Writer and academic Dr Kieran Connell talks to Gillian Halliday about his new book about Multiculturalism, witnessing anti-immigration violence and why ideas about national identity need a reboot
Kieran Connell has been discussing the phenomenon of an unlikely alliance as an Irish tricolour and Union flag are held aloft side-by-side
Dr Kieran Connell, a historian at Queen’s University, witnessed first-hand the violence in August 2024 that erupted from the anti-immigration protests in Belfast city centre when businesses were attacked in the Botanic Avenue area under the shadow of the most unlikely of alliances — an Irish tricolour and Union flag held aloft side-by-side.
Days later, his book, Multicultural Britain: A People’s History — which tells of personal and community relationships across post-imperial Britain, from 1940s Cardiff to the millennial Midlands — was published, and just this month it’s been shortlisted for the prestigious Wolfson History Prize. “I was there, I saw it happen,” he recalls to Belfast Telegraph.