Today, there are about 400 individuals living in the north east corner of Barbados known as the ‘Red Legs’, due to their ancestors having arrived there as slaves in the mid 17th century; many were wearing kilts and so their legs were horribly burned due to the sun, the stalks of working in the sugar cane fields and by being constantly whipped.
These people don’t mix with anyone else on the island, have a very low literacy rate and many suffer from mental problems. They are tall, fair and blond haired, freckled skin and blue eyes and with names such as Lynch, O’Donaghue, etc. The forthcoming visit of Father Blackett should prove very interesting indeed.
… from the Drogheda Independent article To “Hell or Barbados”
To Hell or Barbados… or to the Mental Hospital!
What started out as a nice little newspaper article about a Barbados Catholic priest visiting Ireland to remember the transported Irish slaves during Cromwell’s invasion takes a nasty turn in the last paragraph. Reverend Father Harcourt Blackett, parish priest of St. Patrick’s Church in Bridgetown, is heading over to Ireland in May – presumably to explain how and why so many Bajans are illiterate and mentally ill.
What do you think, folks? Is there a grain of truth in the reporter’s statement? Should various mixed-race folks demand an apology from the newspaper? Do we need to build a new mental hospital up near Grape Hall? 🙂
Barbados Free Press 
No O’Donaghue’s in the Barbados telephone directory.
The Irish descended people do not live in Northeast Barbados.
The ones that I know are not particularly tall.
Nor mentally ill.
And they do mix with the black majority.
As that is the only way to survive and move forward.
Nor illiterate.
But Father Blackett is a smart guy. I am sure that he will be able to remove the misconceptions.
Whoever wrote the story is “illiterate. Bare shite he /she write.
The article says “These people don’t mix with anyone else on the island”.
That is a blatant lie.
Visit College savannah or Conset Bay and you will see.
funny,
they should also mention that one of the island’s largest conglomerates with businesses all over South and Central America is also the product of (and pretty much largely still family owned today) by a “poor white” family
Chaw…Where u get the inbreeding part form. It certainly was not in the article. ..Or did I miss it? I must admit , the spin caught me… A bit over the top. But Good one.
Inbreeding is far more prevalent in St. Vincent. They have communities up in the mountains that would put the hillbillies of Appalachia in Virginia, U.S. to shame. If you have spent any amount of time up there, you will see that they all look like each other. Thye live a hard scrabble existence and have large families.
“These people don’t mix with anyone else on the island”
“These people don’t mix with anyone else on the island, have a very low literacy rate and many suffer from mental problems. They are tall, fair and blond haired, freckled skin and blue eyes and with names such as Lynch, O’Donaghue, etc. ”
What do you think they are talking about? LOL
sounds like truth to me…
Why demand an apology? Laughter is the best medicine
Long live Prawo Jazdy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7899171.stm
I live in barbados and I have heard that inbreeding is rife, not only in the red leg community but all over. I mean, think of it, small isolated island, small very religious communities, there are always rumours of ths one sleepin wit she husband brother, or two cousin dealin, no wonder there are only fat hairy women and short wimpy men here in barbados.
The article from the newspaper was good and I noticed that from the book, ” To hell or Barbados” by Sean O`Callaghan, mentions on pp 207 208 the exact same thing; looks as though the `quote`may have been, mistakenly, taken from this publication? So why not demand an apology from the publishers of this book also? The web pages on the net portray a similar tale: perhaps we are all `mental` in some form or another, it appears to me that the author of the newspaper article did not mean any harm or offence in what was written, but perhaps he was quoting from someone or some similar article of which there are many.
The early ‘Irish’ servants in Barbados were treated worse than the “black” slaves. There were likely many instances of blacks and Irish intermingling which may a very early example of the RedLegs mixing with other people, and a logical explanation why there are many blacks with Scottish and Irish surnames. I suspect that many of the English planters may have intermingled with the Irish . There was a large amount of mulattos , mustees, octaroonson the Island. A thorough study using DNA would be fascinating and enlightening.There were also American Indians, and servants from many different countries. In America, about 1/3 of all Black people who have had there DNA tests done show they have Caucasian blood ( likely European). I would sugest that very few modern day RedLegs have a 100% European blood-line.
I know for a fact that in barbados they do inbred. My boyfriend is from there and his daughter has a babt with her cousin.
Yeah like I said there is inbreds in barbados. My boyfriend told me his daughter has a baby with her cousin