Redlegs

When Cromwell transported fifty thousand Irish and scottish slaves to Barbados during an unprecedented act of ethnic cleansing they disappeared from the history books. Broadcast in irish on TG4, in this one hour documentary we uncover the facts of the “Barbadosed” Irish and discover whether the island’s Redlegs, a small reclusive community made pallid and weak from 300 years of inbreeding, strong rum and insufficient food, is the living legacy of those white slaves.

This fascinating documentary explores this neglected episode in Irish history and unravels the mystery of these forgotten people by reconstructing the conditions which greeted the Irish when they arrived in Barbados, the horrific labour they had to perform in the sugar fields, the branding irons with which they were labelled like cattle, and how they had to build their own shelters or perish, following the redlegs’ plight right up to their modern day descendents, most of whom still live in neglected impoverished conditions.