The curious tale of Kamala Harris and the Northern Irish slave owner

Published

11 months ago

August 25, 2024

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In the heart of Ballymoney, a small town in Northern Ireland’s County Antrim, bike leather-clad tourists seek out a well-manicured memorial garden.

Astride his motorbike, a life-sized statue of champion racer Joey Dunlop leans back, arms folded, a victorious grin engraved for eternity. The late King of the Roads, a local legend, still commands pilgrimage from around the world.

There are statues too of his brother Robert, and nephew William, all three men taken before their time, snatched away by one of the world’s most dangerous sports.

Down the street, drinkers sip pints in the sunshine outside Joey’s Bar, beneath his smiling image. This place knows how to celebrate its sons.

Yet there is a strange reticence to embrace the ancestral ties that might see Ballymoney blood in the Oval Office. A reluctance to acknowledge the town’s most famous daughter. “You’ll not get them to talk on that,” one man told me. And I soon found out how right he was.

Five years ago, Donald J Harris, father of Kamala Harris, revealed his belief that he is descended from Hamilton Brown, born in Ballymoney around 1776. Brown emigrated to Jamaica and ran sugar plantations. He owned scores of slaves, some treated harshly.

In an essay by Harris, published by the Jamaica Global Online website, the Stanford University professor wrote: “My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (nee Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town).” Donald J Harris emigrated to the US from Jamaica in 1961.

That story has been given fresh impetus since Joe Biden paved the way for Kamala Harris to become the Democratic presidential candidate. In recent weeks, a County Antrim historian said he had found documentation shedding further light on Hamilton Brown.

Stephen McCracken told the local newspaper, the Ballymoney Chronicle, that he had discovered letters connecting Brown to his birthplace in Bracough, a townland just outside Ballymoney. He told the newspaper that Brown was “a seriously bad man, who travelled to London a few times to campaign against the abolition of slavery”.

The Irish Times picked up on the story, as did the Belfast Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

“I’ve been getting a wee bit of abuse over it,” McCracken told the Irish Times. “People have been asking me why I’ve publicised it.”

When I asked him for an interview, he declined, citing an abusive backlash via social media, including Kamala Harris supporters accusing him of trying to wreck her campaign.

Right-wing and pro-Trump memes have circulated since 2019, painting the Harris family as “descended from slave owners”, without any context. These tropes deliberately ignore the ugly explanation that slave owners commonly raped their female slaves, explaining why many black Jamaicans have European genes.

In the ultra-polarised world of American politics, Kamala supporters were allegedly hitting out at those publicising her heritage, seeing it as ammunition for further MAGA propaganda.

Meanwhile, the Ballymoney Chronicle carried a follow-up piece practically debunking the original claim of lineage. A qualified genealogist told the paper that the links were “unproven”, and said Hamilton Brown was not recorded as getting married or having children.

When I asked that genealogist for an interview – they agreed. The next day they abruptly cancelled, calling the story “a pile of nonsense”.

I asked McCracken for further details of his research. He stopped replying.

A third historian told me he didn’t think existing documentation would ever prove the link. “You’d need DNA testing,” he said.

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I felt like I was encountering a wall of silence from others in Ballymoney. Multiple phone calls, messages and emails to a high-profile local DUP councillor went unanswered. A Sinn Fein colleague seemed unaware of the story and not overly interested in an interview. Ballymoney business owners declined to arrange interviews, or were not returning calls.

Repeated attempts to visit Ballymoney were abandoned due to rioting in Belfast. Another journey was aborted after the Sky News satellite van suffered a blow-out on a particularly inhospitable stretch of road.

The story was starting to feel a bit cursed.

When we did belatedly arrive, the contrast to other US presidential “hometowns” in Ireland was stark. Long before they received the imprimatur of an actual visit, Ballina in Co Mayo and Carlingford in Co Louth were abuzz with Bidenmania.

You can’t visit the “Barack Obama Plaza” motorway service station outside Moneygall, Co Offaly, without a sense of the faintly ridiculous Irish enthusiasm for presidential heritage. Petrol and a chicken fillet roll downstairs, Obama visitor centre upstairs.

