Something They Had Never Seen Before

By Nichelle Kelleher

1996, A small town in County Clare, Ireland, saw something they had never seen before in the flesh, Black People!

My mother, brother and I moved from Brixton, South London to a small town in County Clare, Ireland.

I was 3 and my brother was fresh out of the womb. My mother an Irish woman, was missing her family and decided to make the decision to leave my Jamaican father.

My brother and I, as soon as we landed in Shannon airport, we became oddities. Receiving stares from every direction, also receiving “go back to where you came from” and of course the classic “Niggers”. We also were physically assaulted with stones from time to time.

My mother, got a nice house on a nice road, surrounded by family. Mostly terrible family.

I started school, a couple of days after my 4th birthday, being the youngest in my junior infants class. Every lunch time a circle would form around me, touching my hair, feeling my skin, face, and arms. The teachers also could not help themselves, from rubbing their dirty fingers through my fro and reminding me every time how sheeplike it was.

“How does your mother get a comb through that”, “Jesus Christ my hand would get stuck in that” and so on.

But what sticks with me to this day is “Eenie meanie miney mo catch a nigger by the toe”, it sends a shiver down my spine. I remember, doing a dip with my classmates.

I said “eenie meanie miney mo catch a nigger by the toe”.

They all laughed, my cousin (I had a lot of cousins in my class) burst out laughing and said “you’re a nigger, we’ll catch you.” Everyone laughed and laughed.

I remember sitting on the bench under the shelter crying, not understanding what that word meant, not understanding who I was. I knew I was different. I knew I was brown; I knew my mummy was white and my daddy was Black, and I looked like a mixture of the two of them, didn’t I?

I told my mum, she got sad and mad, and things changed slowly.

They learned not to say that anymore and the school always had my back. The school praised me to the highest.

The nuns, priests, and teachers all accepted me and my different phenotype. Until puberty hit and it all got too much, the novelty wore off.

But that is a different story.