Last St Patrick’s Day, the ‘New York Post’ published an article I wrote for them about the rejuvenating power of the diaspora.
A few years back, it seemed to me that the great Irish tribe was an unbelievable asset to the country. Yet just 18 months ago, when we thought we were invincible, such ideas were ridiculed; now it seems that everyone’s talking about the diaspora.
This St Patrick’s week consider: what exactly constitutes an Irishman?
Is it enough to have Irish blood or do you have to be born in Ireland?
What about those Irish who live in Brooklyn or Boston, who speak with Cockney or Australian accents?
The “Little Irelanders” who are born in Ireland and define Irishness by the “narrow gauge” accident of birth, that is being born either in the 26 or 32 counties, seem to have forgotten the greater Ireland of other Irish people — the exiles — who form our footprint around the world.
For the home country, the global Irish tribe is our biggest asset — and the key to our prosperity.
For years, Irish-Americans sent money back home, invested in Ireland and gave refuge and jobs to successive waves of Irish emigrants who arrived in the US looking to share in the American dream.
This is our history, this is our family and to ignore it, as we have done officially for the past 30 years is not only against our economic interest but is anti-historical.
The challenge for the Irish State is to reinvent the relationship between Ireland and the Irish diaspora.
The next chapter of the Irish story will involve harnessing Irishness and turning our worldwide family into the greatest commercial network the world has ever seen.
Some 3.5 million Irish citizens live outside the country, but the greater diaspora is considerably bigger — 70 million strong.
These are the people who keep the Irish flag flying in the remotest parts of the world, the people who suffered most under our colonial past, who sent money home to Ireland when we hadn’t a bean and who took other destitute Irish into their communities when wave after wave arrived on the docks from Boston to Buenos Aires.
Today the Irish around the world have a great opportunity to re-imagine ourselves, where the island of Ireland is the mothership and the global Irish tribe is the nation.
This will involve copying the Israeli example of actively, rather than passively, cultivating the relationship between the diaspora and the ancestral homeland.
Ireland should see itself as the dynamic battery where Irish Americans can recharge their Irishness.
We could do this by extending passports to people of Irish descent, offering their children the chance to come on exchange programmes and giving them a “sense of place” that links them back to the land from which their ancestors fled.
This would then become networking for the nation — a sort of Facebook for the Irish tribe, with membership open to all of us who are willing and curious.
By using Ireland as the dynamo, we could transform an emotional and ancestral yearning into a worldwide financial network.
This would complete the historical cycle — with a successful modern Ireland reaching out to the sons and daughters of those who were forced into exile.
As the returning Jews have done in Israel — which extends citizenship to every Jewish person around the world — the “linked in” Irish exiles would inject vibrancy and enthusiasm into both our contemporary and traditional culture while opening up economic opportunities all over the world.
In practical terms, the Israelis have created their own vibrant technology industry by fusing together the brains, cash and networks of Jewish people abroad with the technological know-how of Israeli scientists.
Today Israel commercialises more technology than practically any other country. In fact, after the US and Canada, they are the world’s most successful technology entrepreneurs and their global network helps them enormously.
Ireland could do the same. In fact, by embracing the Irish diaspora which is so well embedded in the upper echelons of Wall Street and Palo Alto, we could create the Silicon Valley of Europe in the motherland.
In a globalised world, emigration is no longer a permanent decision.
People come and go — spend time in one country, move home, then maybe head out to another country. This is why creating a global network with the homeland at the fulcrum is so attractive.
The time has come to see Ireland in the 21st century as the cradle of a global nation. We should institute a “right of return” policy and extend citizenship to people of Irish descent, beyond the current cut-off point of two generations.
If we do this, globalisation could be the golden era of the Irish.
For years, the exiled Irish reminded us of our economic failure. They were traditionally the victims of a failed Ireland; in our globalised future they will be the saviours of a successful Ireland.
All we need is the courage to imagine a greater Ireland that transcends the limitations of geography, where being Irish is a coveted global brand.
Before we welcome the world to our native passport office we need to clean up our corporate criminal banking laws and reform our immigration laws to make it conditional that all citizens observe and enforce the laws of the island of Ireland first before any other foreign ideals are imposed upon us .
It’s a good idea otherwise and it creates an intangible value in our national balance sheet .
We could have an Irish Green Visa for St. Patricks Day Festival. Anyone who attends a St. Patricks Day parade can apply for a passport and all those who walk in any parade around the world automatically qualify for one.
Hear hear David. If John Gormley wishes to press home lasting changes before his government’s post-October exit, then his green Party should press for voting rights for those current 3m plus Irish citizens abroad. And some form of joint tax treaty between Ireland and USA for Irish expats who choose to end their days in Ireland; to be able to perhaps avail of excess holiday housing stock now at knockdown prices. It could be offset against better wage deals for MNCs coming here; the wages are going to plummet anyway; naturally. The incumbent government and the vast rump of FG… Read more »
Incidentally, a rumour doing the circuits at the moment is that Brian Cowen, while in the US of A, has agreed in principle to writing the foreword to George Bush’s planned new book about his 12 toughest decisions. See http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/eyaumhkfeymh/ Could be a good stepping stone for Brian (previous Angola war hero) as he in time writes his own book about the 12 toughest decisions of any living person today as he manfully grappled with attempting to get silk from a sow’s ear in appointing his own ‘dirty dozen’ 12 apostles http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0507/cowenbreax.html And added in the 3 Stooges for a… Read more »
Right, the Irish can send 20000 to the US for two years, and 5000 US citizens can come and work here for two years, if they can find work. This has been agreed, and Cohen, as the President pronounced his name, was begging for more visas for Paddies to escape. Now, in your sustained delirium, you want us, in the EU, to offer passports to anyone with a modicum of DNA derived at some time or other from a person who inhabited this part of a small island, or maybe any part of the island. At a time when we… Read more »
The best phrase in this cloud shape hallucination is the “economic oblivion”. You really should consider the means of survival for the masses in about 3 years when the oblivion has exhausted our savings, and we are on the bread line, or working the soil to grow our own spuds, and find the eggs the fox, stoat, and magpie have missed, from our hens who the pine marten has spared.
My view on this issue is from the perspective of living in Ireland, the Middle East and currently S-E Asia. Generally, I don’t believe that there is any so-called silver bullet for Ireland’s problems. Many policy areas can be improved to have a better impact. We did take advantage of the Irish interest in the US going back to the Kennedy administration, In today’s globalised world, there is a lot more competition for the same pie. 1. I don’t know how the extension of Irish passports to 70 million, would comply with EU rules e.g would the Poles be allowed… Read more »
if david’s idea is eventually proposed to the nation does that mean our country ceases to exist and then become soverign internet cafe ruled by a cursor
Most of the Diaspora were forced to leave, in order to live a proper life. If you scratch the surface, they will tell you what they really think of the old sod, much of it isn’t pleasant, but it is true. The chancers that run this Island all need to go, before anything can change for the better. Lenihan was in the news, stating that he intends to crackdown on crony capitalism. That really made me laugh, especially seeing as his Fianna Fail buddies are part of this crony circle. He is hardly going to put his mates in jail,… Read more »
look folks – we could be here until the cows come home with argueing and fisking David’s latest article. But let’s stand back a bit and take a deep breath. Yesterday we saw New York City have an enormous Saint Patricks Day parade with about 4 to 5 MILLION people attending – and at what cost to the Irish treasury? ZERO. zippo. Nada. Not a cent. Do you realise that any other country in the WORLD would sell their grandchildren for free publicity like that in America? Come on like – 5th Avenue shut down so that the Irish can… Read more »
With respect David, correct me if I am wrong, I think your idea was too closely related to the Israeli model, that some how we would welcome home ‘the Irish’=, give them land and work- that is plainly not going to work now and was dubious when floated. The other alternative is to utilise the ’70 million’ abroad – this is already being done but could be done a lot better, so I am not entirely sure what you are proposing. As pointed out by others, I am also not sure how many of the ’70’ would want to be… Read more »
70 million passports at euro100 a shot. Solve our national debt etc. Not so long ago Ireland gave passports to anybody who invested a million punts in Irish Industry. Hows did the EU handle that?
As somebody who has relatives in New Jersey and other parts of America and the world, I can honestly tell you from experience that yes to have Irish blood you do have to be born. Now I most certainly don’t mean that from a racist or racialist point of view, I just think to have Irish blood, you need the Irish mentality, upbringing and spirit- these things grow gradually, and are aquired over the years- it is not enough for somebody born in a foreign nation (regardless of their wider family’s origins) to claim Irishness or Irish blood, because the… Read more »
David said: “The challenge for the Irish State is to reinvent the relationship between Ireland and the Irish diaspora.” The desire to claim an Irish ancestral lineage is present in many who have only a vague idea of their family history. As they struggle to retain their identity in the melting pot of exile, their family names give a residual attachment to the land of their ancestors. Now that so many family history resources are online in Britain, Australia and America it is fairly straight-forward to get back to the original immigrants, the ships they came on and some idea… Read more »
A David me ol’mucca, Ireland has never been poor. Some people on this island have been playing their holiday cards in the west indies and the Caps for decades. In Ireland, the question has never been and is not now based on anything nearing a reality. We have Consultant Doctors, lawsmiths, and civil service with income from the public purse well beyond anything the population NUMBERS can justify. We have farmers producing a crap subsidized product and industries not so much borrowed to a hilt today, but to 50 years onwards. Where the bet made by Finance, their gold standard… Read more »
Also can I make a suggestion for the ‘Top Ideas’ forum. In the wake of the rescent murders of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland, and that many people use the military prescence in the North as an excuse to murder innocent people, that a similiar idea be taken up along the lines of the R.U.C. changing to the P.S.N.I and becoming more inclusive to the nationalist community, that the same be done in the military sense. Our army does not get involved much abroad, bar the odd peace keeping mission. Why don’t we give our army and small navy/… Read more »
I believe david’s idea is a good one and I have every confidence that a real intangible product can be sold that will eliminate our budget deficit / however we must not view it from the bottom of a barrel rather instead there must be independent leader chosen with unlimited budget to make this happen ………..and it will.
No offence, as much as I liked Ireland when I was a little kid and was well treated by my parents and got a decent basic education, I was only biding my time to get out of the place, combined with the fact that it was the only option available if I wanted a job. Now that the country is up the proverbial creek without a paddle due to people’s greed, corruption and icompetence, why would you expect us of the ‘Diaspora’ to be so eager to come back and bail you all out of the hole you have dug… Read more »
Sorry, I mean – ‘Having read your article again…’
No. A non-runner. The people who left Ireland left behind a society rotten with nepotism, self-importance, and arrogance. It has not changed. We need to clean up the incompetence of our institutions, our professional classes, and all those ‘self-regulating’ industries. Ireland is corrupt. We got money from abroad, and we blew it. We do not deserve a second chance before we clean up the cesspits of corruption and nepotism that are the public and sheltered private sectors of Ireland. There is no way out of taking responsibility for our situation. The current culture in the media is to look for… Read more »
Also my I add Irishness is a genuine thing, not some feel-good factor for people to self-induldge in now and then. I find people who refer to themselves as Irish American perpratrate the worst stereotypes about the Irish, and give our land an image not too disimliar from the old 19th century punch magazine caricatures. I have honestly met Americans who based their so called ethnicity on their “love of drink”, or their “fiery temprer”, or their “red hair” etc. Why is it that anybody in this nation does not find this group of people to be an abomination?
David – an important distintion needs to be made between Israel and Ireland. Israelis have a civic sense of collective togetherness and solidarity. It came from centuries of oppression and persecution. Israelis learnt to rely on each other for support. Irish people lost that some time about six months after the Irish Civil War ended. Ever since Irish people have been robbing off each other. It is just not going to work. The pride thing again. Every Paddy for himself. Unfortunate. But I can see very little evidence to the contrary. Just look at the market rigging that is rampant… Read more »
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I wonder how to we restore the ‘brand’ after all the damage done by ANIB, the 8 Billion loan that ‘matured’ after a few days, Permo, Fingleton and family, Boucher’s track record, the D4 banking culture, Matrin Cullen, Mary O’Rourke, CIE, ESB, FAS, Gerry uRyan, Ahern’s golden handshake, Michael Lowry, “Seanie Fitz”, Bono’s patriotism(“I am Irish and proud to be Irish” – ‘just don’t ask me to contribute to the Irish tax system’), Smiley O’Brien’s tax status etc., etc,
It starts with institutional reform !!!
most of the earliest names indicate we came from outside the island of ireland …eg lynch ( boat people ) mc na mara ~( sons of the sea ) sullivan ( pirates) gallaher ( boat people from the boat named gal ) leahy ( low tide arrival people ) finnucan ( soldiers from the harbour ) etc etc
when the icelanders became bankrupt we as a nation never offered them financial support even though many icelanders are of irish blood such as the decendents of irish slaves in westmann islands se iceland
Isnt there a slight problem with all of this? If we start dishing out Irish passports to the diaspora, then effectively we would be dishing out EU passports. Not sure how the Italians, Germans and Polish would view the possibilty of hundreds of thousands of Irish-Americans turning up on their doorsteps at any particular time. Assuming they viewed it to be a positive thing, then its quite likely that they might want to tap into their American communities. What would then occur is that the citizens of the US (about 75%) would benefit by holding EU passports – and we… Read more »
Tim asked if I could contribute to the 5 steps. I have to admit that I have found it very hard to find even one point or suggestion. The reasons for this has been mentioned by me before and by several others such as Philip, Deco etc… Institutional reform as Deco put it The only system in Ireland at this stage is systemic cronyism and lack of incentives to improve. There does not seem to be any pattern in anything and any attempts to create a system is usually foiled by ineptitude or by vested interests? But this has all… Read more »
lets turn the table around and change the goal posts for a moment – JAPAN…has an ageing population and increasing and will represent 60% of the national population in near future – can we transplant ourselves there with a green book and continue where the japanese left off and recreate a new transfer industrial colony ?
Pera – I will take you up on your point [ Ireland has to make up its mind. Does it want to go the european way or the american way (with added corruption ofcourse) ]. Our public sector contains a hierarchy that makes any attempt to implement the (continental West) European model of society impossible. Basically there is too much institutional incompetence. Just look at all the money wasted by the HSE. Our private sector networks, cronyism, market rigging, self regulating(or should that be rigging) industries, our (so-called) professional bodies and class obsession(D4 as it is called here) make the… Read more »
Deco, you summarized it very well. The basis of my points were that I do not think any of this is going to change this time either. In one way I do not mind the public sector wasting money. They can build unprofitable infrastructure projects, they can fund improbable research, they can too much of the wrong equipment, get bad deals etc… But the important aspect is that these kind of things spread money into the economy and can easily be amended every year or so, so that other projects cn be started. But if this waste is all tied… Read more »
@Deco; Why are we always following somebody else….? its time to go our own way i would suggest and set the new course.., something new no others are trying….. keep up your posts … always good read @bloggers; Lived abroad myself few years, usa and europe. Americans see Ireland thru tinted glasses and pitstop onto europe. Ireland for usa gov is a giant aircraft carrier for corporatism gateway into europe. Americans i find generally see irish as simpletons. The simpsons gets close to it. The sight of biffo licking obama arse with a bowl of shamrocks yesterday waffling on about… Read more »
One point that I did not mention, but that Wills is touching upon in his post is the way that Ireland has lured investment here through all its incentives and low corporation tax. When I first heard of it I thought Easy come, easy go. In one way it is stealing from other countries. In addition a lot of human capital and resources have been put into the foreign companies and all the companies that were started to service them. Would Ireland have been better of if they had been forced to generate their own economy instead or would it… Read more »
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/us-injecting-billions-int_n_175454.html
@bloggers,..
please goto above link for overall narrative.
Also……
READ VINCENT BROWNES ARTICLE IN IRISH TIMES, link
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0318/1224243006908.html
… here is the solution for upcoming mini budget to pass…..
