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Where Do We Go From Here?  The
inaugural U.S.-Ireland Forum was held in New York on November 7 and 8.
Irish America magazine, together with The American Ireland Fund, University
College Dublin, and the Irish Government co-hosted the event at the Affinia
Manhattan Hotel.
Over the two days some of the finest Irish and Irish-American minds
came together to discuss the changing relationship between the two countries.
Themes explored included: Social Capital and Philanthropy, Culture and
Education, The Future of the Celtic Tiger, Philanthropy in Ireland, and
Ireland–U.S. : The Next Generation.
The following pages give a small taste of what took place with excerpts
from some of the many speeches. The Forum began with a major announcement
from UCD President Hugh Brady.
The U.S.-Ireland Forum got off to a good start when Dr. Hugh Brady, President
of University College Dublin, announced that funding had been obtained
to assist the university in establishing an International Center to support
the global Irish family. This was his address:
Today there is unprecedented interest in the Irish and the Irish Diaspora,
Over 80 million identify themselves with Ireland, and one of the questions
today is, why is that? There are several reasons. There is a collective
pride in the achievements of the global family; peace and prosperity on
the island of Ireland; the outstanding business success of Irish America
and the Irish in Britain; the wonderful reputation enjoyed by Irish artists
and culture from Joyce to Bono, Flatley, Heaney and so many more.
There is a flip side. There is concern about the future of the global
Irish family and that is the focus of much of this forum. I put it to
you that there is a set of relationships under strain, there is a need
to redefine the mission and there is a need to energize the next generation
of leaders.
 It
is my contention that Ireland does not understand Irish America and its
contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process and the current economic
success. Possibly even more worrying is that Ireland thinks it does. Secondly
that Irish America, who probably feel that they understand Ireland better
than the Irish themselves, may feel that their contribution has been underappreciated.
In fact because of its own success Irish America is at risk of becoming
almost an invisible ethnic group. Finally, collectively we may underestimate
the shared values that underpin the bond that is Irishness and the potential
of the global Irish family to address and influence the major social issues
of our time.
As university president what can a university do? We have seen it as a
priority at UCD to establish an International Center, a hub focused on
the challenge and support of the global Irish family. The core themes
of history, heritage, and culture will be addressed, but also contemporary
themes like peace and reconciliation, human rights, migration, diversity,
global citizenship, global Ireland and the developing world. This should
be a well-visited center with students, scholars, and professors from
the Diaspora coming and challenging each other and coming up with solutions.
One of Ireland’s most successful developers, Pat Doherty, has
made a very significant gift to launch the fundraising campaign for this
institute. The only condition was that the institute be known as the John
Hume Institute for Irish Studies. A wonderful gesture as we approach the
ten-year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, and a wonderful tribute
to one of Ireland’s greatest statesman. I see this activity as being
crucial. I put this question to you: In ten or fifteen years time, will
the global Irish family be a historical curiosity, or an agent for change?
I hope that the collective presence here today share the desire that the
Irish Diaspora goes from strength to strength and becomes that agent for
change through this forum and other actions like it.
Outtakes from the Forum
A wide array of speakers examined myriad issues that confront the Diaspora.
The following pages contain outtakes from the seven panel discussions
that took place during the conference.
 On
the Future of the Celtic Tiger:
The Celtic Tiger is a very good description for the problem and the challenge
facing Ireland now. Like the tigers in Southeast Asia, what Ireland has
to answer over the next few year is, can it become a self-sustaining economy?
All the growth and benefit was driven by the fact that Ireland had the
best education, the highest literacy rate, and the lowest salaries in
Europe.
This is now being supplanted by Eastern Europe. I say this as a person
who is always facing the choice of where to invest and who to invest with.
Increasingly over the last year we have not been finding opportunities
in Ireland. That is not because we don’t believe that Ireland has
a great economy, but because the opportunities for investing are slowing.
