Former slave befriended by the Liberator

WRITER and actor Dónal O’Kelly is looking forward to bringing his play, The Cambria, to Cork’s Everyman Palace Theatre from November 1-3.

Presented by Benbo Productions, in association with UCC’s College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, the play tells the story of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave on board The Cambria.

The Cambria was a transatlantic paddle steamer which brought Douglass to Ireland in 1845 just before the Famine. Douglass spoke publicly in Cork city twice and will be the subject of a memorial lecture series to be inaugurated at UCC in the next academic year. A bronze statue of Douglass, by Andrew Edwards, will be unveiled on UCC’s campus next year, the first statue to an African-American in Irish history.