Irish Actress, Author of The Book ‘Nanny, Ma and Me'

Jade Jordan | Biography

Known For Movies Like 'You Are Not My Mother' & 'The Colour Between'

• By Ashna Tamrakar
• Update : December 12, 2021

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Jade Jordan is an actress and the author of the book ‘Nanny, Ma and Me.’

Who Is Jade Jordan?

Jade Jordan is an actress, writer, and producer known for the movies like Rosie (2018), The Virtues (2019), and You Are Not My Mother (2021). She made her on-screen debut in 2014 in Lucifer’s Night as Bethany. Jordan is also the author of the book ‘Nanny, Ma and Me,’ published in September 2021.

Early Bio & About Her Mother

Jordan was raised in  Blanchardstown, a suburb of Dublin. She belongs to a mixed ethnic background. While her grandmother, Kathleen, is Irish, her grandfather, Larry, was Jamaican. Her grandmother, Kathleen, moved to London in the late 1950s to study nursing. She then met and married a Jamaican guy named Larry, a member of the Windrush generation, when she was there. 

Kathleen’s marriage to a black man was a major issue back then, and she kept it a secret from her own family for a long time, fearing their reaction. It was still illegal in America for a white person to marry a black person at the time of her grandmother’s wedding in 1963, and it remained thus for another four years. Kathleen and Larry, along with her mother Dominique, had two sons and lived in London’s diverse Walthamstow.

Jade Jordan’s First Encounter With Racism

She had her first encounter with racism when she was ten years old in McDonough’s Caravan Park, near Bettystown, County Meath. Jordan had a minor altercation with a boy in the park. When she tapped him on the arm, he exclaimed, “Don’t touch me, yeh dirty Paki!” Jordan tried to act unconcerned, but the argument rattled her. Recounting the incident in a September 2021 interview with Irish Examiner, she said, “I remembered Eoin pointing at his white arm, and I looked at mine, and I thought, my arm does look dirty compared to his. I remember going into the mobile home and getting into the tiny shower. I felt upset. Once I was out of sight of everyone, I started sobbing.”

Jordan further explained that she recalled standing in the shower, washing and scrubbing, lifting her arm to re-examine it. She even scrubbed her skin till it was scorching red. She said it was the first time she had ever paid attention to the color of her skin. “Is this dirt, I wondered, or is it the colour of my skin? Or is the colour of my skin dirty? I’d never been self-conscious about how I looked before. He said I looked dirty, but I didn’t want to look dirty. Do I look dirty?” Jordan continued. “I kept scrubbing myself, thinking my skin would get lighter and I might start to look cleaner. I was trying to wash my colour off me; trying to wash myself white. I remember coming out of the shower and sobbing to my nanny. I just want to be like everybody else! I didn’t want anyone looking at me and seeing me as any different from all the other kids.”

Dream of Becoming an Actress

Jordan was raised in Ireland by her family. From a very young age, Jordan wanted to become an actress. However, her dream of being an actor seemed far away at the time. Jordan believed she could never find work as an actress in Ireland. She said, “Growing up, I often found it hard to understand my place in the world, because I had no role models, there wasn’t anyone who looked like me in magazines or on TV in Ireland then.”

In 2009, she moved to London, assuming that working and performing arts would be easier in a large cosmopolitan city. There, she joined a drama school to pursue her dreams. But, unfortunately, even in London, she struggled with her sense of self-identity at times. 

Movies

Jordan made her on-screen debut in 2014 in Lucifer’s Night. She portrayed the role of Bethany. Four years later, in 2018, the actress played the role of Jen Hawkins in Doctors. In the same year, she was cast as Megan in the film titled Rosie.

In 2020, she appeared in an 11-minute short film, Ascending Grace as Sarah. The film depicts a female first flight officer’s first day on the job, working with an all-female crew on a filled flight. Most recently, Jordan was seen in movies like You Are Not My Mother (2021), X Marks the Spot (2021), Kin (2021), and Foxglove (2021). She also appeared in the short video 'Waiting to Breathe.'

In addition to that, Jordan wrote, produced, and starred in another short drama film, The Colour Between. The movie was released on 22 July 2021 in Ireland. 

Book: ‘Nanny, Ma and Me’

‘Nanny, Ma and Me’ was published on 2 September 2021. The book is a multigenerational memoir from Jordan, her mother, Dominique, and her grandmother, Kathleen, telling their life story. ‘Nanny, Ma and Me’ is a story about race, an account of a nation of inconsistencies. The book tells the story of Kathleen’s persistence to raise her children in inner-city Dublin with love and security, Dominique’s struggle to find her place as a young Black adolescent, and Jordan's personal experiences as a young lady of color in 21st-century Ireland.

The book was shortlisted for Irish Book Award in October 2021.