It was great to Pierre Yimbog., Co-founder of Black and Irish. The grassroots movement has become a powerful voice for the Black and mixed-race community in Ireland. Born in June 2020 as an Instagram page in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Black and Irish began as a platform to share the stories and experiences of Black people growing up in Ireland. Over time, it has evolved into a multifaceted organisation dedicated to amplifying Black voices, eradicating racism, and fostering a more inclusive Irish society. Today, we explore its impactful work, including their podcast, educational initiatives, community events, and more. If you want to find out more visit their website www.blackandirish.com

1. How did Black and Irish come into existence, and how has its mission evolved over time?

Black and Irish started as an Instagram page in June 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd. The co-founders like many other black people were impacted by what they saw again and enabled the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of growing up in Ireland and issues they have similarly faced with racism. This led to launching an Instagram page titled Black and Irish to recognise that you can have both identities and share stories of people growing up and being challenged by that. The stories many shared allowed us to shine a light on their experiences in hope of educating and informing that Ireland isn’t immune to racism. It has since then evolved into an organisation that seeks to improve the lives of black and mixed-race people, amplify their voices and eradicate racism.

2. The Black & Irish Podcast has gained significant recognition. What inspired its creation, and how has it grown since then? Who have been some of your favourite guests?

The Black & Irish Podcast was an opportunity to take those conversations into mainstream media and RTE approached us after seeing our Instagram page and the outpouring of support. It’s been great to collaborate on three seasons and have fantastic guests on sharing their stories, profiling some of the events and discussing important topics. It’s hard to pick a favourite episode or guests, but if to personally choose, I would say Rachel Akano and Joy Njekwe at the 2023 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition discussing the award-winning app ‘Memory Haven’. Amazed by their passion, intelligence and focus on solving problems at such young age!

3. What is the focus of the Black and Irish book, and which audience are you hoping to reach?

The Black and Irish Book: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes was launched in October 2023 to celebrate the Black Irish identity. In collaboration with Little Island Books and for young teens and adults to learn about historic and current figures in the areas of art, sport, business, politics and social activism and celebrate the impact in Ireland. These stories can hopefully inform and inspire what amazing icons and everyday heroes do for our community and wider Irish society that may not have been covered in history books.

4. On your website you state how people can share their personal stories with Black and Irish. How many submissions would you get through this communication channel? What have been some of your favourite stories from people who have summited their story?

We’ve had a lot of submissions over the years, though we had started first receiving submissions just through our Instagram DMs before we had a website and facilitated it into a form so we can track it all. It’s hard to pick out favourite stories as each are amazing and unique experiences to share, and appreciate everyone willing to open up and share it through our platform that enables us to give an insight to the lived experiences of people in our community and celebrate their achievements.

5. What educational initiatives do Black and Irish offer to the community? What Talks & Workshops do you do in this area?

The education initiatives is focused on building allyship and awareness to have more informed, inclusive society. Our talks and workshops in schools, companies and other groups is an opportunity for us to educate people about bias and racism, share our experiences and those of people of colour in Ireland and have a conversation about what’s happening in Ireland today and what we can do individually and collectively to make it a more inclusive place. Also, with a lot of our talks and workshops taking place during the busiest times of the year for us in October for Black History Month, we also discuss black history and the influence its had in Ireland.

6. What other ways do Black and Irish encourage community involvement and participation?

Throughout the year we run different initiatives between voter registration which was launched on 30^th April this year to get more people within our community and other ethnic minorities registered ahead of the local and European elections, and town halls to take on board the sentiments of the community and feed that into our lobbying and engagement with political representatives. The biggest involvement of our community is with the annual Black and Irish Gala (B.I.G) Awards that’s been held in December since 2021 and powered by RTE. This is the biggest community involvement from nominating and voting for awards to recognise amazing individuals, groups and companies within our community and attending the celebration.

7. What other ways can someone get involved with or support Black and Irish?

We appreciate the amazing support we continuously receive through our social media when we share content and is always referenced when we engage with both people within our community and allies. While we aren’t in the position to hire people and expand the team of volunteers, people can still support by attending our talks/workshops, purchasing our book, attending our events and most of all, sharing our content so we can continue to reach a wider audience and continue the conversation to making Ireland a better place for all.

8. You have a long list of partners that you have worked with in the past. What has been the nature of some of these partnerships, how do you go about sourcing partners and what have been some of the most successful partnerships to date?

We have partnerships with RTE through the podcast and B.I.G Awards, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for different online campaigns, and most recently with Little Island Books as our publisher. The partnership with Guinness enabled us to hold many different events that supported and provided opportunities to artists and creatives from our community, and this has now grown and moved into a new organisation; BNI Media.

9. How do you leverage social media to connect with your target audience, and what type of content performs best on each platform? Are there additional communication channels you use to reach your audience?

The stories are still the content which connects the best with both our community and allies who follow our Instagram. Instagram continues to be our platform for communication, which is supplemented by LinkedIn, Facebook and we have used TikTok for some video content also. We are investigating other channels that we could leverage to directly engage with our community, especially as all spread out across Ireland and may not be directly on social media. This is where we use town halls, events and engage and connect through other organisations doing similar work within communities.

10. I’ve already interviewed the likes of GORM, The APNI and YourY network; As it’s Black History Month, could you recommend other Black-owned businesses in Ireland that are leading efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly in the context of DEI work?

Those organisations are doing amazing work, and there are businesses but also other individuals doing trojan work in driving change and tackling the many issues that we are also focused on relating to DEI. As its coming close to the B.I.G Awards, we won’t name any in particular to remain impartial but hope that can get the recognition that they deserve.