RTE’s Audience Choice Awards Nominee at An Post Irish Book Awards
(November 23, 2021)
Three generations of a mixed-race family in Ireland tell their stories in Nanny, Ma & Me.
Actress Jade Jordan, her mother Dominique and her grandmother Kathleen contribute to this three-part memoir about their lives and diversity and discrimination in Dublin and London.
Kathleen Jordan left Ireland for England in the late 1950s where she fell in love and married a Jamaican man. When Kathleen decided to bring her three children back to Ireland, her daughter Dominque discovered a new world to the one she’d known in London.
Nanny, Ma & Me is a warm-hearted and often light-hearted memoir filled with stories of inner-city Dublin, rejection, prejudice and the importance of community and family.
Jade Jordan: ‘This story is the result of long hours of delving into the pasts of my nanny and my ma. I hope it will give some insight into the experiences of one family of colour in Ireland today. Most of all, I just want to start a conversation, because once people come together to talk, the possibilities are endless.’
EASON BOOK CLUB BOOK OF THE MONTH
In association with The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk 106-108fm
The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk 106-108 FM partners with the Eason Book Club to help us select our Book of the Month. Each month, Pat and his panel which is made up of Claudia Carroll, Stefanie Preissner and Keith Walsh pick the Eason Book of the Month from a shortlist of four books compiled by the Eason book team. In the last week of every month the panel will return to discuss the book on air and engage in a lively debate on the characters and themes of the chosen book.
Nanny, Ma and Me by Kathleen, Dominique & Jade Jordan
Jade Jordan’s granmother, Kathleen, left Ireland for England in the late 1950s to train as a nurse. While there, she fell in love and married a Jamaican man. When Kathleen decided to return home to Dublin, she discovered that the colour of her children’s skin set them apart – and that their new lives would be very different to the ones they had known in London.