In a new project, photographer Ruth Medjber is asking ordinary people to share their extraordinary tales. This week, she meets MJ O’Brien, who left Dublin for America in the 1960s with her biracial sons
MJ O’Brien photographed by Ruth Medjber for the series, Sin Scéal Eile.
MJ O’Brien photographed by Ruth Medjber for the series, Sin Scéal Eile
I meet MJ O’Brien in her home in the middle of Dublin city centre. Her back garden is the canal dock, which makes for a wonderful vista. She’s funny, charming and flirting with my sound engineer/partner who is recording our podcast interview today.
MJ is a woman who seems to have always broken society’s divides with love and laughter. Like when she first met her lifelong friend Ann, at the time she started studying nursing in Essex. “She was from the northside of Dublin, and whenever I opened my mouth, she used to tell everybody: ‘Don’t pay any attention to her, she’s from Northumberland Road.’ And then I’d tell people: ‘Don’t listen to her. She’s a commoner. She’s from the northside.’ Even to this day we joke about it, she still calls me ‘Dublin 4’.”
MJ’s talks me through her life, with some poignant ups and downs, but what hits me most is the disparity between her life and the obstacles she faced in the 1960s in Ireland and how different today’s society is.
“I got into some trouble,” MJ begins with a little smirk on her face – the kind that tells me there was a man involved. She recounts how her nursing college in the UK was located near to a US Army base, and they would send bus loads of soldiers over for dances. MJ would wait all night for ‘ladies’ choice’, describing herself as a bit of a plain Jane who was constantly looked over.
It was at one of these dances where she met Al and fell madly in love with him. “I was 17 and I thought he was the second coming. He was lovely and, of course, he was a different shade.”
MJ O’Brien photographed by Ruth Medjber for the series, Sin Scéal Eile
As I look around MJ’s apartment, the family photos come into focus, and the smiling faces of all different skin tones start to make perfect sense.
MJ and Al went on to have two sons, but being of mixed heritage wasn’t straightforward in the 1960s. MJ’s parents – both well educated and respected doctors – were supportive, and MJ had so much love for them and for her siblings. However, she made the difficult decision to leave Ireland with her two small children and move to America.
She felt it would be the less scandalous option for her family, and would also take the pressure off her mother (who had tried to convince the neighbours that the children were half Spanish).
With Al unfortunately gone from the picture, MJ raised her two sons by herself. She worked hard her whole life, living all across America, from New Jersey to New Mexico.
Now, with her children grown, she has come back to Ireland to get to know her siblings and friends again.
It hasn’t been an easy journey, she has faced all kinds of hardships, losses and injustices, but MJ feels it’s important to forgive those who have done you wrong, or even inadvertently hurt you. However, it’s most important to forgive yourself – something she says she has only learned to do later in life.