Yet, half a decade on from Donald J Harris’s revelation, there isn’t a solitary sign of the transatlantic connection in Ballymoney. Not a mural, a sign, a US flag or an enterprising cafe with a Kamala-themed name.

On Main Street, pedestrians were bemused. Most simply hadn’t heard the tale. It’d take more than Kamala to brighten up “this dreary town”, one woman ventured, a bit unkindly.

But some locals were happy to talk.

In the W & J Walker hardware shop, paint brushes from both the “Hamilton” and “Harris” brands hung serendipitously side-by-side.

“People around here like family trees,” said worker Joanne Donnell. “They like to go back to the original people.”

“It’ll bring a bit of excitement to the town,” her sister Rhonda Lafferty said. “We get a lot of visitors here from America, this summer especially.”

Neither woman seemed concerned that Hamilton Brown was a slave owner. “People take these things with a pinch of salt,” said Joanne. “It was a long time ago.”

Winifred Mellot owns the bustling The Winsome Lady clothes shop. A popular figure, she is also the long-serving president of the Ballymoney Chamber of Commerce. She doesn’t think Brown’s slave-owning past should sour any future celebrations.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean let’s face it, we all have ancestors we’re not happy with, and you can’t blame Kamala or her family for what Hamilton Brown did. No, we don’t approve of it but it’s history.”

County Antrim’s White House credentials are also history. Incredibly, nine US presidents (with varying degrees of certainty) claim lineage from The Saffron County, from Andrew Jackson right up to Ronald Reagan (shared with Co Tipperary).

Can Kamala Harris make it 10? That depends firstly on the US electorate, and a willingness in Ballymoney to embrace the story.

Not far from the town you’ll find the Dark Hedges which portray the “King’s Road” in Game Of Thrones. A certain darkness too, may lurk within the branches of the Harris family tree. But while historians bicker, Kamala’s own father knows his truth. And that roots the family as surely in Antrim soil as those storm-battered beeches.

US

Ghislaine Maxwell could use ‘government misconduct’ to challenge imprisonment

Published

2 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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Ghislaine Maxwell could use 'government misconduct' to challenge imprisonment

Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell could use “government misconduct” to challenge her imprisonment, her family has claimed.

The 63-year-old, who was jailed in 2022 for luring young girls to massage rooms for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Maxwell’s family have frequently claimed she “did not receive a fair trial”, but legal appeals against her sex trafficking convictions have been rejected by the courts.

The latest challenge from the Maxwell family comes as President Donald Trump faces questions over whether or not he will order the release of the so-called Epstein “client list”, following a backlash from Republican loyalists who have called for any list to be made public.

Judges previously dismissed arguments from Maxwell’s lawyers that she “should never have been prosecuted” because of a “weird” agreement drafted more than 15 years ago.

The family argue that Maxwell should have been protected under an agreement Epstein had entered with the US Department of Justice in 2007, which agreed not to prosecute any of his co-conspirators.

During her trial in 2021, Maxwell was described as “dangerous” by prosecutors, who told jurors about how she would entice vulnerable girls to go to Epstein’s properties for him to sexually abuse.

In a statement, her family said: “Our sister Ghislaine did not receive a fair trial.

“Her legal team continues to fight her case in the courts and will file its reply in short order to the government’s opposition in the US Supreme Court.”

David Oscar Markus, one of her lawyers, said in the statement released by her family: “I’d be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal.

“He’s the ultimate dealmaker and I’m sure he’d agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it.

“With all the talk about who’s being prosecuted and who isn’t, it’s especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the US government made and broke.’

“These are sentiments with which we profoundly concur.”

Epstein, 66, was found dead in his cell at a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.

US

James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife’s protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

Published

11 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife's protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

The trial of a dentist accused of murdering his wife by poisoning her protein shakes has begun in the US state of Colorado.

James Craig denies using cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops, to kill Angela Craig in a suburb of Denver.

During the trial’s opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutors claimed the 47-year-old was having an affair with another dentist, had financial difficulties and may have been motivated by the payout from his wife’s life insurance.

Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley told the jury at Arapahoe District Court that the 43-year-old victim – who had six children with her husband – had been suffering worsening symptoms including dizziness, vomiting and fainting.

She died in March 2023 during her third trip to the hospital that month.

Mr Brackley accused Craig of poisoning her protein shakes – then giving his wife a final dose of poison while she was in hospital, and said: “He went in that [hospital] room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide … She spends the next three days dying.”

Craig, who shook his head at times during the prosecution’s opening statement, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.

Prosecutors said Craig had tried to make it appear his wife of 23 years had killed herself. His internet history showed he had searched for “how to make a murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy”.

In an argument, captured on home surveillance video, his wife also accused him of suggesting to hospital staff that she was suicidal.

After Craig’s arrest in 2023, prosecutors alleged that he had offered a fellow prison inmate $20,000 (£14,993) to kill the case’s lead investigator and offered someone else $20,000 to find people to falsely testify that Angela Craig planned to die by suicide.

Craig’s attorney, Ashley Whitham, told the jury to consider the credibility of those witnesses, calling some “jailhouse snitches”.

Ms Whitham argued that the evidence didn’t show that he poisoned her, instead seeming to suggest she may have taken her own life.

She described Angela Craig as “broken”, partly by Craig’s infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints.

Hospital staff had said Craig had been caring and “doting” while Angela Craig was in the hospital, said Whitham.

The defence argued prosecutors had overdramatised Craig’s financial problems and dismissed the prosecution’s suggestion that Craig was motivated to kill because of an affair he was having with a fellow dentist from Texas.

“That’s simply not the case,” Whitham said, adding that Craig had many affairs over the years that his wife knew about. “He was candid with Angela that he had been cheating.”

The trial continues.

US

Trump to ‘refine trade deal’ with UK during Scotland trip

Published

17 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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Trump to 'refine trade deal' with UK during Scotland trip

Donald Trump has said he will “refine the trade deal” with the UK during his private trip to Scotland later this month.

The US president told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday that he will meet with Sir Keir Starmer “probably in Aberdeen”.

Politics latest: Reeves committed to ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules

Mr Trump is expected to travel to Scotland in the coming weeks to visit his golf courses ahead of an official state visit in September.

“We’re going to be meeting with the British prime minister, very respectful, and we are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen, and we’re going to do a lot of different things.

“We’re going to also refine the trade deal that we’ve made.

“So we’ll be meeting mostly […] at probably one of my properties, or maybe not, depending on what happens, but we’ll be in Aberdeen, in Scotland, meeting with the prime minister.”

The UK and US signed a trade deal earlier this year that reduced car and aerospace tariffs, but questions have remained about a promise from Washington to slash steel tariffs.

In May, the White House said it would exempt the UK from plans for a 25% tariff on global steel imports but that is yet to be ratified and the levy has since been doubled on all other countries.

Mr Trump had insisted that unless Britain could finalise the details of a metals trade deal with the US by 9 July, when wider “Liberation Day” tariff pauses were expected to expire, he would slap the UK with a 50% rate as well.

However that pause was extended until 1 August, with the US president saying nations would instead get letters informing them of his plans.

As Sky News’ economics and data editor Ed Conway has reported, the metals deal has floundered on two key issues, including that while the government has taken control of British Steel, the company itself still legally has Chinese owners.

Downing Street is still hoping it can secure 0% tariffs on steel.

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On Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesperson played down the significance of the meeting in Scotland, stressing it was a private trip so it “will not be a formal bilateral”.

Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has imposed tariffs on countries across the world in a bid to boost domestic production and address trade deficits.

As well as sector specific tariffs, there is a baseline tariff of 10% for most other imports, though some countries face higher rates.

The UK was the first to hash out a deal on exemptions after a successful charm offensive by Sir Keir.

Mr Trump has praised the PM, telling the BBC earlier on Tuesday: “I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.”

There are also plans for Scottish First Minister John Swinney to meet Mr Trump during his trip.

It will be followed by the official state visit between 17-19 September, when Mr Trump will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle and accompanied by his wife Melania.

It will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, having previously been hosted during his first term in 2019.