The Footballer of African Heritage in Ireland (1948-2004): Migration, Identity, and Racism

This thesis aims to explore the African heritage footballer in Ireland over a period between 1948 and 2004. These dates correspond to the year that the first known footballer of African heritage played in the top two tiers of Irish soccer (1948), and the year that Ireland finally removed the universal right to Irish citizenship of anyone born in Ireland (2004). This thesis also adds to the limited historiography on both Irish soccer and Africans in Ireland: by introducing the African footballer in Ireland as a case study, it focuses on societal reactions to African-heritage people in Ireland as a whole, and the ‘hegemonic racism’ of the Irish government with regards to people of colour.

The thesis explores African-heritage footballers in Ireland through the prisms of identity, migration and race, comparing their lives, careers and experiences with similar footballers elsewhere, principally in Britain. It investigates how well these footballers were received in a largely monocultural society and how they were able to move into situations of sporting leadership often denied in Britain, its colonies, and the United States. It also explores the complexities and ambiguities of Irish race-relations, especially with regards to its own historical intercourse with the African through Irish missionaries and Irish-America, and Black mixed heritage children born outside of marriage. Furthermore, this thesis highlights how international soccer in the Republic became one of the very few sporting organisations that manifested itself as a representative of state: it thus demonstrates how important ‘Black’ footballers, all born abroad and mostly growing up in the Irish diaspora rather than in Ireland, were to making soccer a popular sport throughout the Republic following Ireland’s qualification to major international tournaments from the 1988 onwards.

This thesis examines the African-heritage footballer in Ireland through four different chapters, centring on a single footballing aspect of Irish soccer: the student from Africa, the footballer of African heritage from Ireland, the foreign import of African heritage, and finally the ‘Black’ Irish international representative born in the diaspora. It explores the vagaries and intricacies of each group and their relationship with the Irish state, as well as the reactions to them as footballers from the Irish public and press. This thesis contends ultimately that the ‘hegemonic racism’ of the Irish state was far more welcoming to African-heritage visitors than many other nations. But it also argues that it was harsh towards those African-heritage population permanently settled in the state: either those born out of wedlock in the 1950s and 1960s, or the African immigration that arrived after 1997.