IRELAND’S cultural ambassador Gabriel Byrne, addressing the Gateway Ireland Project, said that our nation has neglected generations of emigrants.
He further spoke about a disconnection between the people who live in Ireland and the Diaspora abroad.
The Irish community will find a strong resonance with Mr Byrne’s words. During the 20th century successive waves of Irish immigrants settled throughout Britain.
These people helped see Ireland through its bleaker times. Seldom did an Irish person living in Britain send a letter home without enclosing a few pound notes for the people left behind.
As Gabriel Byrne put it: “We [in Ireland] are survivors.We have survived for a great extent through the people who went away.”
Even today, in post Celtic Tiger Ireland, Brian Cowen’s government has reason to be grateful to the Irish community in Britain.
Not only did a significant proportion of the Irish population here help to keep Ireland afloat during the grindingly difficult years, today they have relieved the Irish State of a financial burden.
Were all Ireland’s emigrants now living at home, they would be entitled to full pension rights. Because they live in Britain, that duty has fallen to the British state.
Speaking last week Gabriel Byrne told the Gateway Ireland Project that the Greek word “diaspora” meant the scattering of seeds. Regrettably Ireland had “forgotten about the seeds that had gone away”.
Not only has Ireland forgotten about the seeds, it has enshrined that forgetfulness on the statute books.
Ireland is one of the very few democracies in the world where, once you leave the country, you have no further say in the affairs of that state.
Yet it is one of the countries that has most relied on emigration from its shores, and on emigrants abroad.
Perhaps in time Mr Byrne could build on the admirable job he has done so far in bringing some of the problems of the Diaspora into the public domain, and promote a system to at least give emigrants some voice in the affairs of Ireland.
Eurovision glory gone forever
IT looks like the glory days have gone for Ireland as far as the Eurovision is concerned.
We came third from bottom — but there can be no cavilling at the overall decision, no suspicions that our defeat was the result of some dastardly voting pact amongst former east European nations.
The truth is, the best song won and the worst song came last.
Germany’s song was a winner from the outset; Britain’s song in particular was subEurovision. In fact, you’d expect to hear better at a karaoke club.
Ireland’s entrant, Niamh Kavanagh, certainly knows how to sing — the problem for the former Eurovision winner was that this time she just didn’t have a decent song.
But at least we had one Irish winner.
The BBC chose Graham Norton to take over from Terry Wogan — and he did admirably.
Terry used to treat the Eurovision as secondary to his amiable three-hour chat — about almost anything bar the Eurovision — to the television audience. It seemed an impossible act to follow.
But Graham managed it with aplomb, style and humour once again proving he is perfect for the Eurovision.