'At times, I thought I was the only black person in Ireland." It is hard to imagine anyone saying that nowadays, but Jude grew up in the 1960s. He is one of the interviewees in a new book that tells the stories of mixed-race Irish people who grew up in an insular monoculture, with all the ignorance and stigma involved. Many were raised in orphanages and institutional schools. Another, Teresa, says: "I didn't know which was worse - growing up being black or being adopted". The subsequent search for birth parents often proved frustrating or hurtful.

The book, My Eyes Only Look Out, is edited by Margaret McCarthy, the mother of a mixed-race daughter, Mia, who is now 22. Margaret became pregnant in 1978. Although she and Mia's father, a student from Zimbabwe named Emmanuel, were in love, they had no plans to settle down.

She briefly considered the option of adoption, as in those days "birth outside marriage was shameful and unacceptable". The adoption agency made it clear that a black baby would be regarded as "second class", however, and therefore harder to place in a family.

"It didn't make any sense to me that here I was, trying to secure the best future for this child while at the same time being made aware that it was being labelled - even before being born - as being disadvantaged." Her outrage at the assumption of colour resulting in a flawed child made her determined to bring up Mia herself.

Now a student of media management at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, in Dublin, Mia has enjoyed "positive experiences" growing up in the Republic (in Ballyfermot, where she now lives with her mother, and in Clifden, Co Galway, where they lived for seven years).

Only two incidents have been troubling. Once, Mia encountered a group of youths in black balaclavas shouting "keep Ireland white" on the Dublin quays; very recently, she was abused at a local bus stop. "A man kept shouting at her; ridiculous things like 'your people ate our people in the Congo' and 'Irish taxpayers are paying for dirt like you'. She came home in tears. I felt sick. That racist thing makes you hate in return," says Margaret.

Mia has retained only intermittent contact with her father, who is now based in Rome, but he came to Ireland for the launch of Margaret's book.

Margaret's interest in people of mixed-race parentage growing up in Ireland began with the birth of her daughter. Research for the book began in the mid-1990s, when, grant-aided by the National Committee for Development Education, she began a study of the quest for self-definition by mixed-race Irish people.

Eventually, the project evolved into a book. In the process of putting it together, there have been changes: some interviewees dropped out; others were found. All speak frankly, movingly and often painfully about their lives. Some spent their childhoods hating their colour. Bullying, harassment, neglect and denial were daily fare.

"Most of them are African-Irish, the children of Irish mothers and African fathers who came to Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s as students," says Margaret. "Many were given up for adoption or ended up in institutional care, leading to poor self-esteem. Jude, for example, never met his mother and doesn't even know what country his father came from. It's very hard to have no living relatives and no luck with your investigations."

Lisa and Ian were brought up by extended-family members. Lisa was aware from a young age that her birth mother was her adoptive father's sister, but Ian was told only as an adult that the woman he thought of as his aunt was in fact his birth mother. The secrecy that still surrounds Ian's parentage took its toll. "My mother didn't tell publicly the family, so I don't know who knows, and that is the problem. I just want them to be honest."

"Those who grew up with one or both birth parents and an extended family were at a much greater advantage in terms of confidence," says Margaret. She cites as examples Luzveminda O'Sullivan, a former Rose of Tralee from Co Mayo, whose mother came from the Philippines, and Curtis Fleming, the Middlesbrough footballer, who grew up in Ballybough, in Dublin.

Although Fleming has no contact with his Jamaican father, he enjoyed growing up surrounded by his mother's large extended family. Because of the bravery of his mother in "bringing up black kids in Dublin in the late 1960s", he survived taunts of "nig nog" and "Kaffir".

"My mum was just brilliant," says Fleming. "She brought us up to be able to handle what came along. She explained that they were just ignorant, and at the end of the day we had a different colour but we were the same as her, the same as everybody else."

He soon found also that his prowess on the football pitch meant his colour was conveniently forgotten. "Football kept me going. In school, if you were a good footballer or a good GAA player or a good hurler, it didn't matter what colour you were. You were in the school team, scoring goals, and it was a case of 'Are you all right, Curt?', and colour goes out the window. I played for Ireland when I was 17."

The confidence of being a respected member of a team also benefited Ian, who, with his Indian-Irish parentage, became "the first coloured guard in Ireland". He had experienced bullying at school and evolved a way of coping by laughing it off and claiming that his colour has been, if anything, an advantage with women. Even in the force, he says, there is racism, and sometimes he feels pressure because, being so visible, he is like an "ambassador" for mixed-race Irish people. But in the end, "you have status in the community; you feel part of something. You have great power to affect people's lives. I just felt that people who used to slag, I could show them that I was somebody who was worthy of some respect."

Margaret recalls with satisfaction how Ian, while visiting her house, met Mike, another of her interviewees. They discovered that they were about the same age, had both grown up in Cabra and generally, in terms of their sense of identity, had much in common (Mike is African-Irish and knows little of his birth father).

Then Mike remembered he had met Ian years before, after an incident when he and a friend had skipped into a nightclub without paying their taxi fare. Leaving the club later, he encountered Ian, newly qualified from Templemore, waiting with the taxi driver. "Ian told them he wouldn't arrest them if they paid their fare," says Margaret. "They paid. Mike recalls that Ian treated him differently from other garda∅. There was none of the usual harassment, which brought out Mike's aggressive side."

From a younger generation, Luzveminda O'Sullivan feels her childhood was full of happy memories, despite the early death of her mother. Seβn ╙g ╙ hAilp∅n, the hurler and Irish speaker whose mother is from Fiji, also feels accepted here. Marg notes that racism is still a very real problem, however, especially since the influx of refugees and asylum-seekers in recent years. She feels the Government is partly to blame. "They allowed a lot of negativity to build up when people first arrived. They were aware that the EHB was in crisis with regard to overstretched services and did not respond quickly enough."

She says services have improved, but fears the downturn in the economy could lead to increased levels of racism. "When there are redundancies, people who are applying for asylum will be seen as using up resources and blamed for taking jobs and houses."

On the bright side, she feels the beginning of a truly multicultural society in the Republic will help the offspring of African parents to become more familiar with that part of their heritage. "Up to now, mixed-race Irish people have tended to be assimilated into white culture. There was little opportunity to mix with others of a similar background. That's all changing now. They can go into African shops and attend concerts of African music. All of that is great for Mia; it means she can discover her African side."

Margaret sees a need for what she describes as a reunification service for adopted people who are trying to trace parents abroad. "Someone like Teresa, who is actively searching for her father in Nigeria, would benefit."

After her birth, Teresa's father apparently wanted to take her back to Nigeria with him, but although the papers weren't signed, Teresa had already been given up for adoption. "At that time, there was very little consideration regarding fathers," says Teresa. "I will never be totally at ease until I find my father." She has survived an abusive adoptive mother, anorexia, depression and an overdose.

Anne, of German and Nigerian parentage, tried to contact her father through a Nigerian newspaper, and was bombarded with letters requesting money in reply. "All those begging letters she received, instead of any real information. You leave yourself open to that sort of thing when you start looking; you are very vulnerable," says Margaret, who believes a reunification service with an international tracing network would help not only the likes of Anne and Teresa, but also the many babies who are being adopted in Ireland from as far afield as China and Belarus. "The demand is only going to rise," she says. "Later in life, they will want to trace their birth parents, too."

My Eyes Only Look Out, edited by Margaret McCarthy, is published by Brandon, £9.99