Declan Murphy wrote:

> Which part of Hearn was "ethnically British"? The Greek mother or the
> Irish father?

The Irish father, I would imagine. Hearn's father was Protestant Irish,
meaning he almost certainly had "British ethnicity" (insofar as that term
makes any sense), since the Irish Protestants almost all came either from
Scotland or England.

> Hearn was born in Greece, educated primarily in France,
> Ireland and Sepponia, and had in fact spent the majority of his life in
> Sepponia prior to his arrival in Japan.

Well, you're partially right, of course, but none of that affects his
ethnicity. Kaz's perception of Hearn is not that different from Hearn's
perception of himself. As he himself wrote:

"I was born in the town of Leucadia in Santa Maura, which is one of the
Ionian Islands, in 1850. My mother was a Greek woman of the neighbouring
island of Cerigo. My father was an army-doctor, attached to the 76th English
Regiment of the Line. The Ionian Islands were at that time under British
protection, - because the Turks had been killing all the Greeks there.My
parents took me to England when I was only five or six years old. I spoke
Romaic - which is modern Greek and Italian; but no English. My father went
to Russia some years after, and then to India. Myself and brother were
brought up by rich relations and educated at home. My father and his wife
died in India of fever.When I was about 15 years of age, I was sent to
France to learn French, and spent several years there. I was eighteen years
of age, when my friends lost all their property; and I was obliged to earn
my own living. I went to America in '69, and learned the printing business.
After some three years more, I gave up printing to become a newspaper
reporter. I reported for several large papers in Ohio for eight years. Then
I went South to become literary editor of the chief paper of New Orleans;
and remained there ten years. In the meantime I had begun to publish some
books, - novels, translations, and literary sketches. In 1887, I became
tired of writing for newspapers, and I went to the French West Indies, and
to South America, to write a book about the tropics. I returned to America
two years later, and after publishing my books, resolved to go to Japan."
(http://tinyurl.com/dc5z; the website doesn't actually say where in Hearn's
writings this passage originates)

In other words, you are right, but Hearn himself stressed the
English/British side of his background, and doesn't, in the above, mention
Ireland at all!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com