Collaboration and the Dawn of the Third Sector

When Austerity spotlighted the failures, the social cost of Inequality in 2008-18, we were awakened, but it was not until those social deficiencies were brutally exposed by Covid-19 in 2020 for all to see that reality hit home, and as we awaited yet another challenge in form of post-Brexit 2021. That was not the Ireland of our origins. Of course, it was the Rural Villages that suffered most from that decade of Austerity in the end. Rural jobs were Private Sector jobs, while the Public Sector workers were primarily based in the Cities, and felt the Austerity least in lost Jobs, Pension deficits, Emigration, Income cutbacks and closed Shops. These facts are supported by Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reports dating back as far as 2015, as reported by The Journal. I.E. on 6th June, 2015: “Firstly, Public Sector workers on permanent contracts did not lose their jobs even when the State went bankrupt and had to get an IMF bailout. That is gold plated, copper-fastened, unsinkable job security. (Consequently) There’s a reason why Banks ask if you’re a Public or Private Sector worker when considering handing out a loan; the Public Sector workers get a ‘defined-benefit Pension’ when the rest of the sane world has switched to sustainable ‘defined-contribution Pensions’; while many Private Sector workers on defined-benefit pensions have seen their pension funds wiped out in the Recession. Meanwhile, (although) the Irish State went about as bankrupt as a State gets without defaulting on loans; and Public Sector pensions continue to be paid.” A new approach is urgently required if we are to maintain social stability and progress economically in Ireland and across the European Union, now numbering 27 Countries in 2020.

It is apparent that regardless of the arguments about Public and Private Sector value, values or virtues, neither have been able to deliver the equality of opportunity or rewards that Society needs today, not in any sense of fairness and justice. So why, despite its obvious potential, does a Social Economy of the Third Sector remain virtually untried and untested, at least on a scale that could ever hope to solve the gross injustice of Inequality we observe today? What could it do in ways the Private and Public Sectors could not already do? How can it expect to fix Inequality, given the abject failures demonstrated by powerful Private and Public Sectors Economies to date? The Idea of building such a scalable Social Economy of the Third Sector has been a captivating one for many socially-minded organisations, social innovators and social entrepreneurs alike for more than two decades now. The conditions never seemed just right, not until now, that is. It remained on a grandiose wish list until the dramatic and unexpected health-scare and economic-fallout presented by the sudden arrival of Covid-19 on our shores. It caused the unthinkable to happen, a once-in-a-lifetime shutdown of the Irish and Global Economies – that simultaneous actions created the exact conditions required for the development of such a Social Economy of the Third Sector, the so-called Child of Necessity, with its emphasis on social values rather than on economic value. When our Irish Economy has fully reopened, and reality sets in, there may be as many as hundreds of thousands of the Irish 2019 workforce who will be Unemployed or Under-employed, either temporarily or even permanently in 2020/21 and beyond, with tens ofy thousands more surviving on Social Welfare supports. What then do we do? Ireland can no longer offer that unspoken employment safety net option that we religiously relied upon for more than 175 years, Emigration. Emigration will no longer be available as the ‘easy for Government but painful for its people’ answer upon which we always placed our political faith.

