‘The Irish funeral is a lot closer to the African-American funeral than I ever expected’

Joy Nesbitt knew little about Ireland before moving from Texas. She did know, however, that there was an ancestral Irish connection to her family.

Soon after her arrival, the family discovered the name of their Irish ancestor: Dr John Good, who was a slave owner. He had nine children with a woman named Ginnie, who was enslaved.

“Those nine children were all claimed on his will, which was extraordinary. Ginnie never took another lover, and never had children except with him. She stayed with him even after emancipation,” says Nesbitt.

“That’s also an interesting thing to see Irish culture trickle down into my family, even though it was much more subdued. That was always a story that was passed down through my family that there was a doctor character in my family. So much so that the name Dock is passed through our family as a first name.”

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The revelations led her to write a play about the story, which she says would probably not have happened if she hadn’t moved to Ireland 2½ years ago.

Nesbitt, originally from Dallas, had planned to remain in the US for a number of years after she finished university. The pandemic changed all that.

“I went to college at Harvard, and in my junior year of college Covid hit. I spent my junior spring and my senior year online. The original plan was to finish school and do some more things in the US. And then Covid hit and I thought maybe it was time to make a shift because things are not as straightforward as I once thought they were,” she says.

[ ‘People call the US the land of opportunities and dreams, they’ve obviously not heard of Ireland’ ]

Trying to decide where to move was not easy. But Nesbitt decided to allow her love of anthropology to guide her way. “I kind of fell in love with this idea of heritage and lineage and how we understand the generational gifts and traumas that we have in our lives, especially related in my case to postcolonial realities,” she says.

“So I thought I should go somewhere I could learn more about that and become more intertwined with how that intertwines with storytelling. I applied for the George Mitchell scholarship through the US-Ireland alliance [to attend The Lir Academy master’s programme in Dublin for theatre directing] because I know Ireland has this history of wrestling and grappling with postcolonial ideas and colonialism in general.”

Moving to Ireland was one of the first times Nesbitt had been in a place where she was “completely by myself without any connection to family or anything like that”.

Feeling welcomed, she knew after the first year she wanted to stay: “People are really nice; I made so many friends and connections that I realised it just didn’t make any sense for me to go home now. It’s my new fave. It’s kind of become home.”

In Ireland I was really moved and inspired that when you tell your story, people just accept it

That feeling of being welcomed was one of the biggest surprises Nesbitt encountered when she first moved here.

“Considering the fact I was coming from the US at a time when it was kind of tumultuous, especially for African-Americans. At home, I was feeling a lot of people questioning your experiences a lot of the time. I’d come into a space and say this was how I was feeling and they would say ‘Is that really true? It’s not what I’ve seen’ and it just felt really combative,” she says.

“I came here and I was really moved and inspired that when you tell your story, people just accept it. You say, ‘This is how I experience life’ and they would go ‘Okay, that must be true, tell me more’. That was the most beautiful part of being here.”

Another thing Nesbitt loves about Dublin is how diverse its people are. “A lot of my friends are people who are from different countries and different backgrounds. That’s been the best part that Dublin is such a multicultural city and to participate in the reality that we have a cross-cultural and global world and we must have those conversations,” she says.

[ ‘In the early 20th century Irish families lived in bedsits. Now we have 10 or 12 students or migrants in one small apartment’ ]

There is also a difference, she adds, regarding the conversations about diversity in Ireland compared with those taking place in the US. Ireland’s conversations tend to come more from a lack of representation within communities, she says, as opposed to “wilful ignorance”.

“That’s kind of what made me want to stay even more because a lot of my work is about having those conversations about how we interact with each other when we don’t have that knowledge about each other,” she says.

“I’m interested in that cross-culture exchange you can have in works like that. I think it’s really exciting to be in those conversations and not shy away from those differences we have and accepting them. I just think Ireland is a lot more willing to have that acceptance and conversation than other places.”

A lot of the family gathering nature of things really reminds me of home. The way that people talk about their family and that you know your cousin and your cousin’s cousin, that’s very reminiscent of home

There are also similarities between the two places, she adds. Some of the fried food in Ireland reminds her of southern US cuisine. The importance of family is another likeness between the two locations.

“There are certain communities in the US where family is really important, particularly communities of colour. The experiences like the Irish funeral, I find that to be a lot closer to the African-American funeral than I ever expected,” she says.

“A lot of the family gathering nature of things really reminds me of home. The way that people talk about their family and that you know your cousin and your cousin’s cousin, that’s very reminiscent of home.”

Ireland has given Nesbitt a lot. One of the best things are the work dreams she has had being made a reality, including directing two plays, which premiered as part of Dublin Fringe Festival in September. Nesbitt will also be going on tour around Ireland as assistant director with Dan Colley’s play, Lost Lear, in October.

“For now, I think this is home for the foreseeable. I just feel like this has been a really good place for me to develop my craft,” she says. “I feel like it’s a good time for me to put down roots in a place like Dublin and see where things take me in the future.”

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish