![\"20121229-134007.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/files\/2012\/12\/20121229-134007.jpg\")
<\/a>‘Emigrants Leave Ireland’, engraving by Henry Doyle (1827\u20131892), from Mary Frances Cusack’s Illustrated History of Ireland, 1868<\/p><\/div>\n
Speaking of ways to connect, the Ottawa Citizen recently had an interesting article about something called reverse genealogy.\u00a0According to the article<\/a>, it’s an Ireland-based plan to reach out to the estimated 70 million people of Irish decent scattered across the globe.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people are already tracing family history,\u201d says [Phil] Donnelly, a 77-year-old retired public servant who immigrated to Canada in 1957.<\/p>\n \u201cThis goes beyond that to try to reach people who have not already become involved in identifying their Irish roots. The bottom line, from an economic point of view, is drawing more visitors back to Ireland.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can read more at the Ireland XO website<\/a>, including news that President Barack Obama’s distant Irish cousin, Henry Healy, has joined the effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lots of people take up genealogy on their own, but additional help on the other end can be quite attractive.<\/p>\n In this article from July 2011, the New York Times looks at the larger view<\/a> of who is being targeted by the outreach. It’s a painful fact that Ireland is still grappling with a “diaspora<\/a>“, thanks to a new round of severe economic constriction. (A big difference in this latest round of out-migration<\/a> is how many of Ireland’s new economic refugees are well-educated.)<\/p>\n The “Ireland Reaching Out” project is a two-way street, to stimulate interest and ties with Irish abroad and bring some back as visitors to stimulate the Irish economy. Mike Feerick was one of the founders. As recounted in the NYT article,<\/p>\n There is a word in Gaelic for those who left \u2014 deorai \u2014 which means exile or wanderer, as though they did not choose to leave and could not put down roots anywhere but the land of their birth. That idea has made its way into Ireland Reaching Out.<\/p>\n \u201cI want Ireland to start thinking of itself not as a physical place, but as a people,\u201d Mr. Feerick said, and he wants it to start acting like it, too, through local projects like the one in Galway.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The program co-ordinates local volunteers to help visitors find what they’re after. As reported by Irish Central<\/a> in 2011:<\/p>\n It\u2019s this personal touch that Mike Feerick emphasizes above all else. \u201cGenealogy can be a lonely business,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat\u2019s missing is the contact with people. We asked all of our visitors to tell us what they knew about their family connections before they arrived, and our team of volunteers has been working on finding out more. As a result, we\u2019ll be able to put them in direct contact with living relatives. We\u2019ll be able to bring them out to the parishes and show them the houses and fields they came from. They won\u2019t be alone.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is just one of many Irish diaspora projects or concepts, as in this Irish Times op-ed<\/a> by Baroness Detta O\u2019Cathain, member of the House of Lords and of the leadership council of the Irish International Diaspora Trust:<\/p>\n We are a diaspora who can hold our heads high. We contribute to the best of our ability wherever we go.<\/p>\n We must make every Irish person feel the same. It is appropriate and fundamentally important to celebrate the global imprint our diaspora has made and continues to make.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n