“Survivor” – Representations of the “New Irish”

Jean “Ryan” Hakizimana is a 30-year-old artist. Born in Rwanda, his parents were Burundian – his father a Hutu and his mother a Tutsi. In 1993, a bloody ethnic conflict erupted in Burundi where extremists in both the Tutsi and Hutu communities began killing one another. Many thousands of people were murdered including all of Jean Ryan’s immediate family. In 1999, after a number of years spent moving from one refugee camp to another, he managed the long journey to Ireland. Jean Ryan uses his paintings to tell the story of his troubled past and the difficulties experienced by asylum-seekers throughout the world. He has published a book about his experiences – Postcolonial Identities: Constructing the “New Irish” Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK (2006)

Dr. Michael Hayes works as a Lecturer (part-time) at the University of Limerick where he lectures on a number of English, History,and Comparative Literature courses incorporating Traveller, Roma and Migration Studies. He has published a number of books about the literature and history of a number of different (traditionally nomadic) groups within the Irish Traveller community.