A couple of days after the Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh last year, I received a call from Galway-based technology entrepreneur Mike Feerick. This man had an extraordinary idea. Instead of waiting, he said, for Irish Americans and the like to come back to Ireland to trace their roots, how about we go the other way?
How about we organise and enable, using the latest online communications and database tools and resources, local Irish communities at a townland, village and parish level to find out who was born in their area, where they went, and trace them and their descendants worldwide?
That way, he suggested, we could systematically reunify our entire diaspora, creating “virtual communities”, expanding each local parish beyond its own physical boundaries and allowing them reach out across the world?
As soon as I heard and understood this idea, it wasn’t hard to see the common sense and power of deploying local, rather than national, resources to galvanise the global Irish tribe.
So began the development of a simple idea — something we could call ‘micro-diaspora’. The idea we had was rather than build a top-down structure with experts, we should provide the platform for ordinary people to do it for themselves.
In a sense we are inverting the pyramid. Rather than working from the apex, for example networking the top 500 important Irish Americans, we are doing the opposite — operating around the base of the diaspora pyramid.
When you think about it, the Irish diaspora may be 60 to 70 million worldwide but it can be broken down to perhaps no more than 3,000 Irish parishes north and south.
What if each village in Ireland could harness the economic power of its diaspora? What if, as a nation, we mobilised each parish in Ireland to actively research its genealogical past and identify those people who are of its own flesh and blood and reach out and engage their interest? This local-based approach is what, in another context, made the GAA one of the strongest organisations in the country. It is local pride that motivates people to get together to work in national competitions like the Tidy Towns.
After Farmleigh, the penny dropped for me. This is where the real strength lies in Ireland. Why not use this energy and local enthusiasm to build a vast network of local communities reaching out to their diaspora, to their ancestors’ kin?
Together with Mike Feerick and his international advisory board, we have worked on developing this concept over the past year.
Our efforts thus far culminate in the launch of the ‘Ireland Reaching Out’ South-East Galway Diaspora Pilot Project tomorrow night in Loughrea, Co Galway. What started as a few phone calls and a notion over a pint is now sponsored and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Heritage Council and Galway County Council, the GAA and a number of Irish-American funders.
More than 30 parishes, including the towns of Loughrea, Gort and Portumna and all neighbouring parishes, are being targeted for the launch, although the project will start only in those parishes that make clear they wish to be part of this initiative.
We have developed the technology to enable every parish in Ireland to participate in this initiative and over the next nine months we are going to fine-tune it, to see where we can improve it and what the pitfalls are by using the east Galway district as our pilot project. Once the glitches and problems are ironed out, it will be available to everyone. The company is set up as a charity, so that we can all benefit equally.
Over the next nine months, the project has three main aims. First, to identify and engage 44,000 people outside the country who have direct links with the parishes in the Loughrea electoral area. We will do this using oral records, online genealogy and the latest technology to assemble all these data. The figure of 44,000 is the same number of people who live in the area today. So we want to trace one member of the Tribe for every one of us living in the area.
Second, the pilot project will attempt to attract 25 or 30 of these people home to their parish or townland of origin in June next year. The proposed ‘Week of Welcomes’ is similar to Israeli programmes that invite young Americans of Jewish heritage to come to Israel to learn more about who they are and how the state of Israel can be part of their lives.
Many years ago, I lived in Israel for a short while and was always amazed at how the Israelis used their Jewish diaspora. They seemed to have a forensic knowledge of who was who and where everyone was. They told me that these records were assembled by people like retired teachers, policemen and local enthusiasts. Ireland has the same resource here in every village and town just waiting to be tapped.
For the Week of Welcomes, these returning members of the local diaspora, many newly identified, will attend several days of lectures in the local school on Irish history, literature and so on, visit a local GAA match and attend a local Comhaltas session. Obviously, each parish will have its own particular programme.
The third goal is to identify, among the 44,000, approximately 500 enterprising members of the Tribe who can be buyers, advisers, investors and influencers for the benefit of not just the locality but the Irish nation as a whole.
The project’s real power is the sheer practicality and scalability of it all. Through the Ireland Reaching Out pilot project funding and the guidance of the promoters, parishes across Ireland will have the online tools to create their own databases of contacts and organise the international ‘Reach Out’.
It will then be down to local voluntary effort for each to make the best of the opportunity given. More than any element of the project, the secret to success will be how the local parishes respond and engage not just in the research of historical records, but in how the programme is carried on through the Week of Welcomes and beyond.
