The Cork Abolitionists Trail
Frederick Douglass was a formerly enslaved man who, in 1838, fled bondage in Maryland to settle with his family in Massachusetts. Soon a stirring orator and rising star of the abolitionist movement, in which Black and white people around the world worked together to end slavery, he was forced to flee America in the summer of 1845 for fear of recapture after the publication of his autobiography. Douglass initially sought refuge and support in Ireland and eventually throughout Great Britain, embarking on a lecture tour in which he provided sensational first-hand testimony of the inhumanity and horror he had witnessed and himself been subject to while enslaved. As part of this tour, Douglass was drawn to Cork, a city with a strong abolitionist community. He spent a month here in the late autumn of 1845, delivering powerful denunciations of slavery to crowds of thousands, while forging friendships that would last a lifetime. Explore the locations where this outstanding abolitionist leader, suffragist, writer and human rights activist spoke and lived in Cork City.
About the Trail
The Cork Abolitionists Trail is a legacy project of the highly successful #DouglassWeek which took place in February 2021. While Frederick Douglass was the best-known abolitionist to visit Cork, he was part of a tradition involving many other abolitionists who made the journey before and after him. The Cork Abolitionists Trail, part of the Journeys for Freedom Project, highlights locations visited by these extraordinary women and men and amplify their stories and those of the Irish people and organisations that inspired them.
The Cork Abolitionists Trail was developed by #DouglassWeek team members Dr. Laurence Fenton, Dr. Adrian Mulligan, Dr. Caroline Schroeter, Kristin Leary, Dr. Tim Groenland, Dr. Hannah-Rose Murray and DR. Sarah McCreedy, with beautiful graphics and design by Dan O’Connell and Melissa Kiersey.