Despite that significant limitation to our traditional options, we can reliably expect that the Irish Government, spearheaded by the IDA, will continue to prioritise attracting the high profile, FDI-investing, Big Corps over and above any Third Sector initiatives. They will continue to lure them through State incentives with grant aids, tax breaks and other supports; and be rewarded with high volumes of well-paid jobs and reliable income tax collections. Irish Governments have relied for generations on such jobs and taxes to pay their Public Sector, welfore supports and additional community services, without which they could not expect to retain office for very long. The Private Economy will continue, of course, to prioritise research, development and innovation (RDI) Investment in new services and products to create those new jobs but with an exclusive focus of rewarding their stakeholders. A Social Economy of the Third Sector, by contrast, has never been seen or trusted to deliver enough comparable, scalable, reliable, dependable and well-paid new jobs to ensure the related tax takes in payback. Neither are they believed to have access to the capital or talent required to power-up the creative RDI engine as a prerequisite. What they do offer, however, is the vast growth potential and sustainability of homegrown businesses where the primary benefits remain with their Local Communities to sustain their Neighbourhoods rather than going to Stakeholders alone and in what are fleet-footed Big Corps. Being socially-minded organisations, Third Sector Orgs provide a powerful instrument too for unification of the rest of Society via social inclusion on four fronts– social, economic, financial and digital. Collaborating Third Sector Orgs could include Cooperatives, Credit Unions, Fair Trade, Associations, Diaspora Clubs, Mutual Benefit Societies, Charities, Community-based Orgs, Diaspora-based Orgs, Not-For-Profits Non-Profits Orgs and Self Help Groups as well as Social Enterprises, Social Innovators and Social Entrepreneurs in Ireland. Cooperating together in one Spirit of Community would underpin an enormous global Retail campaign in a reach out to the Global Irish Diasporas, numbering over 70 million people, as well as Ethical Shoppers everywhere. That effort demands dramatically new thinking and new ways that we have never tried in earnest before if we are to expect to achieve that glorious goal held out by A Village Vista 2020.

So, what conditions have been created by the Coronavirus that suggests it’ll spark the development of such a dynamic Third Sector Economy? A Social Economy is known as The Child of Necessity because it evolves from pressures to meet significant unsatisfied needs and address acute problems in Society, learning from the harsh lessons that past experiences have taught us. In Irish Society, these did not visibly manifest themselves during the Celtic Tiger decade but surfaced rapidly during the subsequent decade of Austerity. These shocks were not then big enough to trigger a Social Economy; it took the deep economic shock of the Coronavirus to create those conditions. These are widely acknowledged as reflected in the growing Inequality gulf that now threatens to overflow with all its implications in extreme poverty among families and especially children and in an exponentially growing but vulnerable ageing population. That is not who we are, as a people, with our globally recognised history of Caring about people first. Today’s grave deficiencies and shortages in our Community services are most evident in Elderly Care, where we see the Nursing Homes and Residential Care rapidly declining as effective health solutions in every County in Ireland. The demand has switched almost overnight back to Home Care with all its implications for working families, but for which the Social Economy is ideally suited. And that applies to all Irish as well as most other Communities, at home and abroad. A much less obvious but even more powerful argument emanates from the reconnections recorded in Tim Pat Coogan’s book entitled: “Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora”. The conditions for rebuilding broken bridges are ready for the first time after a century and a half of social and economic separation. The Global Irish are forever bound at heart by roots and replicas, by a sense of longing & belonging and by a collective identity in the sense of shared destiny. That bond is enshrined in our native Irish language, like the legendary Famine-time goodbye phrase, As Gaeilge, “Go Bas in Eireannach E” (May you die in Ireland). Such phrases have survived through time but still have the power to resonate passionately with very many among our Global Irish Diasporas.

Recently, the European Union conducted a bottom-up investigation across 40 countries in a study entitled: “The Third Sector, A Renewable Resource for Europe”, to measure the impact of the Third Sector, to enhance its visibility and legitimacy and increase its contribution to Europe’s social and economic development. It found that the Third Sector’s six domains of impact were “wellbeing and quality of life, innovation, civic engagement, empowerment, advocacy and community-building, economic and human resource impacts“. Surprisingly, the report also found that the European Third Sector was the third-largest Workforce of any “Industry” in Europe with 28.3 million full-time equivalent workers (many paid but 55% volunteers), trailing only Trade and Manufacturing, but outdistancing Construction and Transportation by 2:1 and Financial Services by 5:1. In its further critical findings it acknowledges: “Indeed, the Third Sector and volunteering represent a unique ‘renewable resource’ for social and economic problem-solving and civic engagement in Europe. At this time of social and economic distress and enormous pressure on government budgets, this resource is needed more than ever – not as an alternative to the Government but as a fully-fledged partner in the effort to promote European progress. But Europe cannot take full advantage of this resource unless it develops a clearer understanding of the Third Sector’s scope and scale, its existing and potential impacts, and the barriers that are impeding its full contributions to the continent’s common welfare.” It concluded that while Europe’s Third Sector is well developed and remarkable in terms of size and scope. It is noted that the substantial withdrawal of State funding supports during Austerity in post-2008 financial Crash hade driven it to depend on other sources of funding, led by Corporate Social Responsibility, which has the effect of tugging it from its Volunteerism roots.