The ‘meet and greet’ element of welcoming the Irish diaspora has been a key missing ingredient in making sure people of Irish heritage return. Now this element can be introduced in a most profound way, opening up an Irish phenomenon that could perhaps even change Ireland as we know it.
In the past we didn’t have the technology to do this; now we have.
Last week on the train coming back from Galway, looking out at the fields and rivers, I thought about how many stories each of these fields hides when we consider that five million people born in this country emigrated — and most were born in smallholdings in these exact fields.
Now we can trace these people to precisely the fields they left. We can do this now. Can you imagine an Irish American getting an invitation to come back and see, not just Ireland, not just the county her great grandfather left, but the very fields that her ancestors farmed?
Today we have the means to do it. Micro-diaspora is the opportunity. So let’s go to work.
For more info email info@irelandxo.com The launch of the ‘Ireland Reaching Out’ South-East Galway Diaspora Pilot Project, Loughrea Hotel & Spa, October 28 at 7.30pm
They better come see it quick as there might be no one left in a few months, but then didn’t Mike Soden recommend that we leave the EU and hook up as the 51st state, I thought we already were the 51st State given the multinational presence and the use of Shannon. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/soden-lets-quit-eu-and-join-us-2392427.html Heard today that one US multinational here doesn’t pay people when they are out sick, off to the Social Welfare office with ye…. In a broader sense, the US focus of this country troubles me, the average American is decent, but in a macro sense it is… Read more »
This was on of the reasons we set up a not for profit organisation called http://www.irishamerianstoryproject.com to get a collection of stories related the families of Irish people who emigrated and to collect thoese stories.
Another great article and idea David. I have mooted this idea but under a different topic. You can see the idea “My Dream for Ireland” on http://www.emeraldquill.net We are also working on a community based social network forum that could work very well with your colleagues in Loughrea and country wide. email:- emerald.quill@gmail.com A Dream for Ireland I had a dream that the people of Ireland will be inspired to bid for and host The Olympic Games in 2024/28 so that we can celebrate our first century as a Nation and to set a marker and a standard for the… Read more »
Don’t like the analogy with Israel David. The Israeli situation is completely different. Jews are allowed emigrate to Israel because they are Jewish, that’s all. It is based on religion, that’s the only qualification you need to live in Israel. In many cases (not sure what percentage) jews who emigrate to Israel have no ancestors there at all. That’s what annoys the arabs! Secondly there is an extremey powerful Jewish lobby in America that enables Israel to exist in the first place. ‘Can you imagine an Irish American getting an invitation to come back and see, not just Ireland, not… Read more »
Good luck to all involved, great to hear your enthusiasm David. I salute you all.
Very best wishes to Mike Feerick and this team. No state quangoes. No Tammany Hall politicos to cut the tape. No consultants report. No media pundits on half a million a year milking it for what it’s worth. No ideological thought merchants chanting mantras. No bullshit. Just a collection of people trying to make a living in exchange for a service. However, I will say this. If the diaspora are to treat us seriously, we will have to ditch the dominant authority culture that is so good at controlling the options available to decent people as they try to build… Read more »
David, this idea probably has legs,even after the demise of the ‘Tiger”. However,you need to be careful, that we,the Diaspora,are not percieved as being important,now that the economy is in dire straits. Could be percieved as forgetting about our relatives,until we need a few bob. The idea has a much greater potential than just digging Fianna fail out of a hole.A united block of Irish Celts,might help to stand up to EU heavyweights like Germany. In Canada,which was set up by the Irish and French,we even have 38% of francophones claiming Irish ancestry. In Newfoundland,the Irish accent is stronger than… Read more »
Ah yes….I remember the ditherer a man of ….’enormous vision’…….and CJH…everything had to be on a ‘grand scale’….and now we are at the end of a decade of obsession with our own significance…..looking at the bill…of our own arrogance…the price to be paid for determinedly ignoring any sense of humility. The great bold theorists of every age seem to capable of knowing every solution except the obvious ones…what was the Ancient Greeks said about the Essential Truth of Life ? A new batch of opportunists are ready to declare that stuff that has failed, will suceed if given another chance.… Read more »
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Hi, I feel we will get our recovery going when we act by helping ourselves instead of waiting for the government to do something. McWilliams has pointed the way in the above article. I am glad to report that the small project management business I work for has just placed a project manager in Kuwait. We are hoping to continue this trend by placing more people abroad to generate a revenue stream from outside of Ireland so that we can secure our future into the face of the difficult conditions about to be visited upon us. It will also help… Read more »
Lads,lads, I’ve had enough of the negative shit.Its easy to shit behind the screen and write epitaph after epitaph.Diaspora, fine idea but what about the likes of myself who stayed during the champaigne Charlie years.All I kept hearing is “ah sure Mary and Pat are livining in Queens and he’s got his own building company blah blah blah”.Thats all Paddys can do.No matter where they land they end up in the construction industry.If the truth be known they caused the bleedin world wide recession.The Diaspora would do better than come back here for another good kickin. Whatever is going to… Read more »
This is a fantastic idea. I love it.