Not only because of India and China, but also because of Poland and the
Czech Republic who are just like the Ireland of ten years ago.
Ireland needs to make the transition that Singapore and Korea made –
that even if external growth and external demand slowed, we would be able
to survive and continue to increase GDP. Ireland has, so far, allowed
immigration, and that is a really important feeder in the productivity
process. Growth and external investment depend almost entirely on Ireland
showing that it has self-generating growth.
Richard Medley, Chairman, Medley Capital
The Tiger hasn’t gone lame, we have seen some slowdown, a reality
check, we have had some recent job losses but that is usual for other
markets so why should it be unusual for us? The cost of doing business
in Ireland is a little too high in my opinion, and the biggest threat
of all is complacency.
We must address our competitiveness, keep an eye on globalization issues,
and the cost of living must be controlled. We must not talk ourselves
into recession. Maybe the accidental element of the Celtic Tiger has run
its course and it is time for us to do what we do best, be innovative,
and redefine our business plan and work for a living.
Ian Hyland, Publisher, Business & Finance Magazine
On the Forum:
If you put the finger on the pulse of all the people here today, you
will find a significant sea change: something entirely new and unique
is happening. Instead of silence, exile and cunning, we are experiencing
an explosion of togetherness, participation and empathy. A whole new direction
is being taken because of a deep confluence of ideas between people in
different spheres – culture, philanthropy and business. It's a fantastic
suprise, a whole new pulse, the pulse of an old wound that goes through
now to the opposite side.
Colum McCann, Novelist
I had the good sense this morning to look up the word Diaspora in the
dictionary, which I still do occasionally. It is a Greek word that means
“a scattering” or “a sowing of seeds.” Another
interpretation is that of “displacement.” I’d like to
think that today many of those seeds scattered across the globe have found
their place here and in a broader sense are finding their places around
the world.
During the summer I was at a “Flight of the Earls” conference
in County Donegal organized by Ulster University. It was an opportunity
to mark that historic event that took place 400 years ago this year. At
the conference they spoke of the Diaspora as a “coming and going.”
So today we can no longer think about the Irish Diaspora as a population
forced to leave their homeland, experiencing a displacement that was very
sad. Today we must think of it as a coming and going and a powerful sharing
with each other.
Turlough McConnell, Executive Director, the U.S.-Ireland
Forum
 On
why the Diaspora really matters:
At Glucksman Ireland House we teach the Irish language and it is not
all Irish kids, it’s Asian kids, it’s African-American kids.
To walk into that classroom would just lift your heart. The Irish language,
which for so long was lying fallow as a dead language, is now hot, and
the best fun is talking to the kids and learning their motivation for
taking on a pretty tough language. Sometimes it is that they are in love
with an Irish kid and they want to impress the family! I think that culture
and education can cross a whole bunch of boundaries that seem insurmountable.
Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Chairman,
The American Ireland Fund,and Founder of Glucksman Ireland House at NYU
Those of us who grew up in the Diaspora have an obligation to try to
help this amazingly unusual situation in Ireland. For the first time I
think in history, we have an unarmed group of immigrants coming to Ireland.
We have been exporting people for hundreds of years now, particularly
since the 19th century to this city [New York]. I think one of the things
we have an obligation to do is to help Ireland itself in the quest for
absorbing immigration, because that was our tale. We had things done to
us, but we happened to win the later rounds, particularly after 1960 with
the election of Jack Kennedy. But we had things done to us and we learned
how to be truly tough, to endure without talking tough.
Pete Hamill, Irish-American Journalist and Author
It is time for a think tank, for a comprehensive scholarly
and intelligent approach to plotting the future of this critical relationship
between Ireland and America which is taken far too much for granted. Irish
America must also change because of the new reality. For too long we have
been identified in part by a bogus and trivial culture that focuses on
green hats, leprechauns and beer drinking. Is that what we want America
to know us for?
