Box 2. Ireland’s engagement with its global community – a template
for Ukraine?
Around 70 million peopleof Irish heritage live in other countries, while Ireland itself has a population of 5 million. According to Nathan Mannion, head of exhibitions and programmes at EPIC – The Irish Emigration Museum, for much of the 20th century, emigration from Ireland was associated with a sense of shame, both among emigrants and within the country itself. In the early 1990s, attitudes began to shift. The diaspora was recognized not just as a source of remittances, but as a valuable global community that could support Ireland politically and economically. This change was symbolized by the first female president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who acknowledged the diaspora in her inaugural speech and initiated symbolic gestures, such as lighting a candle in the presidential residence to represent the connection with Irish people abroad.
In 2004, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) established the Irish Abroad Unit, which marked a formal recognition of the diaspora’s importance. This unit began funding Irish community groups worldwide through its Emigrant Support Programme,which includes welfare support for the vulnerable and efforts to nurture Ireland’s cultural heritage abroad among the diaspora. This financial support was largely enabled by the economic growth that Ireland experienced over the past two decades.
However, other initiatives do not require a lot of financial resources and could potentially be replicated in countries like Ukraine. In 2013, ‘The Gathering’ initiative was launched, inviting people of Irish descent to return to Ireland for tourism, to discover their heritage and to contribute with their spending to the Irish economy.This was a proactive step to engage with the diaspora. The revenue from visitors of Irish heritage from across the globe vastly exceeded the government’s expenses and income projections for the event. According to Mannion, ‘the Gathering was largely a reverse genealogical project to invite the Irish to come back and visit Ireland, to build direct personal connections between communities all the way down to small villages’. He added: ‘What made it different was the communities were actively reaching out, as opposed to what the usual case is where the diaspora actually tried to come back and track their own roots themselves.’
Ireland’s diaspora strategy has a human-centred approach by the state towards people of Irish heritage abroad. The strategy is defined in close consultation with the Irish global community. In-person events that connect people of Irish heritage with people in Ireland, such as the Global Irish Civic Forum and Global Irish Economic Forum, are held regularly. The DFAT is currently finalizing a new strategy for 2026–30, indicating a continued commitment to engaging with the diaspora.
The Irish Emigration Museum was founded in 2016 with funding from Neville Isdell, former head of The Coca-Cola Company and also of Irish heritage. It is an example of a physical space that pays tribute to the Irish global community and facilitates links with the country of origin by providing genealogical research services. A similar physical space could be established in Kyiv or another major Ukrainian city, potentially with private funding, to serve as a point of connection. Human stories of Ukrainians who left could make their experiences more understandable and relatable to Ukrainians who stayed, strengthening unity between the communities at home and abroad.
