Mixed Race Studies

British woman whose Nigerian father was killed by an IRA bomb has been driven from her Northern Ireland home by racists, she says, as she finally finds ‘sanctuary’ in England

The Daily Mail
2018-02-20

Richard Spillett

Jayne Olorunda, the daughter of a man killed by the IRA, has told how she was forced out of Northern Ireland by racism

• Jayne Olorunda grew up in Belfast after her father was killed by an IRA bomb
• She says her family have been forced out of Northern Ireland by racism
• Now in her thirties, she was surrounded by racist thugs outside party in 2016
• She says her family are much happier in Leeds, where ‘attitudes are different’

The daughter of a man killed in an IRA bombing has told how she was later forced from Northern Ireland by racism.

Jayne Olorunda is the daughter of Nigerian-born Max Olorunda, who was killed by an IRA incendiary bomb which detonated aboard a train in Dunmurry in 1980.

She grew up in Belfast but recently moved to England due to racism in Northern Ireland…

…Miss Olorunda has written Legacy, the story of her family and how they have coped with her father’s tragic death and the aftermath of it.

The book covers Miss Olorunda’s mother’s deteriorating health and how the pair eventually met the man involved in the bombing which killed her father as well as her own struggles growing up.

Read the entire article here.

My fear killer will get pension, by daughter of train IRA bomb victim

The Belfast Telegraph
2016-12-17

David Young

Jayne Olorunda

The daughter of a man killed in an IRA blast on a train has claimed her elderly mother would be excluded from a proposed victims’ pension scheme while the IRA terrorist whose bomb killed her father would be eligible – because he was injured but survived.

Read the entire article here.

“We’ve had the worst of the hatred that Northern Ireland has to give – sectarian and racist – levelled at us and we just can’t take any more,” she says.

“We are a mixed race family and don’t always blend in. Growing up we became used to stares and taunts, but that was all we had. Naively I thought that Northern Ireland seemed to be changing, more and more people of colour were coming in and we no longer stood out as much.” —Jayne Olorunda

Stephanie Bell, “I couldn’t cope with seeing Sinn Fein’s new MLA on TV or radio… I’d be thinking all the time: your father killed my father,” The Belfast Telegraph, December 16, 2016. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/i-couldnt-cope-with-seeing-sinn-feins-new-mla-on-tv-or-radio-id-be-thinking-all-the-time-your-father-killed-my-father-35297664.html.

I couldn’t cope with seeing Sinn Fein’s new MLA on TV or radio… I’d be thinking all the time: your father killed my father

The Belfast Telegraph
2016-12-16

Stephanie Bell

Harrowing life: Jayne Olorunda whose father Max Olorunda was killed in an IRA train bomb during the Troubles

Jayne Olorunda’s dad was killed by an IRA bomber whose daughter has been made a Sinn Fein MLA. Jayne tells Stephanie Bell this is the last straw and her family is now set to quit Northern Ireland

News that the daughter of the IRA man who killed her father is to take a seat for Sinn Fein in Stormont has left Belfast author and community worker Jayne Olorunda and her family determined to leave Northern Ireland. The distraught 38-year-old says she couldn’t bear to see new MLA Orlaithi Flynn in the news now that she had been appointed by Sinn Fein to replace Jennifer McCann in the Colin area of west Belfast.

Jayne was only two when her Nigerian-born father Max Olorunda was killed by an IRA incendiary bomb which detonated prematurely in Dunmurry on a train travelling from Ballymena to Belfast in January 1980.

She says her mother Gabrielle (66) has never got over it and to this day suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome.

Orlaithi Flynn

Orlaithi Flynn’s father Patrick Flynn was convicted of double manslaughter and possession of explosives for the attack.

In a heartbreaking interview, Jayne revealed how her family has also suffered years of racial hatred and had planned to leave Northern Ireland last month to try and escape the abuse…

…She has spent most of her life working in the community and has also written a powerful book called Legacy which tells the story of how her family were plagued by racism, poverty and grief after the death of her father.

Her father Max (35), an accountant, had been visiting a client in Ballymena and was on the train when the IRA prematurely detonated a device on January 17, 1980.

The blast engulfed a carriage of the train killing her father, as well as 17-year-old Protestant student Mark Cochrane and one of the bombers, Kevin Delaney (26)…

Gabrielle and Max Olorunda

Read the entire article here.

“My mother said, ‘By identifying yourself as black, you’re cutting out the whole other side of your heritage. You’re not acknowledging the fact that half of you is white, that half of your background is white.’ That I wasn’t acknowledging that she existed.”

“I’m starting to see myself as mixed. If I’m asked my identity, I will say Northern Irish and it took me a long time to say that and to feel comfortable saying that.” — Jayne Olorunda

Dean Van Nguyen, “Half-white, half-Asian, but no less Irish,” The Irish Examiner, August 15, 2015. http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/half-white-half-asian-but-no-less-irish-348324.html.

Half-white, half-Asian, but no less Irish

The Irish Examiner
Dublin, Ireland
2015-08-15

Dean Van Nguyen

Half white, half Asian Dubliner Dean Van Nguyen speaks to other mixed-race Irish people in their twenties and thirties about growing up in a primarily white culture, being subjected to racist taunts, and coming to terms with their own sense of self.

Who am I? It’s a simple question, but one we as human beings frequently ask ourselves – it defines our sense of self identity, from childhood right throughout our lives, and can play a major role in shaping the people we become.