Niall O’Dowd, Publisher, Irish America Magazine
 Ireland
& America: The New paradigm:
I don’t see why economic success argues against culture.
They can coexist. It is about reinventing Ireland. The Celtic Tiger phase
was really positive, really fantastic. A lot of people came home. The
situation now is: if there is a downturn we can sit back and think about
the country. Ireland is interesting because we are half American half
European, and that is what gives us our unique selling point.
Culturally we are extremely close to the United States,
but politically and geographically we are close to Europe. That is our
unique selling point. In the long term Ireland will realize that that
is where our vested interest lies. Right now the government is obsessed
with getting deeper and deeper into the European Union.
Ultimately it is looking to the East, whereas Irish people
have always looked to the West for economic opportunity. Ireland is an
Atlantic nation, not a continental European one. I think the Diaspora
idea [we are talking about here] would allow us to pursue a policy that
is less defined by Brussels or Berlin or Bucharest, and more defined by
something that links to our history and our people.
This is part of an active reinvention of our culture and society for
the 21st century. Genuflecting to our past, to where we are geographically
from, but also embracing the Diaspora, which is our only unique global
resource.
David McWilliams, Economist and Broadcaster
What I hope to demonstrate and what I hope the panel demonstrates
is that Irish America does have an ongoing role to play in the ongoing
educational and cultural life of Ireland, North and South. But that role
can only be played to the degree that the Irish mind itself is free enough
to accept gifts beyond the checkbook; gifts of the minds and hearts and
sensibilities and spirit that Irish America has kept alive.
I have experienced enormous generosity in Ireland, both
personally and for the work I’ve tried to do there, just extraordinary
generosity and I don’t want to take away from that. But I have experienced
in Ireland a cynicism in regards to Irish America and above all, a cynicism
in what they see in us as a sentimental, romantic almost a nincompoop
kind of relationship to Irish culture born of total ignorance.
What is left out of that equation is a lack of understanding
of Irish-American culture, what we have passed through, and indeed what
we are doing – particularly through the Irish Studies programs that
have been created across the country in the last ten or fifteen years
to keep alive traditions that in many ways, and I can speak out of personal
experience on this, many ways have been lost or derided in Ireland itself.
The work of Yeats itself is an example of that, the work of Thomas Moore
is an example of that, those are personal examples of mine.
James Flannery, Winship Professor of Arts and Humanities,
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
We need Irish and Americans to learn a lot from each other
about the immigration heritage, what it’s about and how to react
to it and to be smart about it. If we think about the relationship between
Ireland and the United States [with respect to our current immigration
question] and Ireland’s relationship to the world in terms of its
immigration [practice] then what you want for the future will tell you
how to fix the mistakes of the past.
Bruce Morrison, Former Congressman, Instigator of the Morrison
Visas
I think culture is the unspoken aorta valve that keeps Ireland
alive all over the world. I think culture is the thing that everyone touches
and feels. Why is it that everyone in this country loves St. Patrick’s
Day? In this country it is a day of pride for all of us. Everybody likes
Ireland. It is a phenomenal asset and we don’t utilize it half as
much as we ought to.
Declan Kelly, President & CEO, FD-US
The Dream:
 Do
you know about Grosse Ile? It's an island in the St. Lawrence River in
Canada where thousands of Irish are buried in mass graves. Estimates are
that one in seven famine immigrants never [survived the journey]. And
that their life span was seven to fourteen years if they did.
All we ever learned in Ireland was that they got on the coffin ships.
We didn’t learn what happened to them once they got here.
It is my dream that Ireland, the mother country, would care enough to
know what happened to her children, and teach that history in the schools.
Terry Dolan [Professor, School of English, University College Dublin]
talked about a building and how many “stories” there are in
a building. There are enough stories in Irish America to fill a very tall
building.
