GRIOTS REPUBLIC - An Urban Black Travel Mag - March 2016

Nestled neatly in between the tiny community of islands
which make up the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles in the
Caribbean Sea sits Montserrat, a little island fondly referred
to as the “Emerald Isle of the Caribbean.” This tiny enclave
in the West Indies casts quite a large shadow when people
learn of her unique and little known Irish history. Made up
of a majority of Afro-Caribbean descendants of the Trans-
Atlantic Slave Trade, it is the last place one would expect to
see locals celebrating all things Hibernian. But it is here that
on March 17, the island’s Irish descendants commemorate
the Feast Day of St. Patrick while the descendants of the
African slaves celebrate Liberation Day- honoring their
ancestor’s noble grasp for freedom on that very day in 1768.
The unassuming island nation of Montserrat literally burst
into global consciousness when her long-dormant volcano,
Soufriere Hills, awakened in the summer months of 1995.
Soufriere Hills is nothing like the lava spewing Hawaiian style
Visitors to the island
are welcomed
with the stamp of
a green shamrock
in their passports at
immigration. The
shamrock is the most
recognizable Irish
national emblem
shared by both.
volcanoes, which we often see on the Discovery Channel.
Instead, she is an ash volcano that emits superheated gas
and pulverized rock called pyroclastic flows- that travel
down her slopes at high velocity. Her once 12,000-strong
local population emigrated to all points on the compass.
But the stalwart locals who, defiantly refused to abandon
“The Rock”, have sustained and successfully weathered the
geological, social, cultural and economical upheavals that this
cataclysmic event has wrought over the past two decades.
The “Emerald Isle’s” long and storied history with Ireland
began when Irish Catholics, under the leadership of Anthony
Brisket, landed on the northernmost section of Montserrat
from the neighboring island of St. Kitts fleeing religious
persecution from Reformation Era Europe. Irish Catholics
initially took sanctuary in St. Kitts under the protection of
the French Crown, as French Catholics had already settled
portions of the island. The French and English were at one