‘My family history is a revelation!’
Boy George discovers more about his Irish heritage in Who Do You Think You Are?
When he digs about his family’s Irish roots, will Culture Club singer Boy George find the sort of flamboyance and colour that he’s been famous for in his pop career since the 1980s?
Growing up in South London as George O’dowd, he was always aware of his Irish roots but now he traces his ancestry in Who Do You Think You Are?
‘Growing up in the 70s, being Irish, you were really aware of the IRA bombings, and people being killed,’ says George, now 57. ‘As it was such big news, you were also made aware of the fact that your family were Irish.’
George always knew that his strict maternal grandmother, Bridget, had been found wandering the streets of Dublin when she was a child and had then ended up in a children’s home. But when George travels over to Dublin to find out more about her story, he’s stunned to discover that she was only six years old when she was left abandoned.
‘It’s pretty tragic,’ he says. ‘She was obviously hiding a lot of pain, but she got on with it. She’s
definitely a survivor, but when you hear these stories, you kind of realise why she was the way she was.’
He also discovers that his great-aunt Annie’s husband, Thomas Bryan, was an Irish freedom fighter who was executed by British forces in 1921, during the country’s armed struggle for independence.
‘My family’s association to really important parts of Irish history is a revelation,’ he says. ‘To be able to walk in those footsteps has been enlightening and powerful for me!’ ● Who Do You Think You Are? is on BBC1
‘She was hiding a a lot of pain’