But that E.U. Report was followed immediately by the drastic social and economic consequences of the Coronavirus 2020, setting down the exact conditions for the Social Economy of the Third Sector to finally take its rightful and long-awaited place alongside the Private and Public Sectors. Yes! That road ahead to the Third Sector’s Economy carries with it the inherent ability to attract scaleable Social Investment, given its ability to access the Global Remittances marketplace and also attract vast new resources through Credit Union funds, Foundations, Social Investors, Philanthropists, Community Bonds, and Government Social funds. At the same time, it can capture the lions share of the currently Unbanked & Untaxed funds of the huge Unregulated Economy – in short; it can access all the resources necessary to underpin that far-reaching goal. The emergent leaders will be the avalanche of existing Third Sector Orgs combined with Ethical Movement initiatives as spearheaded by social innovators, social entrepreneurs and local champions at home and abroad. That Emergent Ireland is primed to serve as a Social Economy of the Third Sector rolemodel; one carved from its origins as an Emigrant Nation, from lessons learned in the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger and from the explosion of Caring that lay often dormant in our genes until resurfacing to ward off the worst affects of the Coronavirus in 2020.

To create better Lives and Livelihoods in the Village needs a release of that famed Irish Spirit of Community, born during centuries of suppression, intertwined with the latent attitude of Meitheal that lies mostly dormant the Irish psyche. In that environment, Villagers don’t rely on nor expect others to do it for them, but put themselves on the line instead, join in the mix if they hope to reap the rewards in local progress. Life teaches us that while we live life forward, we only learn through time the true meaning of our lives looking back; when joining up the dots of our life experiences; then we see it’s not what happened to us in life but what we did with what happened to us. It brought us to this point, as a People, in 2020. The rubber will soon hit the road in Ireland 2021 as significant job losses, and job shortages unfold as a direct consequence of the post-COVID and the post Brexit era. These will hit Hospitality, Tourism, Retail and other customer-facing sectors hard, combined with the fallout from paradigm shift towards Home-working and Online Shopping. Added to that, Ireland has always depended on Emigration as a safety net to fill in the shortages gaps in past economic downturns, but that is no longer an option for our people in 2020 in a world afflicted by the COVID pandemic. A Social Economy of the Third Sector is known as a child of necessity for a reason, where if the need is big enough, then all the motivation required will soon surface. And the warning of such a demand has never been more prescient. If it takes a Village to rear a child, it will take 1,000 Villages United to create the new LiveliHoods in the NeighbourHoods that we will increasingly need to depend upon in the decade ahead. There is a life in every Village that has remained in hibernation for generations since the Exodus, disconnected from the past by an economic Emigration brain drain that we have been unable to reverse, having left broken social bridges and denuded Communities behind in their quest for a better life. The resultant archived history and heritage we inherited is the very fuel we need to enable the provision of the new services and products required by the now vast Global Irish Diaspora which that same Emigration has rooted and blossomed.

