To Hell or Barbados

Sean O'Callaghan was born in Killavullen, Co Cork in 1918. He was commissioned in the Irish Army in 1936. On leaving the army he became a journalist in Fleet St, as well as in Nairobi. He published his first book, The Easter Lily, in 1956, and became a full-time writer. He died as To Hell or Barbados went to press, in August 2000.

This group [the Red Legs], made up of the descendants of 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into the white slave trade between 1652 and 1659, have been largely ignored, apart from in Seán O’Callaghan’s wonderful To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland