This St Patrick’s Day I’ll be able to celebrate properly, for the first time Georgina Lawton Georgina Lawton

As a mixed-race woman I’ve found I often have to assert my claim to the emerald isle. But now all that’s changing

@georginalawton

 

St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Dublin. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

The other day, after seeing the fantastic film Ladybird, I had a discussion with a friend about how to pronounce the name of the film’s lead, the Irish actress Saoirse Ronan. My English friend was unsure but said she trusted her Irish-born housemate’s interpretation, who rolled every single vowel around his tongue with skill, before kissing the name with his lips and pronouncing it “See-ah-er-sha”.

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My version, admittedly, came out in an English-Irish hybrid accent that I seem to do whenever I have to say an Irish name (my future daughter will be called Órlaith or Orla, but I loathe my natural voice when saying this), and my friend was confused. “Depending on what part of Ireland you’re from, I think Saoirse can be pronounced a little differently,” I explained, having spent most of my life in the presence of many a dulcet Irish tone (via my mother and her extended family, and having watched Ronan explain the same thing during an interview). My friend protested slightly – her housemate knew best as he was, you know, Irish.
It’s not the first time someone has forgotten or excluded me from Irishness, accidentally or otherwise. I am a mixed-race woman and therefore find that I often have to assert my claim to the emerald isle. Despite my family links, memories of Guinness-stained pub sessions and long, cool stretches of summer spent under the balmy and bruised skies of West Clare, my claim to a country and a culture that’s in my blood is sometimes balked at by those who still believe Irishness and whiteness are exclusively linked.

I’ve fielded many probing questions, and unpicked the shock and awe from strangers about my own Irishness

Growing up, I’ve fielded many probing questions, and unpicked the shock and awe from strangers about my own Irishness. I always felt I could not truly belong in the same way as many of my white friends (who also have one Irish parent) can. I shunned Irish dancing lessons as a child, believing that my presence would be ridiculed, and I always ignored St Patrick’s Day.
But I’ve recently been piecing together the shards of my black heritage, and it has also brought me closer to my Irish side – teaching me that the bonds of association between the two are symbiotically linked within me.
It’s often said that black people and the Irish have a somewhat shared history of oppression. It’s not until the mid-20th century that Irish people became perceived as “white” in North America, when their demonisation as migrants slowed down; and of course in the UK, there were the infamous “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” signs, the Irish jokes, and stereotypes and suspicions during the Troubles.
In recent years, immigration from Africa to Ireland has boomed, and now when I return to County Clare I see more black people than ever. This new wave of black-Irish has led a burgeoning hip-hop scene; the Limerick-based group Rusangano Family last year won the RTÉ Choice Music Prize for their debut album. One of their videos shows two of their members (who were born in Zimbabwe and Togo) dancing on the Burren, a vast stretch of cracked bedrock with cliffs and caves and rock formations in the background. I know that spot. And I couldn’t have imagined, visiting as a child, that this otherworldly Irish landscape would one day welcome people who looked like me, filming a rap video and embracing all parts of their heritage.
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I’ve also found the modern-day definition of Irishness expanding, thanks in part to plays such as Lynette Linton’s brilliant #HashtagLightie – which followed the drama of a London-born, black-Irish family – and a 2016 exhibition in the London Irish centre, #IAmIrish, that curated portraits of mixed-heritage Irish people.
My mother and I have also began discussing how overcoming pernicious racial and cultural stereotypes have formed the backdrop to our lives in the same countries but in different skin. When she came to Britain in the 1980s, people would endlessly comment on her accent, or mistakenly link her to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. She’s starting to understand exactly why I crave pride and knowledge in my own identity as she has in hers; and why getting to grips with my Irishness and blackness is crucial to understanding more about myself.
Of course there’s more than one way to be Irish, just as there’s more than one way to be black, and exploring this whole issue with my mother, and realising how Ireland itself is changing, is why this St Paddy’s Day I will be able to celebrate wholeheartedly, for the first time.
• Georgina Lawton is a Guardian Family columnist

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