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« Previous Entries Next Entries »Commentator: Irish don’t get it – Israel gives back to diaspora
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009Here’s an interesting perspective on recent Irish outreach to the diaspora – in an article on the Jerusalem Post, commentator Rob Brown says Ireland doesn’t get what makes the Israeli diaspora different.
The central distinction, says the former media editor of The Independent in London, is that Ireland simply isn’t the hub for its diaspora in the way that Israel is for the global Jewish community:
Since the foundation of the Free State in 1922, there has been no great ingathering of the sons and daughters of Erin – not even after Ireland got rich in recent decades and could no longer plead poverty as an excuse. A recent head of state, Mary Robinson, kept a light burning for emigrants in a window of the presidential palace in Phoenix Park, but that was a purely symbolic gesture. There have been no dramatic airlifts of frightened Irish emigrants out of Africa or anywhere else, and generations of Irishmen have never prayed: “Next year in Dublin!”
Sure, if they’ve downed a few too many whiskeys, they might refer fondly to the “oul’ sod.” But they don’t regard Ireland as the center, the spring, the source from whence they came. The Republic of Ireland isn’t their Promised Land.
He says the Global Irish Economic Forum seems “a smart business move”, but adds “there’s a whole lot more to the Israeli relationship with Jews around the globe than just that”. Jews have a real home in Israel:
The Jewish state is every Jew’s guaranteed place of refuge, and seeks to serve as the center of a revived Jewish civilization. This state doesn’t yell at Jews, as Bob Geldof famously yelled at the whole world during the first Band Aid telethon: “Just give us your f***ing money!”
The Jewish state doesn’t simply get from, but gives to, Jews around the world. If the Irish don’t get that, even they don’t really get Israel.
Brown is touching on a painful truth here: for most of its history, Ireland turned its back on our emigrants. It was always happy to take the money – whether it was from remittances, Irish-American-influenced foreign investment, or tourist dollars – but traditionally Irish people in Ireland didn’t seem to be that interested in discovering what the Irish abroad might like to get back from “the old country”.
When it achieved prosperity, the government did make an attempt to assist emigrants in dire straits around the world, particularly in Britain; the 2002 Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants was a serious new departure as Ireland took responsibility for the welfare of its citizens abroad. But Ireland has never seriously posited itself as a homeland for the diaspora, and the relationship between Ireland and those who live abroad is fraught with tension.
Many in Ireland seem uninterested in the experience of the Irish abroad, and it’s not unusual for returning emigrants or visiting Irish-Americans to pick up on less-than-warm undertones to the welcome. Recent newspaper articles by Terry Prone and Kevin Meyers highlight the way the Irish elite often responds to Irish communities abroad with gaping incomprehension.
In recent decades Ireland has even tightened the ability of the global Irish to live and work in Ireland: it was only in the 1980s that the right to claim Irish citizenship was taken from most of those whose ancestry stretched back to great-grandparents – I don’t know why this was done, but it’s ironic that it was around the same time that Irish politicians were coming to the US looking for American visas for the Irish undocumented – a mission that was greatly assisted by the Irish-American community.
There has been a lot of great thinking about redefining the relationship between Ireland and the global Irish lately, but Brown’s point about the importance of giving to the diaspora is a good reminder of how much more effective our efforts could be if we think more about what Ireland can offer to the diaspora.
Read Brown’s full article at JerusalemPost.com:  Calling All Countrymen.
Terry Prone: Diaspora “a weird lot”
Friday, October 2nd, 2009PR maven Terry Prone is not the most astute analyst of diaspora relations.
Cleverly coining a new phrase, “diasporation”, in response to the recent Global Irish Economic Forum, Ms Prone declares that all attempts to look to the Irish abroad for any wisdom to guide us out of this crisis are doomed to failure.
The reason? The Irish diaspora are “a weird lot”. Sure there are some Irish millionaire philanthropists who can be reliably counted on to cough up the cash. But the rest of them? No use at all.
“The rest of the diaspora is a write off and always has been. One of the best histories of the emigrant Irish makes the point that whereas Italians and other Europeans who, through poverty, had to emigrate to the United States always planned to get home as soon as they made a few bob, the Irish concentrated on singing miserable songs filled with homesickness while staying in Detroit or Dakota or downtown Manhattan.”
