From the Nile to North Cork: The extraordinary life of Jimmy Durham, Fermoy’s first Black resident

Taken from Sudan as a toddler after a brutal battle, Jimmy Durham became a soldier, musician and cherished figure in North Cork

Jimmy Durham and sheep, 2nd Batallion, Durham Light Infantry. Reproduced by permission of Durham County Record Office

In Fermoy’s old military cemetery, on the northern side of the town, a simple white marble cross marks the final resting place of a historic figure who died in 1910, aged 25, nearly 9,000km from his birthplace.

He was, as far as is known, the first black citizen of the north Cork town, and probably the first time anyone on the banks of the Blackwater saw anyone whose complexion wasn’t somewhere between pasty and gammon.