Hi all - I’m beyond sick of the claim that St Patrick murdered 200,000 Twa people, it’s utterly false (there weren’t Twa or any African Pygmy race in Ireland or even a pagan genocide) but I’m really struggling with proving this to folks.
Can anyone help me find more sources on it? Especially regarding race - people are mad about it because they think it was ethnic cleansing.
This has been answered before: https://amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4abmsc/twa_pygmies_in_ireland_leprechaun_myth/
One of the odder conspiracy theories I’ve heard. And this is personal advice and not a history answer, but people who are arguing this point with you aren’t interested in learning and aren’t worth your time.
Thanks to /u/mancake for finding my old response on this subject. By my experience, there is no evidence of even one of the Twa people being in Ireland at the time - let alone of being killed. The 'evidence' provided by folklore is misused, and that is my point in my post from 2016. Oral tradition does not offer evidence in this regard; it is merely a bit of folklore that some exploit to invent an imagined genocide.
There are plenty of real examples of genocide: let's focus on these and offer condemnation where it is earned and deserved, and most of all, where the facts verified that a crime against humanity actually occurred!
Let me know if you have additional questions.