David I have to say your article last Sunday was an excellent analysis of where we are at, probably slightly under representatvive of the level of desparation out there with respect to your friend, who is on the dole like myself, but however I reckon it was an excellent analysis of the place where we now find ourselves… But we are back to the “diaspora” again, and I’m despairing and a bit annoyed because I just keep seeing this commonality here between your own analysis and the government analysis, which is that all the answers to our woes are somehow… Read more »
We do not need the diaspora. We already have it in bucket loads. It is called the anglophile world. And guess what, it is that world that is damaged profoundly and shows no signs of recovering. The world of commerce and western style economics based on the english language with pseudo WASP/Christian values is in the main banjaxed. We’ve sweated out these ideas in many previous articles. Exactly what new values is a bust economy originated organisation really going to change anything here on the ground? We as a nation are lazy thinkers. Our emigration patterns follow the language and… Read more »
Here’s an idea on reverse diaspora thinking. We have shedload of Poles and eastern european types in this country. We should be going to Poland etc to root in some bilateral business. We should have a enconomic favoured arrangement between the two countries that recognises a certain common way of looking at life. Maybe it is down to Catholiscism – I dunno. But commonality does exist. These guys are getting strong in European markets east and west. We should be leveraging that fact and our selling proposition is our stong link to the anglophilic world. It would be a temoporary… Read more »
Morning, Thanks for all the comments. For those that might be sceptical, I would like you to step back and see what is being tried here. It is a local initiative which has global reach. Social networking allows us to do it and, if we can make it work, with the efforts of willing and enthusiastic local people, it can be a significant positive which will remain irrespective of the economic cycle. It is not about US foreign policy – this is about Irish foreign policy, but not the narrow policy of the Irish State, but a broad, generous foreign… Read more »
David, your idea of bottom up networking will have best results if done strictly without agenda. A genuine welcome which is openhearted and spontaneous certainly can yield positive results. Of if you need agenda, it should merely be on the basis of strengthening links for the sake of it and hopefully not loosing touch. But we need to be beware of anglospheric group think. Is this reslly doing anything to spawn genuine breakthrough ideas we desperately need. The majority of our diaspora links are to the US. We need to build to the east rather than slavishly look to the… Read more »
Deco, spot on as usual, Are you going to the Kilkenomics festival?
Regards
I flew into Frankfurt early on Tuesday morning, which happens a few times a year and the thing that always strikes me as I travel from the Airport to my Hotel is how busy the place is. I know David has mentioned this in previous articles but it is only when you see it for yourselves at first hand do you realise that these Germans really mean Business. The amount of Trucks and heavy goods vehicles on the move on the main roads is a sight to behold. The Germans have no plans to cut levels of pay down to… Read more »
The end of October, which usually brings in the taxes from the self-employed etc. in Ireland will be a huge eye opener this time around. The 31st of October 2010 will be a major watershed in Irish politics. It will be the day that Business in Ireland VOTE WITH THEIR POCKETS. I have spoken to people in Ireland over the course of the last few evenings and the feedback I am getting is that returns will be down, down, down. I cannot blame Small Business in particular because they are faced with a dilemma. If they give up their cash… Read more »
I just don’t get this whole disapora thing at all, this morning’s Indo tells us about 3,000 returning Irish who are suffering extreme hardship because they have been refused the dole… http://www.independent.ie/national-news/over-3000-returning-irish-refused-dole-2397877.html What is different between those living overseas, be they of Irish descent or any other, that makes them more able or capable entrepreneurs than us that are already living here??? Let’s put that little question aside for a minute and ask our selves another question. The lack of cash out there is very scary, there is no point in starting up new businesses, regardless of who will be… Read more »
May I offer a simple and practical idea to really kick off this “diaspora” idea. And it doesnt involve websites and other fancy technology – it’s a very very simple idea.. Have the GAA broadcast their games free to air worldwide. As a member of the diaspora living in England for the past 10 years, the only place where I can see an all Ireland hurling final is via a Setanta feed in my local Irish club. Therefore the fastest field game on the planet is only known to folks of Irish descent – the rest of the world barely… Read more »
if we want to rebuild this country i think 2 things have to happen firstly we need to cut from the top down that is any cuts in government spending must be taken by the top side of the civil service who are making just crazy money and most of this is placed into there long term investments such as huge pensions and not spent into the real economy like the lower paid and unemployed. secondly we need to build from the bottom up that is starting with the unemployed and looking at people that are not working and have… Read more »
Look at it from a value chain perspective. Ideas,raw materials, Sales, MArketing, Logistics, support etc…and cash to grease the wheels. Question is how to leverage the diaspora to get that value chain working.