When it comes to self-concept, there are some obvious factors that we know from an early age just by examining our circumstances.

For generations of people born in Ireland, many of the key questions seemed pre-answered: You were Irish. You were white. You were Christian.

As African-American comedian Reginald D. Hunter joked at a Vicar Street gig in 2011, Ireland is “where they make white people”.

While the country is becoming ever more pluralist as we get deeper into the 21st century, for those of mixed-race now in their twenties and thirties, the answers to these questions of self-identity have been less simple…

Read the entire article here.

Big interview – Jayne Olorunda on racism still needing to be tackled in NI

The Stephen Nolan Radio Show
BBC Radio Ulster
2014-09-05

Stephen Noland, Host

Jayne Olorunda was just 2 years old when her Nigerian born father Max was killed by an IRA bomb that was being transported on a train he was travelling on. Jayne has written a book about her experiences growing up here. “Legacy” explores her own mother’s childhood in Strabane, and the prejudices she experienced when she married Jayne’s dad.

It also looks at Jayne’s own personal battle with an eating disorder and the racism she has encountered growing up in Northern Ireland. Jayne began by telling us how her parents met.

In Northern Ireland, a Wave of Immigrants Is Met With Fists

The New York Times
2014-11-28

Douglas Dalby

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — More than 16 years after the Good Friday peace deal brought real hope that Protestants and Roman Catholics could live together in relative harmony, Northern Ireland is being racked by another wave of violence.

But this time it is not driven by the sectarian divide, but by animosity toward a fast-growing population of immigrants — adding one more challenge as Europe struggles to cope with the combination of intense economic strain and rapid demographic change.

“This is a society that always prides itself on being very friendly, but it is becoming less and less welcoming, particularly to certain types of people,” said Jayne Olorunda, 36, whose father was Nigerian, and though she grew up in Northern Ireland said her color has always marked her as an outsider.

The expanding problem appears to be partly racial and partly directed at immigrants of all backgrounds at a time when open borders in the European Union have led more legal migrants to Britain and Ireland in search of work. At the same time, war and economic deprivation have driven waves of legal and illegal migrants toward Europe from Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The more recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and parts of Africa tell stories similar to those of people from China, India and Pakistan who have lived here for decades…

…The new wave of immigrants has certainly not brought safety in numbers.

“It’s my home, but I don’t feel like a very welcome resident,” said Ms. Olorunda, whose broad accent is pure Northern Ireland.

“When more people began to arrive I was excited at first,” she said, “but then the attacks began to move from verbal to physical and I began to think this isn’t a good thing, after all.”

Ms. Olorunda said she has endured a lifetime of racism and stays in Northern Ireland mainly to look after her mother, who she said never recovered from the loss of her husband. He died in 1980 when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded on a train…

Read the entire article here.

Legacy: A Story of Racism and Northern Ireland’s Troubles

Maverick House
2013
240 pages
ISBN-10: 1291529349; ISBN-13: 978-1291529340

Jayne Olorunda

Legacy is the true story of the Olorunda family’s struggle against racism and poverty during the Northern Ireland Troubles. In January 1980, Max Olorunda was killed by the IRA in a bomb attack. He left behind a wife and three small children. Legacy is the poignant story of what became of his family after his death. Legacy is no ordinary book. Poignant and thought provoking, Jayne Olorunda’s words describe the brutal reality of racism in Northern Ireland set against a backdrop of the Troubles.

Northern Ireland’s most (un)wanted

Media Diversified
2014-07-28

Jayne Olorunda

Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast has had many songs written about it. The lyrics of one Belfast song resonates in my ear as I think of the reputation the city now has. The lyrics of the song always stood out to me, but now they are more ironic than ever. The song goes, ‘Belfast, Belfast a wonderful town it doesn’t matter if your skin is brown’ I wonder if this was ever true? It certainly wasn’t in my time or even in my parent’s time. The outside world knows Northern Ireland as a country dominated by sectarian strife where Catholic and Protestant people have for decades been at war. This is of course true, but within Northern Ireland other hate based dynamics exist, recently they have come to the fore. Today’s Northern Ireland has a serious problem with racism and it is fast becoming a problem that can no longer be brushed aside…

…I am Northern Irish, but I am also black and this is not a comfortable position to be in, at times it has felt like a disastrous combination. My story came to public attention when I wrote ‘Legacy’ a book about my families experiences in Northern Ireland. It documents the difficulties we faced with identity and of course the sometimes impossible realities of assimilation. I was born and bred in Northern Ireland and I imagine that I am among a small handful of people of colour who can say that. It is sad that even now in my thirties black faces in Northern Ireland still stand out in the crowd. As such we have become targets to those elements in our society determined to keep their society white, those intent on living in bitterness.

Growing Up

Growing up my sisters and I have became used to being the only blacks and being identified not on our merits but as ‘the black girls’. Northern Irish racism for us began in the womb, with comments such as ‘how dare you bring another black bastard into the world’ being levelled at our mother. Our story began when my father, originally from Nigeria, was offered a job in Belfast on his graduation. Like any student fresh from university he was delighted at the opportunity in his chosen field and seized it. Whilst here he met my Mum who is from Northern Ireland. As all romances go the pair fell in love and got married, they had a family consisting of three children, I was the youngest. Not everything was perfection and it goes without saying that my parents encountered racism, they met in the 1970’s after all. Yet they were a strong couple and as long as they were together they coped…

Read the entire article here.