Racism and Xenophobia in Máirtín Ó Cadhain's
Cré na Cille

Brian Ó Broin

Issue 387, vol.97, Autumn 2008

One particular fiction introduced here is that of four men, each of whose sons living in England has married a foreigner – French, Italian, Jewish, black. The conversation-partners begin baiting the men’s fathers, alleging that each of their daughters-in-law is in some way beyond-the-pale and a ‘heretic’ or outsider.

The French woman is not considered a ‘heretic’ outright – any Northern-European type seeming to qualify as one of us. And the case of the Italian woman attracts little attention. But the Jewish race comes in for attack. One speaker introduces a pretend-episode, where St. Paul comes to meet St. Colm Cille in Aran. Paul wants to take over the whole island, and to open a pawnshop; and he speaks Yiddish (as did Jewish people familiar to the Irish in the late 1800s and early 1900s in London, New York and even Dublin). However, the worst obloquy is reserved for the black race: when the black wife and children of the emigrant return, there will be “a Blackeen and a litter of young Blackeens running all over the village”. This sentiment would seem to demote black persons even from the paradigm of ‘heretics’ and to consign them to the sub-human. There follows a narrative of that family actually returning – and of the old woman not wishing to admit them to her house (while the neighbours are ready to stone them). At this juncture, recourse is had to the priest: he blesses them with holy water, and they are accepted into church and village (as if they had stood in need of a quasi-exorcism!)

…This little tale can be construed as a literary experiment in early race relations. As a matter of historical fact, however, in the last two decades people of colour have moved into these regions from the U.K. and from Africa. Some have married into the local communities – and they have been accepted.