Very little I can add. Pretty solid stuff. I think the Diaspora idea is a “nice” one. But we lack the self respect and sense of civic duty at an institutional level (unlike Israel) to be able to pull this off in a professional and enhancing manner to the rest of the world. And believe me, the has to be some sugar for all involved – EU, US etc. It must be correct both in terms of perception and execution. @pera & Deco. You highlight so well the institutional crisis which has as its basis a lack of morality and… Read more »
As bad and perhaps ageist as this may sound, i’ll say it anyways. This nation is only going to get a competant government when people stop voting along Civil War lines. As a studier of history, I cannot undestand why people still vote as their grandparents do- and it is this stupidity and lack of forsight for the future that has us so messed up. It doesn’t matter how bad a government messes up, i’m going to vote because my father voted…my grandfather voted….and so on. That is why Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are so staid, useless and incapable… Read more »
We have things a*seways in this country. Certain things that are Centralised, should be decentralised. Certain things that are DeCentralised. For instance many communities that want a decentralised political system want all the benifits of a more centralised system when it comes to infrastructure etc., but cannot achieve it because of their own systems in operation. Some want their cake and to eat it at the same time, all the time- so that somebody is perfectly happy to put their own interests first, in their own fiefdoms such as the Kingdom of Kerry, or the Peoples Republic of Cork, but… Read more »
Folks, Do you know what? I have spent all evening reading you all, without posting intermittently, as I usually do. (Maybe, also, that is because I arrived late to this article, due to pressures of work, but no matter). The fact is: you got me thinking. Initially, I was rankled a little by the very negative responses to David’s article (I confess to a little dose of “Hero-worship” there); then I was a little rankled by the posts that seemed to question the “irishness” of anyone not born on the island – I was not. (I was born the son… Read more »
Ronan, The site will not allow me to paste Pera’s “5” on page 3 of “Crisis to Opportunity”. Why is that?
Can you , please, “sort it out”?
Thanks,
Tim.
Furrylugs, are you here?
We need your insight.
Please return?
Furrylugs, Correction:
I would like your insight.
Kind regards,
Tim.
Davi-Again, Any chance that you might be willing to formulate your ideas into 5 points?
I know it will take time and very few people have time; but, if you can manage to do it, it would be great.
Hi David, I’m sure you’ve written about the Irish diaspora opportunity before, probably around this time last year too. I think it is one of your ‘pet points, if I may term it that’. However, my thoughts on it as still as before: a) we are already playing that card b) there is not that much mileage (=benefit) in it Yes, use it as much as we can but its not going to solve our problems. By the way, your fixation with Israel is another of your ‘pet points’. Maybe time to find other countries for examples of ‘methods’ that… Read more »
I was thinking of all these Westmeath people that left for Argentina years ago,Nugents,Buckleys,etc and wondered when one of their decendants would turn up for the World Cup with Argentina, Maradonna Buckley has a ring to it,lol.The FAI would be rooting around for birth certs looking to sign Him. In return we might get a hurler for Galway Sean Og O Delgado, a nifty little corner forward. I suppose in recent times we have aligned ourselves with the Anglo/Saxon type culture even though some people dont realise that they originated from north of the Rhine in Europe.We have the ancestors… Read more »
Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all, you’d end up with all sorts of people getting the right to vote who have no past history of voting FF at all? Why it would make elections completely unpredictable!
jim – your version of history of irish families arriving to our shore is interesting – try mine in book ‘da wu yu code’ – even furrylugs likes it .
John, We are an absorbing nation. We have been invaded, encroached upon, churned etc. Ireland remains Irish. People eventually become as Irish as the Irish themselves (Ask Tim :)). I was watching GAA session of under 14s the other day. The Nigerian and the Romanian were in the top quartile of performers. We are the result of other’s Diaspora. And actually, it not unique to Ireland. I remember my Aunts and Uncles who emigrated to the US 40-50 years ago. I remember when they came back how American they became and their very American accents and they were proud of… Read more »
Listening to the News at Lunchtime (awful source of inspiration, I’m ashamed of myself), I heard the DPP commenting, as part of a conference on cross-border smuggling and fraud etc, on the merits of the witness protection scheme. Then a lightbulb went on in my head :) While it may be a costly and wasteful exercise for the DPP to re-home someone abroad with a new identity (similar ROI to other government spend), it could be a fantastic way for anyone who’s thinking of emigrating to get a ‘grant’ to do so. Instead of a back to work scheme, more… Read more »
Fianna Fail looking at what was driving the Celtic Titaniger:
Are the Fed just extending the ponzi scheme this week with their cash injection.
David, you dealt with this same topic, at this time, last year and I haven‘ changed my mind on it. Giving passports to all those, throughout the world that claim Irish ancestry would cripple this country – we’re just not powerful enough to turn it to our advantage. If we had got off our arses during the last two decades and created some decent indigenous companies, like the Finns did, then, it could be a real boon, but, as we are, there isn’t much point in allowing Irish Americans to come here and work for American Companies. A major problem… Read more »
wills – in view of what obama has now decided yesterday in relation to the $ how will the € perform relative to the us$ in the future ??