Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
We need to talk, we need to mix
JACKIE SAYS RISING RACISM HAS GOT TO BE TACKLED
JACKIE McCARTHY O’BRIEN has spent all but the first year of her life in Ireland and has worn the green jersey in both football and rugby — becoming the first mixed-race female to do so in both codes.
But in recent times, she says, she has been made feel like an outsider.
“It got worse and worse, the more black people that came into Ireland, for me,” she says, “it made it worse, because now I was a refugee, now I was asylum seeker. Now, I was this.
“How was I driving that car? How did I get that house? Was I getting that (for) free? I worked my bloody arse off to get my house, my car, my whatever. I’m Irish.
“But all of a sudden, I was a foreigner within my own city of people that didn’t know who I was.”
She is the proud daughter of an Irish mum and Jamaican dad.
She has represented her country in football (1981 and 1983), and rugby (1994 and 1998), while her daughter Sam has also lined out for Ireland in the 11-a-side code.
On Thursday at the launch of the 50-year anniversary celebrations of the Ireland Women’s National Team, the recent online abuse of members of the Under-15 team comes up.
“Look, there is racism in Ireland,” says Jackie. “There’s no point in sugarcoating it, there is racism. And I will say it to you that nowadays, it’s actual racism, because back when I was growing up, it was ignorance. You stuck out like a sore thumb.
“There were four black people living in Limerick and you got stared at.
Knowing
“I had kids coming up licking my hand, (they) thought I was made of chocolate. It was not knowing — that’s the honest to God truth. They never saw a black person.
“Today, when you get it, they know.You can’t hide behind and say, ‘Oh, it’s ignorance’. They’re educated.
“At the moment with the thing of refugees coming in and housing and given this and given that, it has been heightened.”
McCarthy O’Brien continues: “I’m not only Irish, I’m black Irish and I’m proud of my heritage. I’m Irish first but I’m also... my father was Jamaican, but I’ve grown up here.
“I’ve got a grandson that I don’t want to go through what I went through as a young one. I want him to integrate and be as part of Irish society as he can.”
She is happy to discuss the subject, even if there are repercussions.
“Once we’re talking about it, then we’re educating people,” she says. “We all need to talk. We all need to mix.
“I turn around and I say in the media, ‘Ireland is racist’, I’m not talking about the whole of Ireland, but there’s people in Ireland that are racist.
“This is my country, I am entitled to say that, but because I’ve said it, (I get) ‘Go back to your own country if you don’t like it here’. I went on The Claire Byrne Show to talk about racism and you’d want to see some of the comments… ‘If you don’t like it that much…’.
“I never said I didn’t like the country. I didn’t ever say that I don’t love being here. I pay my taxes, I’m here all my life. But these were the comments and it was hard to see. It really was, because once again, I had to go back to wearing the Irish jersey and go, ‘I am Irish. I am Irish’.”
McCarthy O’Brien adds: “The conversation, as painful as it is, has to happen. The racism has to be called out.
“It’s hard as a person of colour to call it out. Because once you call it out, you’re the aggressor, you’re bringing attention to it, you’re the one that’s calling the race card is what you’re told.
Conversation
“You’re not, you’re just trying to have the conversation. And once we have the conversation, slowly but surely, it will start to change. I have every confidence. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but Ireland.
“You can argue with an Irishman and go for a pint later, d’you you know what I mean? You can have that and you will be listened to.
“It’s like, ‘Alright so, come on. D’you know what, you’re sound!’ And that’s what it is? We’ve got that about us.
“The sad thing about it is you can go anywhere in the world and you’ll find an Irish pub, we have gone everywhere.
“So we should be equally as welcoming in this country. And it will happen. They’re people that were born here, they’re as Irish as bacon and cabbage. It will happen and I have confidence it will happen.”