Black & Irish: Legends, trailblazers and everyday heroes

Ray talks to Leon Diop and Briana Fitzsimons of The Black & Irish Podcast and authors of Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes, illustrated by Jessica Louis. Listen back above.

Writers and podcasters Leon Diop and Briana Fitzsimons dropped in for a chat with Ray D’Arcy to talk about their new book Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers & Everyday Heroes, illustrated by Jessica Louis.

Leon and Briana talked about what inspired them to write the book, some of the people they feature in its pages and their work in the Black & Irish Podcast.

Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers & Everyday Heroes features big names like Phil Lynott, Paul McGrath, Christine Buckley and Ruth Negga, but it also profiles Black and Irish people that are not as well known, but who've left their mark on Irish culture and continue to make an impact.

Leon says it’s good to fill in some of the gaps, especially given the month that’s in it:

"We have some role models to look at; like the likes of Jude Hughes, and Christine Buckley and Paul McGrath and Phil Lynott and stuff like that. There have been documents of black people living in Ireland for hundreds of years, going back to the likes of Rachel Baptist. It’s Black History month, so we might as well get into a bit of history!"

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The impetus to write the book came from teachers across the country, Briana Fitzsimons says. Briana's taken time off her teaching job to work as a director of education with the Black & Irish Podcast, which evolved from an Instagram page set up by Leon in 2020.

Born in Yonkers, New York, Briana’s been living in Ireland with her husband and kids since 2017. She says the demand for a book like this has been there for years:

"Every Black History month, every October we get, I don’t even know how many, emails and DMs on Instagram of teachers asking for resources. So here it is – this is it. They’ve been waiting for it so we did it."

The book dovetails perfectly with the original aims of Leon’s Black & Irish Instagram page, and the Black & Irish podcast. The Tallaght native says he set up the page in response to the death of George Floyd in the US, but he wanted to do something that related specifically to the black Irish experience:

"What I wanted to do then was create something that had with a bit of an Irish context to it, so I set up the Instagram page with two friends; I just wanted to document the everyday lived experiences of black and mixed race people all over the island."

Both Leon and Briana regularly give talks in schools and Leon says he puts out a really positive message, one that’s informed by his own experience growing up in Ireland:

"The Black & Irish identity is something that’s growing and it’s exciting and it's something to be proud of. For myself, what I would have loved to have heard for myself when I was in that age demographic would be that you can be 100% of everything you are."

Leon says that Black Irish identity represents something whole; it’s not a piece or a fraction of something:

"Because I’m half Irish, half Senegalese, I always told myself that I have to find somewhere to fit in, and if I fit in with one side, I can’t fit in with the other. Like it’s nearly impossible for me to do so. I am 100% of everything I am."

The positive message is clearly working as Leon is inundated with kids asking about internships in his organisation. Teenagers want to be a part of something that’s a force for good, he says:

"They are excited about the organisation and they see it as something that’s bringing positivity to their school. I’m not going in and talking about doom and gloom of racism."

When kids ask about how to prevent racism, Leon’s approach is pragmatic and education is key, he says:

"While you can’t necessarily always prevent racism from happening, we can educate as many people as we can about racism and how it can present itself. A lot of people, I think, in Ireland when they engage in racist behaviour, they might not even be aware they are doing it – it’s coming from a place of unconscious bias."

Briana thinks Ireland is in a unique position to show solidarity with people who’ve suffered persecution over the centuries. She says the willingness to have a chat, exchange views and learn from each other makes Ireland a less divided society than the country of her birth, she says:

"There’s an energy here, there’s a willingness to learn, there’s an openness to wanting to be better that hasn’t suffered from the polarisation that you have elsewhere like the US. People are willing to have conversations."

Briana would love to see Black & Irish: Legends Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes picked up by school libraries around the country and she says the uptake has been brilliant so far. Teachers are delighted to have a classroom resource to talk about Black and Irish heroes, especially some of the younger ones like champion Irish dancer Elliot Kwelele:

"Honestly, we’ve actually already had teachers already starting to work with, they’re already using Elliots’ chapter in some primary schools. It’s really exciting. Teachers are asking for this."

Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers & Everyday Heroes by Leon Diop, Briana Fitzsimons and Jessica Louis is published by Little Island.

Listen and subscribe to the Black & Irish Podcast here or on any podcast platform.

Join Ray D'Arcy Monday to Friday from 3 - 4:30pm for a lively mix of interviews with authors, musicians, comedians, celebrities and listeners' stories – Listen back here.

Black & Irish: Legends, trailblazers and everyday heroes

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