Association of Mixed Race Irish

EXHIBITION

Drawing on materials from our mutual collections alongside new research, we hope in this exhibition to provide an insight into the presence and experiences of mixed race Irish families in Britain, the range of social reactions towards them, and the social contexts in which they lived. By creating an Irish perspective within the history of racial mixing in Britain, we seek to further highlight the longstanding diverse history of Britain itself.

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Portrait originally presumed to be of Tony Small but now understood to beGerald Fitzgerald’s Negro Servant Holding Bold Sir William in a Landscape, A Poodle Beside. Thomas Roberts, 1772.

1700-1900: Multiracial Ireland

While - as our exhibition shows - many mixed race Irish families formed as the result of migration to Britain, there are a number of accounts that highlight how Ireland’s own multicultural history has played a part. Scholars are increasingly discovering a more diverse racial presence in Ireland that dates back to the early modern period, including the formation of mixed race people and families.

Ely Family Portrait by Angelica Kauffmann

Ireland's Early Multiracial History

Early accounts of people of colour and racial mixing

Wealthy Planters

Sending mixed race children to Ireland

Glimpses of Racial Mixing in 19th Century Ireland

Mir Aulud Ali; the 'Irish Negroes'

Mixed Race Possibilities?

Potential histories of mixedness

1780-1820: Irish Roots

While there is still work to be done to trace the types of mixed race families in Ireland hinted at in nineteenth century reports, there are a fascinating number of accounts of those who first met or were raised in Ireland before moving to other countries, including Britain.

John and Mary Jea

The formerly enslaved African preacher and his Irish wife, Mary

Sake Dean Mahomed and Jane Daly

The Indian-Irish entrepreneurs

Advertisement promoting Ryan’s Circus with Pablo Paddington ‘the celebrated Man of Colour, on the FLYING ROPE’, Gloucestershire Chronicle, 17 October 1840.

Pablo and George Paddington

The circus performer and the priest

'Foreign' Mixed Race Couples in Ireland

Tony and Julia Small; William G. and Mary Allen

1600-1900: Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Britain

The racial and ethnic diversity that had long been a part of British life became further enhanced in the 18th century by mass Irish migration. During this period, patterns of racial mixing between Irish woman and men of colour increasingly became commonplace.

Detail from British Foot Guards Parading at St James Place, c.1792, artist unknown.

Multiracial Britain

A longstanding history

High Life Below Stairs; or Mungo Addressing My Lady’s Maid, 1772. By William Humphrey. Held at Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund.

Mixed Race Relationships

Not such an unfamiliar sight

‘Midnight. ‘Tom, Jerry and Logic among the sophisticated Sons and Daughters of Nature at “All Max” in the East’ from Life in London (1821). George and Robert Cruickshank.

Multiracial Cities

London and Liverpool

‘Chinese and Irish Intermarriages’, Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser, 14 March 1857.

Attitudes towards Racial Difference and Mixing

A spectrum of views

Edward and Catherine Despard

The Irish-Jamaican revolutionary couple

1900-1939 Early Twentieth Century Migration

As the 20th century unfolded, the hardening of attitudes towards race and difference began to move out of the confined circles of specialist race thinkers and scientists and into a more widespread and pervasive public discourse. Once more concerned with what was happening in the colonies, discussion on racial mixing started to focus on that occurring in Britain.

‘White Girls Marry Black Men: Epidemic of Lightning Weddings’, Daily Mirror, 14 July 1917.

Race and Prejudice in Early 20th Century Britain

Attitudes towards racial mixing

Drawing of the Manchester Ship Canal by James Mudd

Mixed Race Irish Families in Manchester

Early twentieth century life

John Archer

The Black Mayor of Battersea

Western Mail newspaper clipping of a grainy black and white photo showing a multiracial crowd. The caption reads Racial Riots at Cardiff'.

The 1919 Race Riots

Resentment, recrimination and violence in Britain's portside communities

Illustration from article ‘Here is the Real Limehouse: Its Romance and Tragedy: By a Chinese Visitor to London’, Pêh Der Chen. The Graphic, 30 November 1929. ‘Pêh Der Chen’ was the pseudonym of Henry Petersen, a white author of Scandinavian descent from Hong Kong.