In the end, we are but a unique set of memories and a story. That story is our Truth to Tell, to leave behind as our legacy for our Community and Society in general to share. Collectively, each Village story to tell is a collage of those legacies. While, to date, it mainly encompassed the rich and famous from our past, present or projected into the future – in this era post-Wikipedia it now also includes the artists, authors, poets, songwriters, and performers of stadium, stage and screen. Every Village Story is in the gift of their Storytellers, the custodians of their Social Memory; stories that are usually found nesting in silence among their Ageing Population. There is great power enshrined in every Village, in the Place and among the People where ambitions are rooted, dreams are fulfilled, meaningful jobs created and where School leavers can discover alternative paths to fulfilment. Villages can end the brain drain of Emigration and the Outflow to the Cities, when the resultant brain gain will ensure that local enterprises can flourish again. It can be the Place to which Emigrants can return and where economic value can be exchanged for community values once more. The Village needs all of our Voices so it can find its Voice. The Voice of The Village, it matters. We can make it count. We can be part of it, together.

Collaboration apart, A Village Vista 2020 requires Three Elements to make it happen- a Gaelic Community Brand, a Global Cooperative Chaord and Ethical Retail Outlets:

  1. Build a Gaelic Culture Brand as a Community Brand role model, one Country at a time, one County chapter at a time, one Village branch at a time. Add momentum by collaborating with existing committed organisations, fellow-travellers who are already on the road to building a Social Economy of the Third Sector – including but not limited to Cooperatives, Credit Unions, Fair Trade, Social Enterprises, NGOs, Community based Orgs, Diaspora based Orgs, Non-Profits, Not For Profit, Trading Clubs and Culture-based Associations.
  2. Form a participant-led Community-owned Cooperative Chaord, a borderless next-generation nd services-focused Cooperative of the Villages. It takes just one Village to start the engine. Add 1,000 Villages across 32 Counties, one Village at a time, one champion in every Village. Build a powerful Community-owned Ethical Brand, with universal appeal, and co-create better Livelihoods in the Neighbourhoods. Become the Voice of the Villages.
  3. Finally, Open access to Ethical Retail Outlets that connect in a meaningful way with Social Tourists, Ethical or Conscious Shoppers and reachout across borders to the Diasporas. Empower the entire process with significant funding in the form of the underutilised Community Bond instruments and linked matching funds.  Strengthen that social bond to spearhead an Ethical Retail revolution, with retailing of services and products to satisfy the collective needs of those Social Tourists, Ethical Shoppers and Global Irish Diasporas alike.

Eriuvation: A Village Vista 2020

It was D.W. Hock,  founder of the Visa card in 1976 that transformed Retailing and enormously impacted upon all our lifestyles, who famously wrote in his book of 1999, entitled “The Birth of the Chaordic Age”: “This is a story of the future, of something trying to happen, of a 400-year-old age, rattling in its deathbed as another struggles to be born – a transformation of consciousness, culture, society, and institutions such as the world has never experienced.” How right he was, such foresight. At that time, Ireland was basking in a boom period of glorious economic invincibility that we fondly called the Celtic Tiger. Ten years later, we were experiencing a calamitous bust period, amidst the Global Economic Crash of 2008, wincing from the pain of an IMF Bail-out during the consequential decade of Austerity from which many are still financially recovering. Now, twenty years on, Ireland is facing the immediate herculean challenge of rebuilding its Economy once again following the COVID pandemic 2020, and just as the post-Brexit, 2021 era looms. Locked into an age of dramatic once-in-a-lifetime change that is disrupting and threatening lives daily as spontaneously as it is unexpected, the old Economy is indeed dying while a new Economy is struggling to be born. We can see that more clearly now, twenty years after D.W.’s shared his foresight. We realise by now that we need a comprehensive new vision for the Ireland of tomorrow when, post-Brexit, Ireland will be the only European country with English as its first language. Ireland has also become a central participant in the rebuilding of the European Economy too, holding several key European Commissioner posts just as that dual Covid19/ Brexit challenge simultaneously unfolds across Europe’s 27 countries. Currently, Ireland has just entered Stage 2 of COVID-19 at Level 2 of its 5-Level plan called “Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021: Plan for Living with COVID-19”. Irish Schools have reopened, our Universities are going online, and Government-subsidised employees in the Workforce are adapting to the rigours of Online Working from Home. On 30th August the Irish Examiner reported: “The temporary wage subsidy scheme (TWSS) that has supported businesses impacted by Covid-19 restrictions since March closes on Monday and is to be replaced by the new employment wage subsidy scheme (EWSS). More than €2.7bn has been given to 69,500 employers via the TWSS, covering more than 600,000 workers. The new EWSS will operate until the end of March 2021 and is expected to cost €2.25bn — €1.35bn in 2020 and €0.9bn in 2021.” At the same time, foreign travel restrictions have started to ease, and will soon be part of a pan-European travel regional grading plan. With Online Working from Home has already been established as a new work option, Village Life, Urban and Rural, has taken on a contemporary appeal but with a big difference.

