, many Irish priests were hunted down like wolves and Irish soldiers exiled to Spain or France, while rebels and widows alike were forcibly sent to Barbados in the Caribbean as indentured servants or slaves. Over 50,000 people were sent to Barbados to work on the sugar plantations. This book chronicles what happened to them. Beatings, whippings, torture, rape, and humiliation were just some of the terrible indecencies that these people suffered because they were Catholic and Irish. The book itself is short, well written, and easy to read. The narrative moves from Cromwell's battles in Ireland* to the treatment of the surviving Irish to exportation to the Caribbean and indentured servitude/white slavery to modern-day descendants of the Irish on Barbados. In between, you will get a detailed and informative account of life in the seventeenth century while at war in the UK and as plantation owners and slaves in the Caribbean. There is even a chapter on Irish buccaneers (pirates). *Please note you may want to look up who Oliver Cromwell was before you read this, as the book jumps straight into the action without too much political/biographical background. I read this book quickly. It was fascinating, yet horrifying and thoroughly depressing. It is also eye-opening history. I highly recommended it to anyone interested in Caribbean, Irish, or English history, as well as for those interested in the slave trade or religious conflicts.

The book was an eye opener. I thought I had an understanding of Irish history. I was astonished and outraged. The purpose of the book is to reveal the true outrages that caused the multigeneration enmity between the Irish and English and succeeds. No one can understand the present situation in No. Ireland without it.The book was well referenced, even sighting English historical information to substanciate the truth. 50-100,000 Irish women sold into prostitution and slavery by the same English traders, god-fearing puritan's, who sold African's into slavery. No reference to this in modern history books.I never knew that the Irish were made literal slaves by the English or the extent of the ethnic and religious hatred and the genocide perpetrated by the British against them. The slaughter and genocide perpetrated has been squelched in the press and media for centuries. It leaves me with the question of what kind of a media do we have in the U.S. that has kept this imformation from us?Numerous American's of many ethnic groups have told me that I was lying, it didn't happen just like the holocaust. I was dumb struck and had to bring in the book to prove it too them. It begs the question: What's with diversity in this country does if it only goes one way?Its a book any one who believes in real diversity should read. You can't understand the present Irish situation between the IRA and the UDL without it.EXCELLENT