Sean O'Callaghan > Quotes

“When weight loss is conflated with veganism, it falls into dangerous area of body shaming and misogyny. Mainstream media loves to make women feel inferior when it comes to their bodies and unfortunately veganism has recently become another weapon and this sexist war on our society. Thin white women are used to sell veganism as a quick fix to a more desirable body at the expense of anyone who doesn't fit the cookie cutter idea of female perfection. In addition, these images and messages work to oppress women of colour and people living with disabilities. Selling veganism as anything other than caring for animals often leads to oppression, plain and simple. We need to resist this approach to promoting veganism by drawing the fight back to animals. Every single time.”
― Sean o'callaghan, Fat, Gay Vegan - Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t

“This amply shows Cromwell’s frame of mind before leaving for Ireland. His fear was that the young Charles, who had been declared king in Scotland immediately after his father’s death, would land in Ireland, rally the people to the royalist cause and lead an invasion to England. In the summer of 1649 it seemed to Cromwell that Ireland had become a royalist state and the prospects of a successful English invasion of that country were receding with every passing day.”
― Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland

“Few, but readers of Old Colonial Papers and records are aware that a lively trade was carried on between England and the Plantations, as the Colonies were then called, from 1647 to 1690, in political prisoners, where they were sold by auction to the Colonists for various terms of years, sometimes for life.” Colonel A.B. Ellis, “White Slaves and Bond Servants in the Plantations” (1883)”
― Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland

“The Irish seemed, to Englishmen of that time, of a lower race. To Cromwell it was to be a contest between the honest English and the murderous and treacherous Irish. Pamphlets published before and during the English Civil War fuelled the hatred of the English for the Irish. They were depicted as a subhuman species, undeserving of pity or mercy. An”
― Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland

“However nothing can excuse Cromwell’s extreme cruelty in Ireland. No matter what his medical condition, the savagery at Drogheda shocked even his most faithful followers. Even some of his commanders, including old campaigners like Ludlow, thought the slaughter at Drogheda “extraordinary”. Cromwell admitted in a letter to Lenthall that he personally had led the charge on Mill Mount, although quarter had already been given and revoked by himself at the last minute. He also ordered the firing of St Peter’s Church steeple in which one hundred people were sheltering. His excuse for all this bloodletting was to instil terror and thus save lives. “The enemy were filled with much terror. And truly I believe this bitterness will save much blood through the goodness of God.” Another reason he gave for the savagery at Drogheda was that it was a “righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood”. Cromwell’s third excuse for the slaying of the garrison was that it was the law of war. If the defenders of a fortress which had been summoned to surrender had refused, they then had no claim to mercy, the more so if the fortress was patently indefensible.”
― Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland

“Many Irish soldiers crossed over to England and took part on the king’s side during the Civil War. On 24 October 1644, Parliament passed an ordinance that “no quarter shall henceforth be given to any Irishman or papist born in Ireland captured on land or at sea”. In the same year a Captain Swanley, a naval officer fighting for Parliament, captured a ship out of Dublin bound for Bristol with seventy Irish soldiers and two women aboard. He threw them all overboard, tied back to back. One of the London papers, the Perfect Diurnall, wrote approvingly of Captain Swanley’s action and stated that he “made water rats of the papish vermin”. Parliament acclaimed his action and presented Captain Swanley with a gold chain worth £200.”
― Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland