100 Voices #AllAgainstRacism: Ronan Hynes – "It's very rich of us, as Irish people, to judge those who have come into the country when, historically, we have emigrated just about everywhere"

Ronan Hynes,
N.O.A.H

It’s very rich of us, as Irish people, to judge those who have come into the country when, historically, we have emigrated just about everywhere. We don’t like when Australians or Americans give out about us. So it’s very hypocritical that certain Irish people try to insist that Ireland only belongs to people who were born here, or have ancestors here, spanning hundreds of years back.

Social media is a great thing, but it’s also horrible. You can see the racism in comment sections. It’s a mask for certain people – they can say what they want there and there’s no repercussions. So we need to have legislation put in place. We need to have the companies like Facebook, who run so much of this, police it more. We’ve seen, with the pandemic, how quickly they can flag something about a vaccine. Or even, in the US elections, how they could flag and take down certain things. They have the facilities to do it, but it’s a case of actually putting the systems into action. That has to be the next step to combat it.

We’ve only witnessed it. We’ve never experienced it. But when we see it, we call it out. It is very important to us that we move forward.

That is happening. You can see how diverse the music industry in Ireland is at the moment, with the likes of Erica Cody, Denise Chaila, JYellowL, and – even for us – working with Hare Squead. These people are really ramping up the Irish music industry. It is heading in the right direction. Everybody needs to be optimistic that there will be change. And then they have to work for it.

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.