By Matthew Semple

Growing up in a small village in rural north Somerset in the 1980s was definitely not a multi-cultural experience. There was a boy at school in the year below me whose father was from Pakistan and he was probably the only non-white child at the school. But when I was 11 years old my parents bought me a cassette of Paul Simon’s Graceland album for Christmas and that soon became my favourite tape. If you haven’t heard of it, look it up because it is worth a listen. There aren’t many albums that combine the unusual and exotic rhythms of South Africa with a middle-aged man singing cheerfully about going to parties in Manhattan, filing for divorce and negotiating a relationship with his young son.

No-one was expecting much of this album, especially as the singer’s previous two albums had flopped and he hadn’t had a hit for over ten years. But to everyone’s surprise it was a massive hit and sold 16 million copies – proving that success comes from unexpected places and that you can learn a lot from collaborating with people from other cultures.

And so it was that I was asked to compere the Multi-Culture Day at St Catherine’s National School on 24th May 2024 – or rather my wife said to me, “somebody ought to introduce the performers”. It is difficult to describe the atmosphere in the room when hundreds of people are sampling the images, artefacts and, importantly, the food from over a dozen countris representing their countries and cultures – but believe me, it was something very special and rare.

There were varied displays from, in no particular order, Poland, Thailand, Australia, Malaysia, India, Croatia, Latvia, Nigeria, Great Britain, Congo-Kinshasa, the Central African Repulic, Brazil and Ireland.
The school hall at St Catherine’s was almost definitely the only place in Fingal that day where you could sample spring rolls and plum sauce from Thailand, Brazilian brigadeiros, Indian bites and Australian fairy bread. The queue at the Nigeria buffet was particularly large as was the range of dishes they had on offer.
For further international flavour, attendees could purchase a cupcake with a flag and simultaneously enter a raffle. The winner was the holder of the flag pulled out of the hat towards the end of the event. The lucky flag was Canada and the winner, Leslie-Ann, went home with the Hamper of International Treats.
The sampling of international cuisine was punctuated by music and dance from children at St Catherine’s School followed by performances from the wider community, including some former pupils. We started with a gentle dip of the toe in not-so-exotic waters with traditional songs from England, Scarborough Fair and further back in time, Greensleeves.

Local councillor Brian Doherty and his daughter, Tess, stepped up with songs by Irish bands including U2 and took us on a trip across to Galway with the Saw Doctor’s N17. And after the musical ice was broken, members of the community volunteered impromptu performances taking on us on a whirlwind world tour of songs from Brazil, Slovakia and renditions of ‘How Great Thou Art’ in both French and Sango, an indigenous language of the Central African Republic. Keeping up the pace between the impromptu performances, various current and former pupils of the school treated the quite considerable audience to a dollop of Americana with songs from The White Stripes, Nirvana, and Metallica.

Whilst we are unfortunately used to hearing from detractors of multi-culturalism, often on social media, Friday’s event proved there is much joy in meeting and sampling other cultures, particularly when the food and music is so good. The Multi-Cultural Day, here in Rush, was proof indeed that we are stronger together and just like that Paul Simon album that has a depiction of St George on the cover – the patron saint of both England and Ethiopia - we have much more in common than we, at first, would realise until we get to know each other.