The meaning of being Irish is changing as young people from diverse racial backgrounds come of age in this country.
That’s according to teacher and writer Briana Fitzsimons, who’s book Black and Irish: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes came out last week.
Written 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.
Ms Fitzsimons told Moncrieff 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 [from the USA],” 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.”
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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.
“I feel like I have this big responsibility to live up to what they did.”
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.
“[Those young people] are now entering adulthood, starting to have children of their own,” she said.
“We're seeing this kind of generational kind of shift and in what Irishness looks like.”
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Ms Fitzsimons hopes her book can have an impact on Irish education, which she thinks needs to be more “inclusive”.
“Kids are not reading texts by authors from multiple backgrounds,” she said.
"Teachers aren't necessarily choosing those texts that are maybe a little bit different or new are written by people who they don't quite understand.
“There's a nervousness about doing diverse stuff.”
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