In Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield: The Abolitionist “Black Swan”, Professor Christine Kinealy (Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University) shares the inspiring story of a female Black Abolitionist who became a singing sensation and found her voice on tour in Famine era Ireland.
Born into slavery, Elizabeth became known in her lifetime as the Black Swan: she broke down barriers wherever she sang. She first performed her most striking Abolitionist ballad “I’m free” before an enraptured audience in Dublin.
Christine Kinealy has also explored Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield’s career and legacy in Irish America Magazine. She notes that in August 1853, the Black Swan traveled to Ireland. Even before she landed in Dublin, newspapers had been reporting on her activities in London and her remarkable voice. In Dublin, Elizabeth took part in a series of performances in the Rotunda Rooms, at the top of what is now O’Connell Street. The Rotunda Rooms, which adjoined the famous maternity hospital, were among Dublin’s earliest concert and music halls, opening in 1757. The noted architect, James Gandon, had designed the beautiful Square Entrance Building. It was a prestigious venue that could accommodate up to 2,000 people. Elizabeth’s accommodation was similarly high-class; she stayed in the fashionable Shelbourne Hotel. Within the United States, it was doubtful that she would have been allowed to enter such buildings.
Elizabeth’s song choices were significant. Although she did not speak publicly of slavery or abolition when in Ireland, she included a number of songs that dealt with the subject of slavery directly. These included, “The vision of the negro slave,” which dealt with the cruelty of the system:
Tortured to death by lash-inflicted wound;
His head bowed down and sunk upon the ground ….
She also sang a song penned for her by an English composer about the pain of being a female slave, titled, “I’m free.” Significantly, Elizabeth had never sung any abolitionist songs when touring in America. Her deliberate and public references to slavery while she was in Dublin suggest the importance of Ireland as a safe place for Black abolitionists to criticize slavery. Like Douglass a few years earlier in Ireland, Elizabeth was able to appreciate what freedom really meant.
You can read Christine Kinealy’s full article here, The Slave who Became the Singing Sensation ‘The Black Swan’
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield: The Abolitionist “Black Swan” was created by the Irish Heritage Trust and National Famine Museum, Strokestown Park in collaboration with the African American Irish Diaspora Network and Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. It is funded by the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme.
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