The Villages want to move the spotlight from value-driven Corporates to values-driven Communities as they explore and develop alternative ways of collaborating to solve the many challenging social, economic, financial and digital problems that seriously threatens their worldview. They observe how Corporate values have created a grave Inequality Divide that undermines world stability today, as surrounded and protected by secrets, lies, uneasy silence, unwitting innocents, and media spun deception. They awant to open the door to a fairer and more ethical world, one that is no longer under the spell of a few gigantic brands and a busload of uber-wealthy elites in this 21st Century. These they perceive to decry, demonise and destroy all opposition crossing their path without consequence, regardless of the apparent implications for people, planet or meaningful purpose and all in the name of excess profits, greed. Instead, they empathise with those people who feel left behind, socially excluded and voiceless in their Communities and broader Society. They relate to those who feel disadvantaged, disenfranchised or trapped in the ranks of the unemployed, low-income earners, the digitally disengaged or those left languishing, undervalued and often disillusioned among their Ageing Populations. Their Communities dream of collaboration and of cooperatively discovering their authentic Voice, one that delivers the scale of a difference they’d love to see in their lifetime and that of their family, friends, and broader Community. That ubiquitous challenge is the theme of A Village Vista 2020.

The Villages wish to end the brain drain of Migration and Emigration, to retain the young people in their Community of birth and aalso to attract home, through more meaningful job opportunities, those who had to leave home in search of work and a decent future during each previous Downturn. They want to engage other vital skilled workers too, that would collectively enable them to build an alternative way of life through the co-creation of Community-owned, Cooperative-based and independenty controlled Social Enterprises. Besides, that would hold immense appeal too for Irish Emigrants who are intending Returnees, those who in their hearts wish to return to the land of their birth for work, to rear their children, to share life with the friends, family or to retire among those they have loved and love. The majority of Irish Emigrants carry a deep sense of longing and belonging, a fire that has burned unquenched in their hearts, that has been nourished and preserved throughout the last one hundred and seventy-five years, ever since the Great Irish Exodus of mid 1800s. It was the time when millions sought refuge through Emigration from their famine-stricken little island country, leaving a yawning gulf of separation between their Irish and adopted homeplaces that remains to this day. In his thoroughly researched book, entitled: “Paddy’s Lament. Ireland 1846-7, Prelude to Hatred”, Thomas Gallagher recounts in graphic detail one of the greatest stories seldom authentically told of a then doomed and voiceless country, of how “this accident of nature influenced the course of history in three nations- Ireland, England and the United States of America”, adding insightfully “If the past is prologue, we would do well to heed it.” Its is a compelling and powerful narrative of its devastating consequences following the catastrophic failure of their blight-ridden potato crops when the entire nation was faced, literally overnight, with starvation, eviction, disease, death or the last refuge in mass Emigration. It is a compelling story “that captures the anguished voice of the famine victim while equally shedding considerable light on current attitudes and events”. Today, we can finally start to address their oft-forgotten but dreadful dilemma, provide answers that have only been made possible by the arrival of the digital age with the vast, almost hidden, opportunities it offers to reach out across borders. This solution has the power to reunite the Global Irish wherever the Green is worn and together to serve as a beacon that will shine a light on the scale of Social Inclusion the world desperately needs right now. As the brain drain ends, this new brain gain will re-energise those Villages and The Villagers alike.

