By Sean Kavanagh
Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes will remain a party member following the revelation of his use of blackface in 2009, party leader Holly Cairns announced on Sept. 16.
The controversy became public on the morning of Sept. 15 when the Dublin Bay South TD released a statement on X apologising for his actions after a news outlet contacted him the evening prior to confirm that they would be releasing pictures of the event.
“At a Halloween party 16 years ago, while President of the Student’ Union in University College Cork, I dressed up as someone I greatly admired at the time, US President Barack Obama — whose re-election campaign I went on to work for in 2012. As part of this costume, I wore brown makeup on my face and hands,” Hayes said in his statement.
Dressing in blackface is considered by many to be deeply offensive as it has historically been used to promote racist stereotypes.
“Blackface is part of a very, very long tradition of white performance which by and large ridicules blackness From around the 1830’s, across the 19th and well into the 20th century, white people have dressed up as black people to ridicule them, but also to mobilise different kinds of stereotypes,” Anna-Maria Mullaly, a member of both TU Dublin’s race equity group and the Social Democrats, said.
“For instance, black people would be displayed as stupid, as sexually aggressive [and] as lazy in these types of performances.”
Mullaly added.
Hayes’ stated that he “didn’t have an understanding of how hurtful [blackface] was at the time” and reiterated that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions and apologises to “any and all hurt” caused by what he did.
Mullaly, however, is sceptical of Hayes’s excuse that he did not understand the offensive nature of blackface.
“An argument has been made in some quarters that it was a different time, or that it was youthful student folly, I really don’t buy that,” Mullaly said.
“Tropic Thunder, the movie, came out the year before Eoin Hayes dressed up like this on his way to a party, and there was quite a bit of discussion about Tropic Thunder’s satirical take on blackface, so it was certainly in the news, and he would have been aware of those discussions,” she said.
Social Democrats Party leader, Holly Cairns, responded to Hayes’ statement in an interview with RTÉ on September 16th saying she was “hugely disappointed and annoyed about this situation.”
Cairns later confirmed that Hayes would not face any disciplinary action from the Social Democrat Party as the incident occurred before he joined the organisation.
“I want to be clear that it’s not an excuse, but the context of it being 16 years ago is something that I have to consider and I am taking it into consideration,” Cairns said.
Cairns also stated that Hayes “deserves an opportunity to work hard now and to try to regain people’s trust.”
This decision riled some members of the Social Democrat Party with the chairman of the party’s Dublin West branch and local election candidate, Luke Daly, citing the decision as one of the reasons that he and his secretary, Jack O’Reilly, would be leaving the party.
Mullaly seconded Cairns’ sentiment and said that Hayes “should be given the opportunity to follow through now and demonstrate, via action, his actual commitment to anti-racism.”