Ms Prone seems to forget that Ireland’s economic boom is of rather late vintage. When there was a need for emigrant labour in the 1990s, the Irish did come back – by the hundreds of thousands. What did an Irish person have to return to, in say, 1870?
And as for remittances, Ms Prone seems to think they are the object of folklore:
And, while we’ve all heard the stories of envelopes coming to our great-grandparents with the few bob from the emigrant son or daughter allowing the folks at home to put in a toilet instead of visiting the local field, the fact is that a huge proportion of those who left used their emigration to break all ties with folks from home.
Proving nicely the old adage that eaten bread is soon forgotten, Ms Prone doesn’t seem to realise that millions of pounds in remittances were reaching Irish homes as lately as the 1960s. But then actual facts don’t seem her forte. This comes from the Supporting the Irish Abroad website:
In 1961 the education budget for Ireland was fourteen million pounds, that year emigrants remittances that could be calculated form official sources came to thirteen and a half million.
If we owe the Irish emigrants of the past anything – and we do – surely it must begin with remembering their sacrifices and what they gave to the Irish at home.
But not for Ms Prone, who clearly resents the Irish diaspora for committing the sin of sentimentality while keeping their money in their pockets. They should visit more, she insists – even as Irish-born people realise that it’s cheaper to holiday just about anywhere else. Â And perhaps worst of all, they don’t buy the shamrock-themed tat that she tries to help Irish marketers shill.
As a corrective, here’s what the 2002 report of the government’s Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants has to say:
We owe much to our emigrants. Many of them helped their families who remained behind through generous remittances sent home from their hard earned incomes. In recent years, the establishment of voluntary funding organisations abroad and the personal generosity of individual Irish people who have achieved success, notably in the US, have led to the investment of large sums of money in Ireland. Moreover, people who returned to Ireland having gained experience abroad, have contributed significantly to the country through learning and innovation. The Task Force acknowledges this debt and recognises the sacrifices made by generations of emigrants to the economic benefit of Ireland.
Read Ms Prone’s article:
Herald.ie: Don’t rely on the Diaspora to rescue us
Global Irish Economic Forum: a report
Monday, September 21st, 2009This is my report on the Global Irish Economic Forum that I wrote up for Liam Ferrie’s Irish Emigrant news service, which is at www.emigrant.ie. (The news is published in two print editions in New York and Boston as well.) Liam Ferrie, of course, is the tirelessly committed granddaddy of all Internet outreach to the Irish abroad, having published the Irish Emigrant newsletter since 1987 – the longest-running online source of national news in the world. Respect.
Ireland goes global for help in crisis
By Noreen Bowden (for Irish Emigrant)
The Irish government opened a new chapter in its relationship with the Diaspora this weekend, as it gathered 180 leading figures from the worlds of business, technology, philanthropy, and culture and asked them for help in solving the current economic crisis. The Global Irish Economic Forum, hosted by Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Martin, took place on Friday and Saturday at Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park. It consisted of a series of keynote speeches and panel discussions aimed at coming up with concrete solutions for economic growth. Among the proposals that emerged were a website for the diaspora, a university of performing arts, and enhanced educational travel programmes for young people.
Minister Martin said that he believed the event had achieved what it had set out to do, which was twofold: to identify “a range of ideas to help address the economic challenges that confront usâ€?; and also to take “an important step toward establishing a new, more dynamic relationship between Ireland and its diaspora.” He also announced his intention to form “a new global Irish network made up of those in attendance and other highly influential members of our global community”.
The forum, organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs, was the brainchild of economist David McWilliams, whose last book had focused on his belief that the talents of the Irish abroad could be harnessed to play a key role in Ireland’s future. McWilliams said that he planned for the conference to produce five coherent proposals to the government for economic development. While most of those assembled were successful businessmen (only about 20 women were among those invited), it was culture that, somewhat surprisingly, emerged as Ireland’s proposed economic weapon.
Digicel chief executive Denis O’Brien told the closing session of the forum that Ireland’s culture was what the nation could use to connect with its diaspora of 70 million people. “Culture is everything”, O’Brien said, “the fact that we have such a strong culture as a country really gives us one of the big advantages of any nation in the world.”
