Video of black gymnast snubbed in medal ceremony sparks racism debate in Ireland

The girl's mother is convinced that the long delay was an attempt by the body to avoid blame and wait for public interest in the story to die down. According to media reports, it took until this month for the girl to receive a written apology from them.

Previously, Una May, the CEO of Sports Ireland, claimed that the judge had passed over the only black gymnast in the competition because she'd got the medals 'tangled up.'

"(May) said it wasn't a racist incident at all," says Ken McCue, co-founder of Sports Against Racism Ireland. "I said to her: 'That's disgraceful, you want to change your mind on that one,' and she just walked away."

Asked if this still represented May's position, Sports Ireland did not directly respond. It said the organisation had contacted Gymnastics Ireland after receiving a report of the incident and remained in contact throughout the investigation.

Although there have probably been black people in Ireland since at least the 18th century, few were visible in the years leading up to the founding of the Republic, and not a lot since.

One famous exception was a rock star by the name of Phil Lynott who had been raised in Ireland and was fiercely proud of the country. When asked what it felt like being a black Irishman, Lynott replied "It's a bit like being a pint of Guinness" – the sacred black beverage for which Dublin is renowned.

No country in the world can claim perfection in its attitude to migrants. The Irish, however, have their own bitter national experience of emigration dating back as far as the early 19th century and the 'coffin ships' that carried them across the Atlantic.

'Shamefully intolerant'

Nonetheless, the Rough Guide to Ireland for 1999 said the country was 'shamefully intolerant' of minority groups, adding, 'If you are black, you may well experience a peculiarly naive brand of ignorant racism… in the cities, there does seem to have been a marked change for the worse in recent years, and along with increased aggression evident in society as a whole, abuse would also seem to be on the increase.'

By the years of the economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger (from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s), Ireland was keen to bring workers from abroad to supplement its tiny population. Many of them worked in the health service. In 2001, the government sent Mary Harney on a world trip to invite people to come to Ireland. She visited five countries in Africa, including Nigeria and South Africa.

Then, when the Tiger economy crashed in 2008, there was a retreat from progressive policies. Budget cuts resulted in the dismantling of important infrastructure, including the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, the National Action Plan Against Racism and the position of minister for integration. These have never been replaced. 

In June 2020, with Black Lives Matter protesters on the streets of Dublin, an Irish Times editorial warned that 'the virus of racism, and the wider challenge of social integration, cannot be addressed without rethinking our ideas of Irishness in ways that account for the transformation of recent decades.'

Attitudes in sport might be a fitting place to start.