Behind the Scenes Minis: Q&A and the Myth of Irish Slaves

Holly and Tracy share stories about touring, and the long period of time Tracy has been planning to work on the falsehood of Irish slavery.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Happy Friday, I'm Tracy
be Wilson, and I'm Holly Frying. One of the things
we did this week was answer listener questions for a
whole episode, which I imagined in my head was going
to take about forty five minutes, is based on how

(00:24):
many questions I pulled together. The final length is of
course to be determined at this point because it hasn't
been edited, but the file on my recorders, like an
hour and twenty minutes or something, is much longer than
I was thinking in my head. Yeah, I feel like
we're better at doing that live and managing the time. Yeah,
the situation live, we also have a moment where it's like, Okay,

(00:47):
we are going to answer the questions of everyone who's
still in line, but please no one else join the line,
because like we're going to run out of time, right um,
And a lot of times that's not like, that's not
really our personal preference. Like we we have agreements with
the venue about what time we're going to be done, right,
and normally if we can like sometimes they will say,

(01:09):
you know, you have to be cleared out of the
stage in auditorium area by this time, but you can
hang in the lobby for longer, and so we'll do
meet and greet for as long as people are there, Like,
we don't want to turn anybody away, and people can
always like ask us questions in the course of that. Um,
we got to kind of keep it moving. As Stracy said,
there are venues. I always feel bad when like the

(01:30):
venue staff is kind of standing there with their keys
in their hand, being like, yeah, hey, it's cool that
it's cool that you like to talk to people. But
chop chop um. They've all been incredibly gracious and kind.
I don't want to make it seem that way, but
I am always very cognizant of when the staff is
ready to go home, right right, Um yeah, we way

(01:51):
earlier in the year or even at the end of
last year, we had sort of talked, okay, uh are
we going to try to tour again? When are we
gonna start trying to talk about touring, And we had
initially planned to start talking about touring like in the spring,
and then when the pandemic really became international, like immediate news,

(02:12):
like it became clear that we were not going to
have a conversation about touring right then. Um. And then
as that has progressed, I mean, we're recording this on June, um,
and it just seems incredibly unlikely that we will will
be booking live shows, both because like the travel involved
and getting to them, and then also if we did one,

(02:33):
Like you and I had had a conversation about some
of the stuff that we had on the calendar that
has since been like been canceled, and we were like,
we're gonna have to not do a Q and A
for this, Like we can imagine each of us getting
there maybe relatively safely. Like one of the things that
we have been planning was an outdoor show, and that
is like less risky than being an enclosed space with people. Um,

(02:54):
but like we would not have been able to have
a meet and greet line of a hundred plus listeners
to individually talk to you face to face, like that
just would not have been feasible. Yeah, yeah, um, and
it is. I I do. That's one of the things
I actually have missed, Like, oh, I missed like the
chance to travel around and meet people and and get

(03:16):
to chat with listeners. It's always really really fun and
incredibly fulfilling. Um. So, I mean I'm bummed that we
don't get to do what I'm glad you know you
came up with this idea for sort of a way
to do it. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite parts of touring
are definitely the actual live show. I enjoy doing because
I was like a theater kid as a kid, and

(03:39):
like having some kind of of stage experience in my life.
Still like that's been really cool to come into you
as an adult, and I really enjoy talking to listeners
and answering questions and doing meet and greets. Um. I
don't love the part where usually we get back to
our hotel room well into like nighttime hours, like you know,

(04:03):
often in like the eleven to midnight kind of range,
and then a lot of times like we need to
be up and at the airport the next day really early,
and so like that kind of turnaround. I don't really
miss that very much. But I weirdly kind of miss airports.
I love airports. That doesn't that that part doesn't surprise
me at all. I love an airport. I love an

(04:23):
airport bar, I love an airport restaurant. UM. I mentioned
in the episode that I had been traveling so much
leading up to this, the airports felt almost like home
to me at that point, right, Like, um, but yeah,
I don't I don't mind the turnover of getting in
late and leaving early. There's only been one time where

(04:43):
that was really dicey, and it was when we did
our tour in the fall and we did Denver one
night in Chicago the next night. Yeah, it turns out
those are tricky to get in between, right, And I
had exactly an hour and ten minutes of leap, and
I knew that if I like got into bed and

(05:04):
actually went to bed, I was not going to wake
up fast enough. So I slept sitting up in a chair,
and like I was punchy and groggy. I had a
connection where like I literally had eight minutes to get
from gate to gate in I think it was the
Minneapolis airport. It was just a crazy day. And then
I took a quick nap. When I got to the hotel.

(05:25):
My best friend had met up with me and she
kind of made sure I got But honestly that that
Chicago show was super fun and I had a great
time and didn't feel depleted. So I guess I can
do that once in a while. My day was not
nearly as pressed as yours was in terms of time,
but I did have to get up really pretty early
to get to the airport in denver Um and I

(05:47):
remember having this moment as I was on the airplane,
I think where I was like, I'm going to check
into the hotel and I'm going to take a nap
and it's going to be so good. And then my
brain was like, you're going to get to that hotel
at least three hours before check in time. Your room
might not be ready. And I almost cried. I was like,

(06:09):
I'm not even the person that has the worst travel schedule.
This is definitely not the worst thing that can ever
happen to a person, But man, did I just want
to go and lie down. And it turned out my
room was ready. I got to have a lovely lunch
with you and then have a nap. It was great.
You can always take a lobby dose. Yeah uh yeah.