We are out of cash. So maybe a foreign donor with close links?
The paddies are great on ideas. We just need to make sure the remaining part of the value chain stays outside the clutches of the local gombeens. And the Diaspora may play a role here as well.
Diaspora or no disapora, the hardest thing to do at the moment in relation to starting up a business in this place is overcoming the sheer pyschological terror that is out there in relation to the economy, it’s like being on a sinking ship that everyone else is scrambling to get off, but you have taken it upon yourself to take a bit of an auld wander back down to the engine room as the ship starts slipping below the waterline. David you should think about hosting or organising a small business start up forum, something along the lines of… Read more »
Some off-topic interesting links for the day:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/paralyzed-fed-defers-decision-monetary-policy-primary-dealers
If I didn’t know better, and I’m not at all sure I do, I’d think that there was something very weird going on.
I can just see Bob the yank walking around with his sat-nav looking for where the little cottage used to be before it was demolished and the ditches were bulldozed out to make room for the large farm which after the REPs scheme ran out was bought by a British landlord who intended to build a golf course on it but then it got rezoned for development after the FF-PD & FG countycouncilors were paid off before the developer build a ghost estate on it, who got loans from Anglo, which was taken over by NAMA then Bobs great great… Read more »
What about the French strikers, surely worth a mention, they are getting in touch with themselves, more power to them!
Mark Weisbrot – Why the French protestors got it right
http://www.counterpunch.org/weisbrot10222010.html
Professor Philippe Marliere – Sarkozy Under Siege
http://www.counterpunch.org/marliere10202010.html
If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat… Read more »
Calamity Coughlan seems to think that the problem with FAS was its name, so She proposes to spend millions of Euro on consultants and advisors and committee’s and sub committees, focus groups, astrologers, mystic megs, shaman, witch doctors, cronies from Donegal and her friend Biddy the big sheep from down the road, with a view to re-branding this wayward beast. Calamity knows it will cost millions to change all the letterheads, documentation etc etc. because that’s what it cost when they changed its name before from ANCO after ANCO had eaten Manpower and became extremely ill because Manpower was full… Read more »
I hope this is not our opening salvo accross the bows of the Diaspora……..
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/over-3000-returning-irish-refused-dole-2397877.html
Here is the Radio Programme :
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=irishbanks+and+fraud&aq=f
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSeqWaLa430
listen part 1 and 2 seperately
I have to say I’m surprised at some people here recommending Patrick Holford. To describe him as a quack would be generous in the extreme – avoid this guy at all costs.
Before making your mind up – read Ben Goldacre’s comments about him.
http://www.badscience.net/2007/02/patrick-holford-food-is-better-than-medicine-south-africa-tour/
Next uo, Lisbon 3.0. The absurdity just never ends. The problem with the last Treaty (including them cast-iron gaurantees that you don’t hear about anymore) is that it did not allow some people to interfere enough in other countries business. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/government-faces-nightmare-scenario-of-third-lisbon-vote-2399473.html I wonder will our politicians be sticking up posters with “Vote Yes, for Jobs” again ? Interestingly enough before the Lisbon 2.0 Referendum Wolfgang Munchau in the FT did declare that the Lisbon Treaty had been usurped by the Financial Crisis. Dick Roche reckons he has a solution. He tells us that, Lisbon is not a self-amending treaty, but… Read more »
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/anglo-chairman-pushes-for-a-second-bad-bank-2399437.html
Can somebody tell Alan Dukes that they are all bad banks now ?
