100 Voices #AllAgainstRacism: Dónal Kearney – "We need to keep listening, learning and challenging ourselves"

Opinion
07 Dec 21

Dónal Kearney shares his thoughts and experiences as part of 100 Voices: #AllAgainstRacism.

Dónal Kearney,
TRÚ

Being from Northern Ireland, identity is something we’re very aware of. Our guitarist, Zach Trouton, is from an Ulster-Scots background whereas I grew up with a nationalistic sense of Irishness. Then you’ve our drummer, Mike Mormecha, whose grandma came to England as a Ukraine refugee fleeing the Nazis.

There are so many ways in which Northern Ireland is lagging in terms of social liberalism and integration, but music and the Arts in general are really helping to break down those old divides as they are too in the Republic.

We worked on a really interesting project celebrating Frederick Douglass with the Irish Institute of Music and Song, a non-profit music organisation trying to bring cultures together. It’s based in Balbriggan, which is the most culturally diverse place in all of Ireland in terms of the last census and the demography of the town. As a result of our involvement, we’ve been able to collaborate with some amazing artists of colour and learn from their experiences.

One of the songs we wrote for the project, ‘Green Blues’, is about Irish American sheriffs and police officers who grew up with a sense of injustice stemming from British colonialism and The Famine, and who take it out on other cultures within American society.

A lot of Frederick Douglass’ famous writings about human rights and abolition came from his visit to Ireland in 1845, which was his first as a Freeman, having formerly been a slave. He wrote some poignant pieces about how the Irish people treated him so well, and for the first time made him feel like a real, heard person.

Nowadays, though, we need to be really, really careful not to view ourselves as being any more enlightened than any other country when it comes to racism. We need to keep listening, learning and challenging ourselves to make everyone in Ireland feel like a real, heard person.

Read Part 2 of 100 Voices: #AllAgainstRacism in the current issue of Hot Press:

Special thanks to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for their support in this project.