SOME TEENS milled around clutching iPods and were clad in jeans, while others donned the tribal wear of their parents’ native land – a great example of Ireland’s new cross-cultural generation, who were among the huge gathering of Igbos at the Inchicore Sports Centre in Dublin last Saturday for a major celebration.
One of Nigeria’s biggest tribes, the Igbos are currently marking their New Yam festival, a key event in their tribal calendar. Showcasing the prominence of the yam in Igbo culture, it signifies the beginning of the harvest season and is a time when Igbos gather together and give grace for their good fortune.
Among them were two students from Presentation Secondary School in Limerick, Phina Echeruwe and friend Sandra Ikeh. “We’re here to stay in touch with our roots,” explained 16-year-old Echer-uwe. “Being Igbo is what I am.”
Another participant was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Ireland Kema Chikwe, herself an Igbo, who told Metro Éireann that the Iriji or New Yam festival was about “bringing people together for peace, appeasing the gods for a bountiful harvest and praying for the next harvest to be bountiful also.”
Observing the multitude of youngsters in the hall, she added that for Igbos in the diaspora, such celebrations sustained an awareness of their shared heritage, language and culture.
But not all celebrants had their roots in the Igbo heartland of southeast Nigeria.
“My husband is Igbo and I’m working in the women’s wing of the Igbo union in Cork,” explained Anna Egwim, originally from Grodzisk Wielko-polski, near Poznan in Poland.
Five years ago, she married Kingsley Ugo Egwim, from Imo State, having met him in her native Poland.
“My husband was quite an attraction when he first arrived,” she remembers. “It wasn’t very straightforward [to pursue a relationship], but we broke down all the barriers. I think mixed marriages can be much richer than ordinary marriages as there are two cultures blended into one.”
The embodiment of their union arrived nine months ago, and he’s called Jacob Ugo-chukwu.
The Polish woman enjoys Igbo food and music – but is also enthusiastic about bringing traditional Polish rituals around Christmas and Easter into the household.
“We find ourselves in a foreign land, but there’s no way we’d let our culture wilt,” commented Zeph Ikeh, a community education and development student at Cork Institute of Technology, and originally from Imo State. Living in Ireland for three years, he said such events helped keep homesickness at bay.
A handful of men wore red hats, signifying that they are “titled men” known as Ozo, explained Charles Okeke from Anambara State.
Ikenna Uboma, financial secretary with the Igbo Union that organised the event, which started more than four hours later than billed – or “African time”, as one man remarked – said he was “not surprised” at the large turnout in Inchicore, and noted that Igbos from across Ireland had made the journey.
He said that among the important aspects of the event was the visit of a number of elders, or chiefs, from Nigeria, including HRH Eze Cletus Illomuanya (chairman of the South East Council of Traditional Rulers) and HRH Igwe Kris C Onyekwuluje, Igwe of Umunya.
