The meaning of being Irish is changing as young people from diverse racial backgrounds come of age in this country.
Black and Irish: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday HeroesWritten by Ms Fitzsimons and Leon Diop, the book is the first of its kind in Ireland, celebrating the evolution of Black Irish identity through the stories of prominent figures such as actress Ruth Negga and musician Phil Lynott.the first Black and Irish children she met was when she moved from New York and became a teacher in Ireland.
“Their formation of the Black Irish identity was really interesting and fascinating, and it is different ,” she said. “In the US, there's kind of entrenched things that have been there for generations and hundreds of years, and you have layers of history there and racism that has been just kind of really firmly established.
“You don't have that in Ireland; you have a country that was colonised itself, and then there's kind of solidarity with people who are also coming from oppressed places.”Ms Fitzsimons, who grew up in New York with a Puerto Rican father and Jewish mother, said there are many different “kinds of America” when it comes to different ethnic groups.
“The Black community in America has suffered and has had to band together to counteract the oppression that has been put on them by their own government,” she said.Immigration to Ireland is not a new phenomenon, but Ms Fitzsimons explained there are more and more second-generation immigrants who have no memories outside of growing up in Ireland, but don’t look like a 'typical' Irish person.“We're seeing this kind of generational kind of shift and in what Irishness looks like.
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