An appraisal of us leaving the Euro…
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/leaving-euro-would-only-make-problems-worse-says-trinity-economist-2399439.html
There will be kickback from this. And presumably the Anglo Bondholders will want real Euros back, and not Punt 2.0 money…
Just looking at the diaspora thing again from another angle. I am remembering the EU framework programmes which brought companies together from different countries in Europe to engage in projects (R&D etc) which were 50% funded by the or the CEC as it was known at the time. I was in a few such projects and the main beneficiaries I saw were the airlines, hotels and restaurants. The actual cooperative work while interesting rarely yielded anything of concrete or longterm benefit. That said, it did build a contact base for future business which I know led to better things in… Read more »
Interesting article. The proposal is refreshingly practical. It is dependant of people doing things.Actual things like meeting, planning and carrying out those plans. “For the Week of Welcomes, these returning members of the local diaspora, many newly identified, will attend several days of lectures in the local school on Irish history, literature and so on, visit a local GAA match and attend a local Comhaltas session ” I admire it also as it draws on the strenghts already in place in Ireland, namely our culture.The scheme acknowledges the importance of our culture,not just as a tool to promote ourselves but… Read more »
Sitting in a cafe in Berlin reading an article on the irish economy in the German Financial Times ‘Die bittere Medizin fuer Irland’ [Ireland’s bitter medicine]on wissen.de. The language in the article is uncertain ‘Kein Ende in Sicht’ ‘Die Aussichten sehen nicht besser aus’: ‘No end in site’, ‘The prospects do not look any better. It’s a sorry tale on this beautiful autumn day and it is particularly poignant as many Germans have a fondness for Ireland and its people. The diaspora [me among them] returned, worked hard and applied our skills as best we could, but presently survival has… Read more »
Good article and there is a business in it . I know a guy in NJ in the States who is Irish American . He listens to Van Mossison and has the Irish flag flying alongside the Stars and Stripes . He has a bit of money and he likes to travel . I spent a weekend with him a few years ago and the one thing I got was that he played down his Irishness . I asked him about it and he explained that he was a bit embarressed to be in the company of a real live… Read more »
I can’t see why Ireland does not exploit its image to become a education hub for the Chinese and the Indians .Its one of Australias biggest exports .
http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/page/media-centre/2009-media-releases/education-third-largest-export/
Come on folks-
being Irish was super cool in the 1960’s in USA.
Now Middle east.Asia, and Mexico are the North American Diaspora.
In USA we have no dollars-there is home evicions on a large scale(sound familiar).
Forbes magazine in 2004 list the prevalance Irish Millionaires at 18% of population.
it is time for Ireland to employ it’s own resources-
The world wil not be surprised at’Celtic Tiger 2′
But it wont come out of the Bronx.
Cheers,
mickheff
http://news.eircom.net/breakingnews/18857169/?view=Standard
How long? Not long…..
David, I like your idea, best of luck with it.
On a completely unrelated topic, this caught my eye ; as it happened in our local school. A retired former headteacher was re-hired as a replacement for a lady gone on maternity leave. It indicates the mentality of a lot of people in established and relatively safe careers, who don’t understand the desperate need that young people have for a start in their lives. It is good to see the department put an end to this practice, though I think it should never have occured in the first place.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/coughlan-asks-schools-to-stop-hiring-retired-teachers-2400571.html
more positive suggestions David. Well done. But please don’t forget the fast developing current diaspora wave growing around the world. I left Ireland in 1995 and often go back to visit. I’m in Cambodia which is growing at 5% per annum despite the global downturn. Recent emigrants might be a better bet in economic terms than generations who left Ireland centuries ago because they still have close ties and loyalty to Ireland.
I’m not sure I share David’s obsession with the ‘Irish diaspora’ who at this stage are probably as about Irish as Finchley. What about the new Irish? Those who have ended up here from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe. They are ones who really provided the engine for growth during the so-called ‘celtic tiger’ phase. And even if a lot of them are returning home now, they still have links with this place. Important links too, not some vague, wishy-washy nostalgia that reads nice on paper but has no practical value. Also, lets remember that this foreign migrant labour originates for… Read more »
A weekend read:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-concentrated-wealth-and-purchase-political-power-democracys-death-spiral
don’t forget your red star emblazoned black shirt.
D Mc W writes an article about inviting foreign investment / interest in Ireland and the follow up comments move on to Nigerians and Poles, (the latter probably better described as East European Guest Workers), Shannon Airport hosting the USA Air Force, Bloody Sunday etc etc. Hello every one out there in Ireland Land, its time to move on, there are bigger fish to fry now, try concentrating your energies in uniting a movement against the government, (reference, the French). Another country that has “history” with its neighbours the UK, but instead of blaming history and former enemies for its… Read more »
I remember hearing this song like 15 years ago, never in my wildest dreams would I have dared to imagine or dream how true the words of this cong would become apparent to us in 2010… William Butler Yeats of 1913 meets Johhny Logan…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ooLvSu6bU