Despite the Irish eyes twinkling at Dublin Castle, the link between emigrant and homeland is not a happy one
I AM pretty much barred from writing about the rugby – and understandably so. But someone must record the cloud of disappointment that has settled over a large section of the male population, and say that she is sorry for it.
Men have gone very quiet since our defeat to Wales early on Saturday morning. They don’t want to talk about it. They are going for solitary walks up the mountains. They are locked in the front room discussing the second half on the phone – again.
A handsome older couple was walking to church yesterday and the man was saying to the woman: “Nothing I’d hoped for in the rugby worked out.” A friend’s husband came up to wake her when the match was over, saying “Will you get up and keep me company?” A thoughtful female gathered all the sports sections from the newspapers yesterday and offered them to her partner in life, who said: “I’d rather read the Ferns report.”
We must move on to other things.
What’s the Irish word for diaspora? In origin, diaspora is Greek, which in the current context isn’t an auspicious start. Nevertheless, we have become very fond of it – or them – in recent times.
The diaspora appears to be the cornerstone for a lot of the “key outcomes” at the Global Irish Economic Forum which took place in Dublin Castle at the weekend.
What with the proposed Irish social network (previously known as the pub), the Homecoming, and the new diaspora awards, we must find a new way of addressing our emigrant cousins, apart from that traditional Irish blessing, tearfully whispered as they headed for the boat: “So long, suckers, I’m keeping the farm.”
Despite all the Irish eyes twinkling at Dublin Castle, the relationship between the emigrant and the homeland is not a happy one.
The lovely Irish young people at the Rugby World Cup are one thing. The closure of the Irish Postnewspaper in England (now rescued by a UK company) and provision of any real home support for the ageing Irish population in the UK is quite another.
Colm Toibín's Brooklynwas published recently. Before that only the late John Healy of Charlestown, Co Mayo, had written directly about emigration. His unvarnished account of visiting his relatives in New York, by then fallen on hard times after sending money home for years, would tear your heart from your body.
Those Healy relatives knew one thing for certain: they could never come home. In the independent Ireland, emigrants were a reminder of the country’s catastrophic failure. They were also our vital source of cash.
It was in our interests to keep that relationship on a purely postal basis. They could only come home if they were successful: preferably if they were, or had been, president of the United States.
Then we’d be quite pleased to see them, as an opportunity to boost tourism and hear them tell us how fantastic we are. “Is feidir linn,” indeed.
It is some time since I attended a think-in – can you still smoke at them? – but I believe I speak for all of us boring old stay-at-home taxpayers when I say we aren’t hugely impressed by ideas such as the global Irish “Homecoming” (note the inverted commas), which is going to be the biggest tourist initiative in Irish history (yippee).
We do look forward, very much indeed, to 100 of our top expatriates flying in to sit on State boards, for free, for the next five years. That’s going to be fun to watch. From Sydney.
Perhaps the 100 top expatriates have already started their work for us, in their chats with Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan, who defended the presence at the forum of Denis O’Brien, founder of Esat.
Our 100 top expatriates might not know that the Moriarty tribunal, which also sat at Dublin Castle, investigated the awarding of Ireland’s second mobile phone licence. Or that Barry Maloney, a former colleague of O’Brien’s, refused to attend the forum on the basis O’Brien was attending.
When these objections to O'Brien's presence were put to Deenihan, the Minister told the Sunday Times: "There'd be a lot of events in Ireland with nobody at them if that principle was followed through."
This is the most fascinating statement to have emerged from the forum by some distance. It is certainly the most surprising (Peter, Peter, we’ve known for years how bad our education system is. Just catch us caring). It is also the finest explanation so far of precisely how Ireland blew itself to bits.
I’m getting tired now, are you? I think there are some things to be said here – not to the forum – about what we need being not more entrepreneurs, but fewer.
About how, on the evidence currently before us, we should go back to the days when people had full-time jobs and landlines for their telephones and we were all so very happy, sending our emigrants abroad at a wholesale rate.