⚡️The Nigerians of Ireland

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17 JUNE 2026

Photo Illustration by Dunsin Bankole / THE REPUBLIC.

IN THE REPUBLIC TODAY
THE LESSER-TOLD STORY OF NIGERIANS IN IRELAND

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Good morning, Andy!

What does it mean to be Nigerian and Irish, and to carry two identities rarely thought to be placed side by side? In this week’s most important story in The Republic, writer and artist Ezra Olaoya traces the deep roots of the Nigerian-Irish story, from the Irish Catholic missionaries who built schools and hospitals across Nigeria in the mid-20th century, to the 20,000-plus Nigerian-born residents who call Ireland home. Read it in full here.

Tomi Olugbemi
Audience Editor, The Republic

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Illustration by Shalom Ojo / THE REPUBLIC.

FROM THE PRINT / THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
THE PALESTINIAN FREEDOM FIGHTER WHO WAS ALSO NIGERIAN
KAI MORA
The daughter of a Nigerian father and a Palestinian-Jordanian mother, Fatima Bernawi spent her formative years in the African quarter of Jerusalem. Capturing the faces and lives of the Africans who live there, Andrew Courtney writes in Guardians of the Mosque that these Africans came to the Holy City as Hajj pilgrims, mainly from Chad, Sudan, Niger and Senegal. Within Jerusalem, these Afro-Palestinians have come to be identified with ethnic groups such as ‘Al Salamat, Al Housa, Al Barquo, Al Falata and Al Balata, Qanembou and Boulala.’

Photo Illustration by Michael Emono / THE REPUBLIC.

THE BLACK ATLANTIC
A YORUBA WOMAN’S NOTES ON LANGUAGE AS A BARRIER, BRIDGE AND BEDROCK
OYINDAMOLA DEPO-OYEDOKUN
It was a Friday morning, on the short but hilly walk back from a class to my dorm room, when I opened WhatsApp and made a devastating confession to my mother: I had become more fluent in French, a second colonizer’s language, than I was in my own mother tongue, Yoruba. At the time, I had spent nearly two months in Belgium’s Francophone Wallonia region, and before then, I had spent five months in Bordeaux, France. In the space of those seven months, a rapid metamorphosis had taken place.

Illustration by Sheed Sorple Cecil / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER X SEXUALITY
DRIVING THROUGH LIFE AS A FULLY VEILED MUSLIM WOMAN
SAMIA HENNI
My mother bought me my first car; I was 22. Growing up, I was one of those ajebutter kids who were chauffeured everywhere. I recognize now, well over another 22 years since, that there is a potential conversation lurking here about privilege, and how life’s most tenacious values are instilled in the formative home and family of your childhood. And maybe we will have that conversation. Someday.

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In the second season of The Republic, host, Wale Lawal, explores one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Nigeria’s history: the Abacha regime’s brutal execution of nine non-violent Ogoni activists in 1995. Join us as we unpack the life and legacy of Ogoni writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and the significance of the Ogoni struggle against oil companies’ environmental degradation of the Niger Delta.

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Today’s newsletter was brought to you by Tomi Olugbemi and Ijapa O.

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