Devin Griffin was “a little bit apprehensive” before an “incredibly emotional” meeting with his father’s family – when he saw them for the first time.
The Radio 1 DJ and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant travelled to Ireland and Jamaica as he explored his family’s roots for an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
Griffin said he had only made one trip to Jamaica before meeting his father’s family because “no one wants to go somewhere where you feel a bit unsure of yourself”.
He also said he did not want to be reminded of something he was “on the outside of growing up”.
Griffin said: “I was a little bit apprehensive going into it because I thought, ‘This is such a personal moment for me’.
“I don’t know if I want to have this all documented and have cameras in my face and that sort of thing but it actually ended up being a really beautiful experience and something that I almost certainly would never have done had it not been as part of this process.
“It was incredibly emotional. My dad is not somebody who I know that well.”
He added: “This was like… blowing the dust off of a lot of things that I felt like I had buried deep and answered a lot of questions for me, and certainly gave me a lot of a lot of peace as well with things that I’ve maybe struggled with before.”
During the programme, the 38-year-old also found out that his Irish family was involved with the struggle for independence from the UK, with his great-grandfather’s brother Patrick Weafer taking part in the 1916 Easter Rising.
“So the thing I was most shocked about was a lot of it was down to my own ignorance,” Griffin said.
“There’s a lot about British and Irish history that I just have no idea about, or if I did, my sense of it was that it happened 500 years ago or wherever but this is… very recent history as well.
“So things like the fact that the British had used artillery in Ireland was something to me that was so shocking… it made me think about a lot of the British history that I’ve not been taught about.
“I’m a very proud British person but when I think about any of the history that I read about or found out about in school, it was all stuff that framed us as the heroes or made us look look really good, but there’s a lot that I still have to read up on Irish history and as fascinating as it is, it is also quite sad and quite tragic.”
Griffin wants to return to Jamaica to visit family he still has not met and is planning a trip with his sisters through Maynooth in Co Kildare, Dublin and Kilkee in Co Clare.
When he arrived in Kilkee for the show he “instantly felt connected” to “one of the most beautiful places” he has visited.
In a reference to Avengers: Endgame, when supervillain Thanos hunts gems that give their holder powers, Griffin added: “It almost like something out of a Marvel film – you get too close to the infinity stones and something like that and you start glowing.
“That is what it felt like arriving in a place like that.”
Griffin has also donated some of the fee he got for doing the show to a charity his aunt works for, The Griffin Trust Jamaica, which it has used to buy a school bus.
He added: “I’ve tried to start setting up businesses and stuff in Jamaica. It is somewhere I’d be very interested in retiring to at some point.”
The Who Do You Think You Are? episode with Griffin will air on BBC One on July 13th.
