A Beggar Upon Horseback / A Beggar on Foot — A Concert From the Irish Rep Stage

Irish Repertory Theatre marks the 175th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s historic trip to Ireland with a dramatic reading by award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson of Douglass’s Letter from Belfast, written on January 1, 1846. In this letter, Douglass recounts his impressions of the Irish people, describing “warm and generous co-operation.” The reading will be followed by a panel led by Dr. Miram Nyhan Grey in which scholars and writers of Irish-American and African-American history will discuss the emigration of the Irish to America, and the complexity of Black and Irish interactions in the American experience: sometimes as allies and sometimes as aggressors. This conversation will span the infamous Draft Riots of 1863 to Irish-America as we know it today.