SCENE 6-3a : Orating at 1st Presbyterian Church,  Lisburn, Northern Ireland

It is December 1845 and Frederick is orating in Northern Ireland

The publication of his first narrative in the Spring of 1845 was so successful, some 3,000 copies were sold in a matter of weeks, Frederick took flight with a couple of colleagues of the Anti Slavery Movement to at first Ireland, and then onto Scotland and England.

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He was hugely successful in Ireland, speaking in Dublin several times as well as Cork and Limerick, becoming eventually nicknamed the ‘Black O’Connell’ after the revered Irish Republican and Nationalist, Daniel O’Connell.

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O’Connell was a staunch Anti Slavery advocate, constantly citing the decree of the Council of Armagh (1171) which prohibited Irish trading in English Slaves as a basis for not engaging with the Slave Trade which began in the late 17th century.

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In fact the English prohibited the Irish from having any access to the notorious and lucrative 3 way passage Slave Trade.

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During the Screening of the production at Queens University during DOUGLASS Week 2024 in Belfast we were offered the chance to film the inside of the 1st Presbyterian Church in Lisburn, just a few miles south of Belfast, where Frederick actually gave an oration at the end of December in 1845.