International Investment and Underwriting chair Dermot Desmond, echoing O’Brien’s comments about the richness of Irish literature, drama and music, asked, “How can we monetise our culture?” The answer, he said, was to build “the greatest university in the world for the performing arts”.
There were several other ideas revealed in the course of the closing session. One was a website that would showcase Irish culture and arts to the world, while serving as a connecting point to the diaspora. Another was enhanced educational travel opportunities for young people, modeled after the Birthright Israel programmes, aimed at strengthening Irish identity and connections through structured trips to Ireland. The idea of selling bonds to the diaspora was also introduced; the bonds, inspired by a popular Israeli programme, would be used to finance diaspora-related projects. While several participants spoke of Israel’s approach to its diaspora as a model, Minister Martin seemed hesitant to agree, saying that there were reasons specific to Israel’s situation that made its solutions work for them. “We’re not in the Israeli space”, he said.
Several speakers spoke of a need to “up our game”, to ratchet up the level of outreach and activities for the Irish abroad. As American Ireland Fund philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman commented, “We have to get to the next level, which is the business level, and capitalise on what we have already”.
Those in attendance included luminaries in the fields of business, philanthropy, the arts, and academia, living in Ireland and around the world. Among the top business executives were retired Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett; Dr Pearse Lyons, Alltech Inc, KY; Conrad Burke, Innovalight in CA; Fred Combe, Natus Pte Ltd, Singapore; John Hartnett, G24 Innovations, Wales; Kevin Melia, Vette Corporation, MA; and HSBC North America Chief Executive Brendan McDonagh.
Singer Bob Geldof, Riverdance producers Moya Doherty and John McColgan, and filmmaker Neil Jordan were among those representing the arts. Academics present included Fr Joe McShane, the president of New York’s Fordham University; Prof. Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Director, University of California System-wide Biotech Program; and Dr Louise Richardson of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Several Irish politicians and the heads of many Irish state agencies also attended.
The geographic range was widespread; while many came from the US and Britain, the rest of the world was well-represented. Among those who came from less typical locales were PCS founder Liam O’Keeffe-Ayudhkij, who came from Thailand; Southern Cross publisher Guillermo MacLoughlin Breard, who attended from Argentina; and Malaysian-Irish Business Network founder Leslie Eu flew in from Malaysia.
One of the biggest challenges facing the organisers was surely determining the guest list. With a diaspora of 70 million people, how to choose fewer than 200 to invite? “I don’t believe there were many who would have refused an invitation”, said Avril Conroy, a BP executive living in Russia, “and there were probably a lot more who would have loved an invitation in the end. Maybe the solution is 1,000 of us sitting in a room. But people have to be willing to give and to take action.”
Most of the event was closed to the media, with only Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s keynote opening address and the concluding panel session open to reporters. The forum employed Chatham House Rules, which dictated that no statement from the closed sessions could be quoted; this may have ensured a frank exchange of ideas in the sessions but frustrated reporters who were eager for some hard stories to emerge. It is likely that the event will be more highly regarded abroad than it is within Ireland.
Feedback from participants suggested that former Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett, a keynote speaker at the opening plenary, had presented a significant challenge to the government with harsh criticism on Ireland’s level of education and investment in research and development. Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen had also reportedly been an impassioned speaker, defending the arts and culture sector against proposed cuts in the recent An Bord Snip report. Several attendees noted that the discussions did not steer away from critical assessments of Ireland’s situation.
Participants interviewed during the course of the two days were positive about the level of discussion. Labour leader Éamon Gilmore noted the amount of good will among attendees: “I think we’re getting a lot of friendly advice here today.”
And participants seemed cautiously optimistic that their advice would be listened to: “I assume that the Government – since they went to the trouble of bringing everyone here – they’ll take some good order of what they’re hearing,” said Dennis Swanson, President of Fox Television.
“I’m very realistic about it – we shouldn’t underestimate this: it is a tough crisis. But we have our health”, Avril Conroy said, laughing. She summed up her thoughts with the kind of sentiment that the Government was surely banking on as it organised the forum: “I’m positive, I love Ireland. I might have left, but I never went away”.
