Irish immigration to Saint Kitts and Nevis

The Irish immigration in Saint Kitts and Nevis begins in the 1600s when groups of people with that nationality are sent as slaves to the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Throughout the seventeenth century, about 25,000 Irish men and women came to the island to work on the sugar plantations.

History

After of General Oliver Cromwell flogging Ireland with his army and leave the population in poverty, sent to Irish people to St. Kitts and other Caribbean islands as slaves. The Irish were imported to Saint Kitts since the 1600s. Many Irish slaves died from tropical heat of the island, by disease or by hardness and excessive working hours. Any Irishman who tried to escape the FT was recognized as fugitive traitor in his forehead. There were slaves who were whipped, hung them hands and set fire to them, or beaten on the head until he came out blood. This caused the fear of the Irish in Saint Kitts to the British. The more than 150 Irish slaves discovered practicing Catholicism were sent to the small and uninhabitable Crab Island (West Virginia), where they were left to starve. Many of the Irish who survived and their descendants were sent to the new English colonies in South Carolina. Also in 1667, came to the island of Nevis many Irish and French from Montserrat as prisoners of war.

Because of the hardships endured by the Irish in St. Kitts, the current Minister of the island, GA Dwyer Astaphan, met with Tom Culhane of Union, New Jersey to discuss his proposal to erect a monument to the Irish slaves on the island, with the order of remember to them, near where the Irish were offered for sale. The monument would be a Connemara marble base with a bronze statue, surrounded by four plates representing the provinces of Ireland.