AS PROTESTS across the world force many countries to reassess their commemoration of those through history who supported the abomination of slavery, some may be shocked to learn two of Fermanagh’s most commemorated sons also had their own hand in the trade of human beings.
Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole (1772-1842), who has been immortalised in the monument overseeing Enniskillen town, and Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl Belmore (1774-1841), may not have been slave traders themselves, but both colonialists had a morally ambiguous record when it came to the abhorrent practice.
Indeed, it could be argued that both men each had the opportunity to free many people through their position, and consciously chose not to.
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