NYT strikes poignant note with mention of elderly Irish woman
Saturday, September 19th, 2009There’s a poignant Irish-related note in a New York Times article about the residents of a single-room occupancy hotel in Manhattan. Single-room occupancy hotels offer a bedroom and shared bathroom facilities; the one in this story has no kitchen. The hotels are dying out in New York City, but were once a common housing option for the working poor.
The report briefly mentions a woman who arrived at the SRO, which is on Third Ave and 74th Street, at around the age of 50 in the 1970s:
“When I saw it I thought it was terrible,� said a tenant who introduced herself only as Mary and said she took a room shortly after arriving from Ireland 35 years ago. “I didn’t want anyone to know I was here because I had always lived in private homes. I took it for a month or maybe six months. Then time went on and I got accustomed to it.�
Mary, 84, added, “I wouldn’t leave for anything.�
SRO occupants are vulnerable; the vast majority of these inexpensive housing units have closed as the owners turned them into far more lucrative, larger living spaces. Many of the older residents of this SRO are paying as little as $10 a night; the owners rely on rent from J. G. Melon, an upscale pub located on the ground floor, for income from the five-story building.
Here’s hoping Mary will be secure in her home for as long as she needs it.
That reminds me that the American Ireland Funds has started a fund for vulnerable immigrants living in the US; it’s called The Forgotten Irish Campaign and it’s modeled on a similar campaign in Britain.
Related web pages:
- New York Times: Below, the A-List Eats; Above, Bare-Bones Lives
- American Ireland Fund
Global Irish Economic Forum: The speeches
Saturday, September 19th, 2009I’ll archive the text of the speeches from the Global Irish Economic Forum here as they become available.
- Opening address by Taoiseach Brian Cowen
- Upcoming: Opening remarks by President Mary McAleese at Aras an Uachtarain
- Upcoming: Concluding remarks by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin
Some of the speeches will be available on RTE’s special Global Irish Economic Forum webpage.
Global Irish Economic Forum: thoughts from participants
Friday, September 18th, 2009While the media is getting almost no access to the happenings at the Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh, some of the participants have been willing to share their thoughts. Here’s a roundup of a few, all nabbed as they emerged from Farmleigh House at the close of the day:
US ambassador Dan Rooney stressed his belief that the session was useful: “The ideas generated, and thoughts, can be used to help the public understand; when they see people from all over the world coming here, that’s a plus.” He spoke positively of Ireland’s chance for recovery: “You’ve got a good government, good people”. When asked whether Ireland’s close relationship with both America and Europe caused any tension, he said, “I think America is a great friend of Ireland and has been for years – almost before we were a country”, and indicated that Ireland’s position in the EU did not conflict with that friendship.
Labour party leader Eamon Gilmore noted that business leaders had come from all over the world in order to give their thoughts in terms of the economy, how Ireland can keep jobs and stimulate investment. “It has to be said, sometimes we have much more negative impression than people looking in from outside would have”.
He declined to discuss any individual ideas that had been discussed, citing the Chatham House rules in effect at the conference, but said that much of the conversation had focused on the importance of education, science and math, and investment in research and development, as well as communication infrastructure. He said, “The reason I accepted the invitation was that anything to do to keep jobs, stimulate investment, anything that can be done – we’ve got to do it.”
Gilmore noted there’s a lot of good will at Farmleigh: “I think we’re getting a lot of friendly advice here today”.
Thomas Corcoran of the Carlyle Group indicated his willingness to assist, and summed up the mood of the gathering as follows: “When days are dark it’s time to pull together.”
Guillermo MacLaughlin, editor of the Southern Cross in Argentina, described his invitation to the Farmleigh event as “an honour for me”, as there were only two people in attendance from South America. He believes that the Irish in Argentina help to “strengthen the network, along with Asia and Australia and other parts of the world”. He noted that culture is a good gateway to business: “When you have an admiration for and a connection with each other, it is easier to do business. You share something.”
Singer and philanthropist Bob Geldof spoke at length of the importance of assisting Africa, noting that Ireland is popular there and had a strong potential to influence the continent positively with aid. Of his participation in the conference he said, “If I can anyway help then I’m obliged to and I want to. Frankly, everyone is desperate.”
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