Gathering storm: Byrne brings home truth

GABRIEL Byrne hit a nerve last week with a few home truths.

The actor spoke on Monday about the wheeze known as ‘the Gathering’. He was being interviewed by Matt Cooper on Today FM, which was broadcasting from New York in the week of the US elections.

Byrne, who served for a few years as a cultural ambassador, was asked for his view of ‘the Gathering’. This is a major marketing drive to attract Irish people, known collectively as ‘the diaspora’, to return to this country next year where a range of activities are being laid on to celebrate Irishness, whatever that is.

One of the main photos on ‘the Gathering’s’ website last week was of people engaged in bog snorkelling, which, presumably, is an expression of Irishness.

A budget of €12m has been allocated for the year. So far, ‘the Gathering’ claims to be the umbrella organisation for 1,150 events, although, in truth, many, if not most, of these events take place every year of their own accord.

Byrne is not impressed. He referenced the event as something of “a scam”, although he might have more accurately described it as ‘a sham’. He said it was a “shakedown” of Irish immigrants and people of Irish heritage. He is the first public figure to express a negative opinion about it.

Soon after the broadcast all hell rained down on the Dubliner’s head. Politicians condemned him. Junior Minister Michael Ring went on the airwaves urging that everybody should don the “green jersey”, and not be saying bad things about ‘the Gathering’.

Whenever I hear a politician mention ‘the green jersey’, alarm bells go off in my head. The first time I heard the phrase, in recent years, was when bankers explained why money was moved around to camouflage the state of the Irish banks, prior to the economic meltdown in 2008.

Leo Varadkar, the Minister for Sport, went on Today FM, on Tuesday to refute Byrne’s comments. He referred to the actor as somebody who was “popular with women of a certain age,” attempting to denigrate Byrne as an aging sex symbol who wouldn’t know what he was talking about. The actor had got under Leo’s skin.

Elsewhere, organisers and senior figures in Irish-America also came out to big up ‘the Gathering’. It was as if Byrne had played the role of mad Irish uncle wandering out in public, and members of the broad Irish family were running around trying to clean up after him.

Well, what did he say that was so awful? He told Cooper he would give a perspective from an Irish-American point of view.

“I was talking the other day to a group of people. One of them was an illegal immigrant. His father died; he couldn’t get home. He feels abandoned by the Irish Government. He feels an alien. He can’t go back. Then, I talked to two kids — a girl and a boy, who were forced to emigrate because there’s no jobs and they blame the incompetence and the, one of them said, the gangsterism of government for the fact that they were forced to emigrate,” Byrne said.

“And he said ‘now we’re being asked to come back? We’re being asked to come back to help the economy. We were forced out because we had no job’.

“And then you talk to older people, Irish-American people here, and they say ‘We are sick to death of this, because the only time the diaspora, or the Irish-Americans, are ever mentioned is as tourists, and how can we get these people here to boost our tourism, and how can we get people back here so that we can shake them down for a few quid.”

Who could disagree with those sentiments? The relationship between this country, particularly official Ireland, and its emigrants has been pretty shameful. For decades, it was out of sight, out of mind. This island, as Brian Lenihan Snr pointed out during the 1980s, is not big enough for all of us. So those without work or prospects had to leave. Once they were gone, many contributed by sending money back to their families. These remittances kept the economy going in many parts of rural Ireland for most of the last century.

Whenever Irish-Americans returned in search of their roots, they were often subjected to the phenomenon of “tourist prices”. This practice of charging tourists more than locals for services was widespread until recent decades.

Today, things may not be that bad, but, privately, the Government must be delighted with the horrendous numbers leaving Ireland, as they keep down the unemployment rate.

Now, the country is in dire straits again, although, as Byrne said in his interview, America is going through its own recession.

So, somebody comes up with the bright idea of marketing ‘the gathering’.

To describe it as a shakedown is a bit harsh, but the event does hark back to holding out the paw for the tourist dollar.

Is Byrne wrong in saying that the only time emigrants or their offsprings are mentioned is as tourists? For years, suggestions have been made that at least one Seanad seat could be allocated to a representative of the diaspora. This might provide a voice to those who still have a strong attachment to the country. Nothing has been done.

Platitudes are fine, but don’t ask us to raise the profile of the departed by actually allowing them a voice in parliament.

‘The Gathering’ emerged from the Global Irish Forum, which was another wheeze aimed at giving the country a shot in the arm.

That forum also raised the suggestion that 25% of directorships on State boards could be allocated to Irish-born people, or their offsprings, living abroad. This sounded like a good idea, injecting into the semi-state culture the benefit of how business is conducted in other societies.

Again, nothing was done. It’s fine and dandy to have a knees-up in Dublin for the global Irish, but don’t expect government parties to forego patronage in order to benefit the country with expertise from overseas. If they really want to help out, the attitude seems to be, let’s get them to cough up a few bob.

Byrne hit on a nerve, alright. His sentiments weren’t echoed by the leaders of Irish America, who are all on-message. But few would doubt that they resonated with many among the massed ranks of emigrants and their offsprings.

Attitudes to those who left have traditionally been shabby, to say the least. That changed briefly when this country enjoyed some illusionary wealth.

Now that the place is in bad shape again, the official belief is it’s time to go back to the well of the diaspora, to get our hands on some 21st century remittances. Let’s just hope that this time around those returning won’t be subjected to tourist prices.