Ireland’s Abolitionist Titan

Until 2023, the library at Trinity College in Dublin was named after George Berkeley, one of the great names of eighteenth-century philosophy. Berkeley studied and taught at Trinity. He was a bishop in the Church of Ireland. University of California, Berkeley bears his name as well. But Berkeley was also a slave-owner. He purchased slaves to work on his Rhode Island estate in 1730–31, and he wrote in favor of the practice. 

In April 2023, following lengthy protests by students and others, the library at Trinity was “denamed.” Trinity invited the public to weigh in with suggestions for a new name, and it has since been known as the Eavan Boland Library; an official renaming ceremony was held yesterday. Boland was an Irish poet of some distinction who died in 2020. Trinity was her alma mater. 

The whole saga drew considerable attention. Trinity College is one of Dublin’s grandest institutions and Ireland’s premier university. Its centuries-old campus sits in the very heart of the capital city. Trinity can doubtless congratulate itself on a difficult issue, sensitively and successfully handled. Yet this was also an opportunity scorned. Ireland has its own “anti-Berkeley,” a towering figure in the cause of abolition, and simply one of the four or five most important figures in modern Irish history: Daniel O’Connell.

O’Connell came from an old Irish family on a wild, far-flung peninsula of the Atlantic coastline, though he received some of his education in the eminent Catholic colleges of northern Europe. His place in history rests largely on successfully leading the campaign for Catholic emancipation in the early nineteenth century, earning him the sobriquet “The Liberator.” 

But his actions as an abolitionist were also remarkable. Slavery, he wrote, was “a crime of enormous magnitude to be at once, unconditionally, and for ever abolished.” He foretold that slavery would never disappear from America until “some horrible calamity befalls the country.” Of Irishmen in the United States who supported slavery, he said: “They are not Irishmen! They are bastard Irishmen!”

O’Connell gave moving and fiery speeches against slavery in Cork and Dublin, London and Glasgow. He shared platforms with Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond. Douglass later called O’Connell’s death a great blow to the cause of the American slave. Remond said that it was only on hearing O’Connell speak that he realized what being an abolitionist really meant.  

O’Connell refused all money and favors from supporters of slavery, often at great risk to the causes he pursued for the sake of the Irish. His outspokenness took him to the brink of a duel with Andrew Stevenson, former speaker of the House of Representatives and ambassador to the Court of St. James. John Quincy Adams spoke out in O’Connell’s defense.  

All of this is the subject of a full chapter in a biography by Patrick Geoghegan, who happens to be a professor of history at Trinity. Why, then, did the university forego the chance to rename their library after Ireland’s abolitionist titan? What better and more apt way could there have been to move on from Berkeley’s tainted legacy?  

Perhaps Trinity felt that O’Connell, with a bridge, street, and statue in his honor in the center of Dublin, had received enough public recognition, though naming the Trinity library after him would have been recognition specifically and saliently for his stance against slavery. Or perhaps some of the shadows that fall on O’Connell’s reputation—claims, for instance, about his relations with and treatment of women who were not his wife—stayed the hand of the decision makers.  

True, O’Connell had no direct connections with Trinity, and this was one of the stated bases for selecting the new name of the library. However, given the university’s history of excluding Catholics such as O’Connell, surely this stipulation could have been overturned as a symbol of atonement. Or were the college authorities, in fact, always likely to rename the library after a woman in the interests of broadening the distribution of such honors beyond the usual male suspects?  

I suspect something else was also at play. The truth is that it is close to impossible for modern official Ireland to celebrate or indeed even mention O’Connell’s efforts on behalf of the persecuted Catholic Ireland of the past. A few years ago, a kitsch, gaudy new sculpture of a sconce was unveiled on a plinth outside City Hall in Dublin, where a statue of O’Connell had once stood before it was moved inside. Here are the precise words of an officer from Sculpture Dublin, trying to explain the inspiration behind the new piece:  

O’Connell was interested in this idea of emancipation. I’m thinking about a whole range of forms of emancipation, if you like, from Irish independence, uh, through . . . through EU presidencies, tribunals of inquiry, movements, eh, around . . . around, eh, marriage equality and, uh, reproductive rights.

This is a hesitant, hard-to-follow stumble toward the safe ground of the recent referendums on marriage and abortion. O’Connell’s campaign for Catholic emancipation, the cause to which he devoted his life, the thing that secured his eminence in Irish history, is erased with a blush, a stammer, an obfuscation: “this idea of emancipation,” indeed. 

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Daniel O’Connell’s birth. In commemoration, the Irish government has laid out plans to highlight “how Irish identity was, and remains a European identity, while showcasing O’Connell’s contribution to intellectual and political thought on a global scale.” The levels of mental dexterity required not to mention Catholic emancipation are almost admirable. 

I’m glad Eavan Boland now has a lasting monument to her talent. But a chance was lost to celebrate Ireland’s most important contribution to the fight against slavery. Sadly, in today’s Ireland, dedication to an overtly Catholic cause often renders the actions of history’s giants unmentionable. Selective amnesia—official, if unspoken—reigns instead.