This month marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Irish Embassy in Uganda. The ties between the two countries go far deeper than Ireland’s development aid programme, which has had a deep impact on communities over the last three decades, especially in Karamoja in the north east. In the second of a two-part series, regular visitor to Uganda, Miriam Donohoe, writes about the unique bond between the two nations.
TODAY, IRISH WOMAN Kathleen Noble will proudly represent Uganda in rowing in the Paris Olympics. The 29-year-old is the African nation’s first and only white Olympian across any sporting discipline – and also has the honour of co captaining Team Uganda with record-breaking long distance runner, Joshua Cheptefei.
How an Irish woman came to be participating in the world’s biggest and most competitive sporting games for Uganda is quite the story. Her parents, father Gerry, a doctor and development consultant from Enniskillen in Fermanagh and mother Moira, a teacher from Newbliss in Co Monaghan, moved to Uganda in 1994, a week before Ireland opened its Embassy here. Kathleen was born five months later in Nakaseke in central Uganda where her parents worked at a mission hospital in Luwero.
A prodigious swimmer in her youth Kathleen, one of three children, represented Uganda in the 2012 World Swimming Championships at just 17 years of age. She learned to row on Lake Victoria, one of Africa’s Great Lakes, in second-hand boats donated to Uganda by the World Rowing Federation in an effort to grow the sport.
“Uganda was a hugely different place when we first arrived,” said Moira “The road infrastructure was so poor, and telecommunications non-existent in rural areas. And wealthy Ugandans were not as visible as they are today.”
Staying in Uganda was not in the couples’ grand plan, and they certainly never imagined their daughter would represent their adopted country at the highest level of sport. Gerry is still a registered doctor and now works in development consultancy, while Moira has worked for the last 20 years as a teacher at the International School of Uganda.
“We kept saying we will stay another year, and then another, and before we knew it the kids were grown up and we are still here,” said Moira. “We love Uganda and the Ugandan people. The last few years have been very special for us. In 2021 Kathleen took part in her first Olympics for Uganda in Tokyo, in 2022 myself and Gerry got Ugandan citizenship and our son Daniel married Maria, who is Ugandan, in the same........