Mick Moloney’s class at New York University, “The Irish-American
in Music, Theatre and Dance,” is one of the most popular. And what
a legacy we have there – not only do we have Gene Kelly, whose mother
ran an Irish stepdancing school, we have Eugene O’Neill who once
said, “The thing that critics don’t get about me and my work
is that I'm Irish.” O’Neill never put a foot on Irish soil
but you only have to see his plays to know that you don’t have to
be born on the island of Ireland to be Irish.
My dream is that Mick Moloney’s class would be taught in all of
the colleges in Ireland – that Irish Studies classes would become
Irish-American Studies – or I’d settle for Diaspora Studies.
It’s such a great history [the history of the Irish in America]. There
are millions of stories out there. And I hope the new International Center
at UCD has a place for all of them.
Patricia Harty
 Does
the Diaspora Matter?
Keynote speaker and principal honoree at the forum dinner Don Keough,
chairman of Allen & Company and former president of Coca-Cola, gave
a stirring speech that captured the essence of what the forum was about
and what it could lead to.
This forum is asking an important question: Does the Diaspora really
matter, and is it something that is really important? Is it just a pleasant
thing or is it something we should really think about? I think we should.”
After taking a look at the giant strides taken in Ireland over the past
25 years – from a struggling land losing its young to emigration
and barely surviving to a country thriving – and the role that Irish
America played in that transformation, Keough talked about the Diaspora.
“Let me tell you something. It [the Diaspora] is not there to meddle,
preach, lecture or pontificate.
It is there to gather a collection of loving, admiring people, respectable
men and women, who consider Ireland an important part of their DNA, heritage,
and lives to look to the future and raise questions. That is why I think
this coming together is important for us and for Ireland.”
With the incredible growth experienced during the Celtic Tiger tapering
off, Keough touched on the challenge facing Ireland and those outside
the country of Irish descent.
“The Celtic Tiger is history. And the difficulty is going to be
maintaining growth over the coming years. The 70 million people outside
of Ireland who carry Irish blood move back another generation quickly,
every 20 years. There are no more people moving into the Diaspora, the
island becomes more mentally distant, so the fundamental question on the
table remains: Are the 40 million people in this country who carry Irish
blood really an important asset to the Republic? Is there a plan to strengthen
that relationship between the men and women, boys and girls, and those
not yet born who will carry Irish blood and their linkage to the Ireland
of the 21st century?
“What about tomorrow? What about the 30 million Americans of Irish
extraction who live in the States who are not touched by the government
or the magazine or by the various societies, what about them? What about
the Scots-Irish, who carried the name Scots because they didn’t
want to be totally associated with Ireland? And now they can. Now they
should.
They want a home. Are we going to find them? Are we going to locate them?
And make them want to come home. These are sensitive questions. Should
the Irish government revisit the citizenship criteria? Does it make sense
for the criteria for Irish citizenship to look back more than one generation?
Should it be more inclusive, like that of Israel? Or is there a next better
thing? A certificate of Irish heritage with certain rights and privileges
in Ireland?”
Keough rounded off his speech with his ideal scenario for the coming years:
“I have a vision, and that is the biggest Welcome Home party in
history. With 80,000 delegates filling Croke Park, coming from everywhere,
from the United States, from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, from Argentina,
from everywhere. Maybe in 2010? Filling the park, forming in effect Ireland’s
own Commonwealth, which would bring political, economic, and cultural
leaders to Ireland to discuss ways to strengthen ties to the republic
in the years that lie ahead.”
Also honored at the dinner was dancer Michael Flatley. The Chicago native,
who now lives in west Cork, also suggested ways of developing the global
Irish family. “Why can’t we have a TV station that shows the
best of what we are? It’s time to shed this leprechaun image once
and for all. We are leaders in our field, every field we choose. It’s
time that the world knows that. Our greatest asset is our people. Let’s
stand shoulder to shoulder. Let’s scream and we will be heard,”
he said to applause.
“We are standing on the shoulders of people like Pearse and Connolly.
We have a responsibility to reach for the stars. And don’t tell
me that we can’t.”
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