Black History Month in Ireland
October marks Black History Month in Ireland. We would like to invite everyone to celebrate black history at a local level in Cork and, more generally, in Ireland, by sharing resources with your friends, family, students or colleagues and by reflecting on the situation in the Ireland we all live in today.
Cork, Ireland and Black History Month
Black History Month is an annual celebration of the history, lives and culture of the African diaspora. It originated in the United States, where it is celebrated in February and also known as African-American History Month.
In 2010, Black History Month was inaugurated in Cork by Nigerian-born Zephrynus Okechi Ikeh, making Ireland only the fourth country in the world (after the US, the UK, and The Netherlands) to officially honour Black culture and heritage in this way. For more information about Black History Month in Ireland see this website; below are some links to university-based, local, and national initiatives that may be of interest.
Cork & Ireland Initiatives
The Cork Migrant Centre (CMC), based at Nano Nagle Place in Cork City, does important work in our community; for example, their CMC Youth Initiative Against Racism has been a great success.
The My Generation project, unveiled recently on Culture Night, presented the ideas and experiences of a group of young people, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, who worked with artist Kate O’Shea and the Glucksman team to create a series of large-scale public artworks around Cork City.
At a national level, The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) does important work in pursuing freedom, justice and dignity for all asylum seekers in the country.
The Black & Irish social media account (on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) is dedicated to highlighting and celebrating the struggles and successes of the Black Irish community; their motto is “One country, many voices”.
Unsilencing black voices is a project founded by two University of Limerick students to highlight different forms of racism in Ireland and to shine a light on black voices around the country. As part of the project, they created a documentary (set to be screened this week at the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival) to speak out about their - and their peers’ - lived experiences of racism growing up in Ireland. The website also has written resources on racism, and a film collection for you to browse.