(2024) 5 TWAIL Review 73-97
ISSN 2563-6693
Published under a Creative Commons licence. 

In recent decades, there has been an increasing demand for reparatory justice for the historical enslavement and trafficking of Africans across the Atlantic, as well as for the associated colonisation and racial segregation. This article highlights a similar call for reparatory justice from an unusual quarter: Ireland. This country is not always regarded as having a historical role in the enslavement and trafficking of Africans. However, in 2023, a group of children of African descent (now adults) born in Ireland initiated a case at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, seeking reparations for racial discrimination in childcare institutions between the 1940s and 1990s. The article covers this journey and provides an overview of the historical and colonial context for racism in Ireland. It also provides insights into the domestic and international legal challenges and the political campaign and praxis relating to this ongoing case.