(06:30):
Are are behind the scenes of our Q and A
episode has been more about like touring, what life is
like when you tour, which it's hilarious and fun. It
is I like, I definitely enjoy it, even though I
just said some things that I don't enjoy about it
as much. It's overall like a very fun but can
also be incredibly chaotic and disorienting experience. Yeah, you lose

(06:51):
track of time for sure, Like I don't know what
day it is by the time we're done with a tour.
And I do remember, I don't remember if it was
you I was texting or my best friend when I
was like I just landed and you were like, where
are you? And I was like, I don't know. And
it was a case where we had flown into d

(07:12):
C and I didn't know what airport I had gotten
to until I hit the baggage claim and then I
was like, oh, this is Reagan um because I recognized that, Yeah,
we were going from New York, which has multiple airports,
to d C, which has multiple airports, um, And like,
neither of us were departing from the same airport in
New York, and we had made this whole plan about
we were going to meet up when we landed, and

(07:34):
then we were in the air when we realized are
we landing at the same airport because we definitely cannot
get a car together, We're not where are you? I
don't know? Yep, that's anyway if you see us on
tour and we seem a little scattered. That's why one
of our episodes this week was called why No One

(07:56):
talks about the Irish Slaves, which is something I have
been talking about doing on the show for seven years,
because because every time it comes up on the Facebook
page or every time I see it just being circulated around,
I'm like, that's that's that's not how it worked. And
I understand how there are people who kind of want

(08:20):
to be like, even if you were only temporarily enslaved,
you were still enslaved, So it's the same thing, But
like that just erases so much other context and so
many other things that happened in the hundreds of years
since then that definitely affected specifically African people in their
descendants in a way that did not affect white Irish people.

(08:43):
Like that's it's just it's not it's not the same
arc of history at all. Um. The thing that made
me finally do it was UM as the protests UM
started too. They had already started as the protest continued
going UM after Memorial Day, like all of these widespread protests,

(09:06):
they're there beyond talking about one person at this point,
there are so many examples of people who have been
unjustly killed by police, this whole movement against police brutality.
I saw several threads that were about suddenly seeing a
lot more of people sharing this, like a Google Trends
chart of the interest in the term Irish slaves. Like

(09:27):
there was like a hockey stick, and I was like,
maybe maybe now it's time to finally do this episode
that I've been talking about doing for seven years. Did
I ever tell you about the nearly the just barely
averted incident in Ireland last year? No? So my husband
and I went to Ireland last year. Um. It was

(09:49):
kind of like two trips planned with two groups of
people that we we juggled between. And at one point
we were on this beautiful carriage ride at this really
beautiful place, and the driver was very sweet and lovely,
and then out of nowhere he said, people want to
talk about black slaves all the time, but at least

(10:12):
they got to live in the house with the master. Oh.
And like as he felt my right arm tense up,
my husband leaned over and said, please don't start a
fistfight in a foreign country. I literally, like my instinct
was I'm going to clock this person, which is a
terrible instinct, by the way. Uh, And I feel like

(10:34):
I should absolutely one say, like, I had an absolutely
delightful time in Ireland and found amazing people that I
had very, very fabulous conversations with, and that was not
a prevailing kind of sentiment that I encountered. It was
just this one instance. But it was just so odd
and awkward and blunt. And also We're in a carriage

(10:55):
being driven by this person and I don't know where
at that point, so it was if I start this fight,
I don't know what happens next. Well, And like, being
in a different country has definitely caused me to respond
to things differently than than like, like I have some

(11:15):
phrases practiced if a stranger says something racist in my presence,
like some things that I am prepared to say. But like,
for example, when we were in Paris, there was an
incident where a tour guide that we were on said
something that that was not okay, and I think we
all kind of froze for a moment, Like we had

(11:37):
conversations about after the fact, but in the moment, it
was like all the things that I had prepared. I
was like, does this even translate to the tour guide
whose first language is uh not English? Like it was
a whole thing. So I was like, I anytime I
want to travel internationally, now I feel like I need
to rehearse responses before I go. Yeah, for sure. And

(11:57):
it is one of those just um we your things
that took me so like I said, so off guard,
and I um, I mean it was literally like in
the middle of it was so jarring. It was like
being in the middle of like the most delicious piece
of cake you've ever eaten and someone going that cake
is arsenic. Like it was so shocking. I was like,

(12:18):
what what might happened? Um? Yeah, I uh. I did
not know the proper way to respond, and again I
did not want to get arrested in a foreign country, right. Um.
We mentioned we mentioned Liam Hogan's work a couple of
times in the in the episode, and I mean again,

(12:38):
like like so much work on this subject, um, and
also tracing where this idea comes up, because for a
long time it was largely like within the United States, um,
But in more recent years it's like there have also
been articles um from newspapers in Ireland. Some which have

(13:00):
since been retracted. That um, that one two thousand eight
article that we mentioned at one point was picked up
by a couple of like really major publications, and claims
within it got just reprinted on those publications as fact,
and in some cases those have been retracted or corrected. Um.

(13:21):
And So in addition to like the need for people
who don't already know this history to learn about it
and to be able to talk about it and counter
this information, there's also a thread to me that is
about just media literacy and spotting. Uh, who is in
charge of this piece of content, What is their goal?

(13:43):
Why are they writing it? Is it on a website
that has a lot of conspiracy theories like that? There's
there was just a lot of that that was part
of it. Also, um, as a general rule, a lot
of memes that are shared, even if they have a
core of truth that seems really exciting and like in

(14:03):
line with what people are wanting to believe, like a
lot of them have a lot of misinformation. Also. Yeah,
Also just for anybody who is gonna do maybe a
Google search for example for Liam Hogan, you may want
to do Liam Hogan librarian, or you will end up
with a footballer. Yeah, he's really he's been doing this

(14:25):
for years, years and years. Yeah, yeah, he's amazing. Uh So,
Happy Friday again. If you want to write to us
History podcast that by heart radio dot com. You can
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History and most of the social media sites. And you
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podcast and we're a real to get podcasts. Stuff you

(14:52):
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