GAELIC GAMES NEWS ROUND-UP:A BREAKFAST meeting next Sunday in San Francisco hopes to place the GAA at the heart of a project to attract the Irish diaspora back to Ireland and encourage interest in their heritage. The event is being held in conjunction with this year's hurling All Stars tour and will take place at the Treasure Island GAA facilities in the city.

The GAA is acting as partner with the Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO) organisation, spearheaded by Mike Feerick, the New York-born internet entrepreneur who will launch next weekend’s pilot scheme with GAA president Christy Cooney.

“The project is based on ‘reverse genealogy’,” according to Ireland XO project administrator Dolores O’Shea, “and we track people with Irish ancestry on a parish-by-parish basis. This is a joint venture using the GAA’s network to try to involve the Irish diaspora around the world. Next weekend sees the launch of the pilot project.”

Ireland XO launched its initial pilot scheme in Galway just over a year ago. The work is done on a voluntary basis and the project is a community-based, not-for-profit enterprise and seeks to identify those who emigrated from parishes down the years and try to connect with their descendants and invite them to return to their roots.

The ambition is that “the entire Irish diaspora of 70 million can be systematically reunified online and invited back or to engage with their ancestral parish for the benefit of all”.

The GAA’s role is as a point of contact, utilising its roughly 450 clubs outside Ireland, which can act as conduit for introducing descendants of emigrants to their Irish heritage.

Sunday’s brunch meeting will be particularly important according to O’Shea because it hopes to address one of the project’s main purposes: to interest those of Irish heritage in investing in the country of their ancestors. Leading members of the Irish technology community in Silicon Valley will also attend.

“The Silicon Valley connection is important because one of the areas of interest to us is to try and find ‘influencers’ among the diaspora, who may be able to play a role in economic development. The pilot in San Francisco is the first one with the GAA and if successful we would hope to expand into other countries, like Australia, New Zealand and the UK,” she said.

The All Stars tour leaves tomorrow and the travelling party will be named later on today.