Meanwhile, as the race to find a COVID vaccine draws to a close, our people continue to crave for certainty in a most uncertain era. Living with the Virus, under the Government programme just released, is designed to guide us safely through the year ahead as we confront those twin COVID/ Brexit challenges, as faced on four fronts – social, economic, financial and digital. Increasingly, our minds turn to Economic Recovery once more. While life goes on and we must move with it, we ought not to seek to return, however, to the lifestyles we had prior, or we risk learning little from the ultra costly lesson that the Coronavirus is still teaching us in all of our Counties and Communities. After all, we learned precious little from its 1918 predecessor, which we grossly understated in calling it The Big Flu, and which was equally misnamed in Europe as the Spanish Flu to this day. Yet, that catastrophic 1918-19 epidemic caused the end of WWI. Dr Ida Milne’s research found that, in just two years, a quarter of the Irish population, or 800,000 people, became infected with that virus, while 23,000 died.

Fortunately, over the past half-a-dozen decades, the IDA Development Authority has secured Ireland’s position as a lead player in that Big Pharma World. Today, Pharma Logistics are now about to move to centre-stage in readiness for its part in the gigantic task of delivering future coronavirus vaccine solutions to billions of people. The IATA group, representing 290 airlines, did not understate it when they recently estimated the need for 8,000 747 cargo aircraft to ship enough vaccine vials for a single dose per person worldwide. On 11th September 2020, IATA’s Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, told the Guardian newspaper: “Safely delivering Covid-19 vaccines will be the mission of the Century for the global air cargo industry. But it won’t happen without careful advance planning. And the time for that is now. We urge governments to take the lead in facilitating cooperation across the logistics chain so that the facilities, security arrangements and border processes are ready for the mammoth and complex task ahead.” Pre-COVID, we left far too many people floundering behind in the wake of that Celtic Tiger decade which persuaded so many people that greed was so good. No! We need new, more innovative, and socially inclusive thinking. In short, Rural and Urban Villages alike need an authentic Village Vista 2020 that reflects who we are as a people.

To achieve that, we need a paradigm shift of mindsets, not just in Ireland but in Europe too. Apart from the all-consuming Codid/Brexit demands in time and money, there is an underlying European-wide Inequality study to which we ought to pay apt attention, one calling for a European Social Model in response. Social Justice Ireland published the European Report with its findings of the 15th June 2020, confirming that the social and economic crisis remains widespread across Europe, a decade after the Crash of 2008. Recorded before Covid-19 reached our shores but published during the pandemic, it missed receiving adequate attention, to such as: “Over ten years on from the financial crash, and after six years of economic growth, (and) before the onset of Covid-19, right across the European Union there were 16.8 million people Unemployed, with 6.65 million people Long-term Unemployed, representing over 40 per cent of Total Unemployment across the E.U.; 86 million people were living in Poverty, of whom 19 million were Children…this presents significant challenges as Europe grapples with the social and economic consequences of the current crisis.” These are stark realities indeed, pointing as they do to hard evidence – most worryingly being that of Child Poverty, to the so-called NEETs (young people not engaged in employment, education or training) trends as well as to escalating Work Poverty (‘the working poor’). Strikingly, the European series report found that of the 86 million people who were living with poverty in E.U., 6 million more people were affected in 2018 than were affected in 2008. In particular, the one-fifth of Europe’s children (around 19.2 million) who are currently living with poverty remains a significant concern for Europe due to its self-evident long-term consequences. Consequently, according to that E.U. Report series of 15th June 2020, suitably entitled: “A Rising Tide Failing to Lift all Boats.”, Europe remains far off-track in meeting its poverty reduction targets. The E.U.’s social and economic initiatives have failed to lift all boats. Now, in this time of the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, it calls for the European Union to heed the harsh lessons from the financial crash of 2008 and to emphasise the overriding need for Investment (driven by the Private Sector) rather than Austerity (directed by the Public Sector). Social Justice Ireland called, in addition, for a European Social Model that can meet the challenges of these realities, stating that “a more integrated social dimension across the European Union is required.”

