The Gathering - Give tourism initiative full support

Today marks the launch of The Gathering, a year-long celebration of all things Irish and a readymade opportunity to promote this country’s image abroad.

With more than 70m people across the diaspora claiming to be Irish in one degree or another, the simple idea behind the Gathering is to give people up and down the country a chance to reach out to those who have gone away, be they relatives, friends, or descendants, and invite them home.

Admittedly, the concept of Irishness can be as broad or as narrow as one cares to define it. Whether somebody is an Aran islander with fluent Irish or an Irish-American hoping to trace old roots, it comes down essentially to a question of belief. There are as many kinds of Irishness as shades of green, and, according to the song, there are 40 of those.