11am, Monday 28 September 2026
ACU Melbourne
Drawing on research from her new book project, “Imperial Kin,” this talk highlights the instrumental roles played by elite Irish families in expanding English and French interests in the Americas. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland divested local rulers of their property and status and forced them into exile. Certain Irish noble families migrated to English and French settlements in the Caribbean, where their early investments in racialized plantation slavery quickly rebuilt lost fortunes. At the same time, these groups purposefully manipulated heredity, turning the riches generated by enslaved laborers into dynastic power. Successive generations of kin intermarried, and first-cousin matches were common.
Women played central roles in executing this novel yet potent blend of colonialism and consanguinity. Female relatives forged essential marriage alliances, commanded thousands of enslaved people, acted as patrons, and birthed numerous children. They established an intimate form of rule that relied on the destruction of Indigenous communities and the exploitation of enslaved people. Within decades, groups who had lost everything in Ireland ruled some of the most lucrative colonies in the Americas
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