There is a speech in Roddy Doyle’s 1987 novel, The Commitments, I’ve long wanted to ask him about. “The Irish are the N-words of Europe, lads,” the band’s manager, Jimmy Rabbitte, tells his charges. He’s trying to explain to them what a bunch of pasty wannabes from the wrong side of Dublin have in common with African Americans and why they should play Black soul music, rather than emulate Ireland’s then leading cultural export, U2. “Say it loud,” Jimmy tells the perplexed Commitments, “I’m Black and I’m proud.”
By the time that speech was delivered in Alan Parker’s 1991 film adaptation, it was amended to: “The Irish are the Blacks of Europe.” Why? “Alan Parker was saying: ‘You just can’t have a white character using the word,’” explains Doyle.
