RTÉ star Emer O'Neill: I was told 'if you don’t want to be harassed, be quiet'
Today Presenter Emer O’Neill at RTÉ's new season launch. Picture: Andres Poveda
If Emer O'Neill had listened to the racists it's unlikely she would be the new presenter of RTÉ's Cork-based Today Show, nor the host of the national broadcaster's entire autumn launch.
"If you don’t want to be harassed be quiet," is what the PE teacher and mother of two was told last year after she started speaking out about racism in Ireland, in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in America.
She was one month postpartum on her second child and experiencing postpartum depression having given birth, in April 2020, at the height of the first lockdown.
Born to an Irish mother and Nigerian father, Emer had never spoken about the racism she experienced growing up in Ireland, until last May - the act of which saw her name graffitied around her hometown in Bray and acid poured on her neighbour's car, which the vandal mistook for her family car.
Her response to the racial harassment and order to be quiet?
"No, that’s never going to happen," says Emer.
Having spent the first 35 years of her life saying nothing about racism, the very act of speaking out about it has changed her entire life.
"I really don't know where the courage came from, it's not courage I had before, I was 35 years old and I had never spoken out about my experiences of racism. It was not something I ever talked in-depth about or made a big deal about. I grew up knowing it makes people uncomfortable, it's the elephant in the room, I didn't want to make other people feel uncomfortable," says Emer.
But the coinciding of the birth of her second child with a global pandemic and fatal police brutality in America changed that.
"The murder of George Floyd just struck a nerve with me, Sunny Rae was born April 24, 2020, and he was killed May 25. I really wanted to say something in response but I couldn't. I didn't know how to respond to it.
"I saw a lot of my friends posting things about it, white people, and I thought: 'I have experienced these things first hand in my country'.
"There was a lot of finger-pointing at America, but racism presents itself differently in different countries, but we too have this profiling and oppression in Ireland - that was my driving force and I was worried my son would go through the same things I did.
"If it’s not going to be me, then who? And if I don’t do it now, then when?" explains Emer.
Her desire to say something was so strong that even the sleep deprivation of newborn days in an unprecedented global pandemic did not sway her resolve.
"I had postpartum depression, I was not sleeping, I was trying to establish breastfeeding - there was a lot going on. My husband wanted me to mind myself," says the TV presenter.
"So, I made a video, slept on it for a couple of nights, talked about it with my husband who asked me if I was going to be OK with the backlash. It went viral and everything kicked off from there," she adds.
Things moved quickly from online to offline with Emer speaking at an anti-racism rally.
"I had never spoken publicly before, never mind at a rally and my newborn baby lying there asleep in the buggy," recalls Emer.
From there, she found herself on national radio, presenting RTÉ’s Homeschool Hub, gaining thousands of followers on social media and writing a children’s book – 'The Same but Different', published next month.
This, compared to her experience on the birth of his first child Ky in 2014, does not compare.
She had just arrived home from 10 years in America as a single parent having taught PE and coached basketball there.
“When I came home, I was 27, and living in a room in my mum’s house, and I had owned my own house in America with a pool. I had to sell everything I owned, I went from having a house full of items to coming home with three army duffle bags,” explains Emer, who had to return to work two months postpartum, having experienced postnatal depression also.
“I was at a point in my life where I just wanted to go get it, whatever ‘it’ was, my son was my motivation, I wanted him to have a great life,” explains Emer.
She met her now-husband Sean when Ky was a month old and they have been “inseparable” ever since.
While she describes interviewing Ryan Tubridy for the RTÉ launch as the highlight of her TV career so far, the grand dream of her life is not media or career-related.
“My dream is to have grandkids who have to ask me what it was like to have to endure racism,” says Emer.
“In the workshops I do with children in primary schools, they just cannot comprehend why someone would treat anyone differently because of their skin.
"To see kids that young be so clever and empathetic gives me hope because if they become the business people of Ireland they will make sure their workforce is diverse. We are lucky they are the leaders of the future,” she adds.
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