Irish-Chinese families in Britain

Overlooked histories

Moral Concern over Mixed Race Children in the 1930s

Prejudice and stigmatisation

Extract from ‘A Warning to English Girls’, an article opposing marriage between Indian men and English women. Ulverton Advertiser, 19 July 1900.

South Asian Presence in Early 20th Century Britain

Sailors, students, professionals

Irish-Indian families in Britain

Aubrey Menin, Johnny Sadiq and Pat Cross

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1939-1949 Racial Mixing During and Post-WW2

The arrival of Black American GIs in Britain saw fears around racial mixing in dockside communities replaced by concerns around war time ‘brown babies.’ Such narratives, however, overshadowed existing mixed race adults.

The Satar family, Butetown in Cardiff, 1943. Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.

British Mixed Race Families

An initial lessening of public interest

‘The Babies They Left Behind Them’, Life, 23 August 1948.

The 'Brown Babies' of World War 2

New narratives, old attitudes: the problematising of the children of Black GIs and white British women

Beyond 'Brown Babies'

Not just GI babies: Elizabeth Anionwu

Anglo-Chinese wedding c1940s. Courtesy of Yvonne Foley.

Compulsory Repatriation of Chinese Seamen in Liverpool

The forced disintegration of families in Liverpool

Lilian Bader

One of the first Black women to join the British Armed Forces

Domillie Jones runs off to sea, article in the Daily Herald, 1943

Mixed Race Adults from Irish Families

Children from the 1920s and 1930s grow up

1950-1970: Racial Mixing in the Era of Mass Migration

The advent of new post-war migrant populations from the Caribbean and South Asia in Britain in the '50s and '60s saw the wartime ‘brown babies’ issues subsumed by new anxieties around domestic racial mixing, which also involved many Irish migrants. By 1960, Britain was home to approximately one million Irish-born, making the Irish the largest national group to enter postwar Britain.

Mixed Race Irish Families in Post-war Britain

Philomena Lynott, Gus Nwanokwu and Kit de Waal

Black and white portrait photograph of Sultan Shariff standing beside Nora Shariff. They appear to be in their early 20s. Sultan wears a light shirt and has a moustache; Nora has short, wavy hair.

Nora and Sultan Shariff

An Irish–Bengali couple shaped by migration to England and their activism in the Bangladesh Independence Movement

Picture of Dolores Mantez in the television series UFO.

Mixed Race Irish Adults in the Post-war Public Eye

Dolores Mantez and Kenny Lynch

Mixed Race Irish Families and Adoption

In the years after the ‘Brown Babies’ scandal, the issue of mixed race children in care would continue to become a topic of public debate. Due to the continuing moral condemnation of illegitimacy and racial mixing that carried into the post-war years, a disproportionate number of mixed race children – including those born to Irish […]

Article on Enoch Powell Rivers of Blood speech in Sunday Mirror 21 April 1968

1970-1989: Racism and Daily Life

As the 1970s dawned, fears around mass immigration saw the Black and Asian presence in Britain—once again—increasingly vilified as a root cause of the country’s woes. While mixed race families were increasingly being recognised as an ordinary part of the British landscape, they also remained largely invisible in public discourse unless forming part of a ‘problem’ narrative.

Racism, Prejudice and Empowerment in the 1970s and 1980s

Racism and daily life in the 1970s and 1980s

Kevin O'Grady

A blackface portrayal of an Irish-Pakistani

Experiences of Mixed Race Irish families in the 1970s and 1980s

Gabriel Gbadamosi, Jenneba Sie-Jalloh and Second Generation Irish

John Conteh

A British boxing champion

Phil Lynott

The Thin Lizzy frontman of Irish and Guyanese heritage

Tara Prem

A pioneering television producer

Chris Hughton

The first black footballer to play for Ireland

1990-2000: Inside Voices

During the 1990s, a ‘new wave’ of research and representation contributed to challenging the problem narrative. Amongst these were writers whose work highlighted issues and histories of racial mixing in Britain from an ‘insider’ rather than an ‘outsider’ perspective, some incorporating their own mixed race Irish heritages into their fiction.