Irish People have lived through many centuries of suffering and suppression and so is uniquely positioned to understand and readily empathise with the pain of People who all over the world are suffering similar fates today. They increasingly understand the horrors of famine, the heartbreak and economic consequences of mass Emigration, the humiliation of colonisation, the health implications of deprivation, the tragic consequences of war, the suppression of culture and native language as well as the all-too-fleeting economic highs of The Celtic Tiger. Now, countless stories from our Ancestral Past that have remained hidden painfully behind a Wall of Silence have started to emerge, manifesting themselves in the foundation stones of an emerging Village Vista 2020.  The raging old arguments about the superiority of benefits a Public versus Private Sector Economy that existed until now misses the point. The case ought to be about empowering, in parallel, a Social Economy of the Third Sector, that would harness the Social Economy values espoused in that E.U. Report 2020. It alone is capable of delivering the Equality of Opportunity and Reward for which Society has been crying out for decades. Ireland is ready and positioned to champion such a role-model that would start to address the predicament the world faces today materially. Informed by that Ancestral Past, we have observed the ravages wrought by Inequality, Poverty and Homelessness in that deadly decade of Austerity, 2008-18. We watched helplessly as the social fabric of our Communities was hollowed out by the consequences of mass Emigration once again. We saw how we responded ineffectively, proferring the same old solutions as in every other Downturn, thus ensuring the same sad outcomes as throughout the Century and a half before. We have, however, listened to the raging Public versus Private arguments until acutely aware of both their vast differences and also shared deficiencies in the providing the answers needed across health services, pension entitlements, affordable houses, social safety nets, and job security. With a sigh of resignation, we observed how both the Public and Private sectors in Ireland struggled in vain to address Social Exclusion in its many forms. We have not learned the lessons of life so far, but we can do so now. Until then, the Villages of Ireland will continue to suffer brain drain, and decline until we add the limitless, untapped power of a Social Economy of the Third Sector.

ERIUVOX: One Global Irish Community Voice

Oprah Winfrey, who understands more than most about what makes people tick, famously gave us this insight: “What’s important is that you matter. In every argument you’ve ever had, every encounter, that person just wants to know – did you hear me, did you see me, and did I say anything that mattered?” Those are powerful words and outstanding insight. We all are born with one voice but, without expression, our story will go unheard and thus unheeded, our truth to tell will remain forever untold. The VOX Purpose is to promote a collective expression as a Universal Village, retaining our independence of Culture and Language while enabling the freedom to dream for all our people. The VOX Community strives to manifest itself as an Ethical Brand in the retail delivery of authentic, customisable and recognisable global services and products to their Diasporas and other ethically minded Shoppers – through offline, online or via mobile. The Ethical Brands can also use an identifying label called VoxGEM to build a Guaranteed Ethical Marketplace. This is the glue logic that seeks to bond like-minded people in one vision for the development of one Global Irish Community Voice, sharing one sense or spirit of place, interest, action, practice or purpose. The VOX Communities can then collaborate, harness and develop novel, innovative ideas within their Communities to co-create ‘home-grown’ content for global distribution as interactive Community-branded services.

Dee W Hock, the founder of the original VISA credit card and Chaord format, probably the worlds biggest impact brand, wrote in his blog: “The essence of Community, its very heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of values. (Those are) The things we do and things we share because we care for others and the good of the place.” While adding “There can be no civil society worthy of the name without true Community” and  “When money’s rant is on, we come to believe that life is a right which comes bearing a right which is the right to getting. Life is not a right. Life is a gift that comes bearing a gift which is the art of giving. Community is the place we give our gifts and receive our gifts from others.” The EriuVOX primary goal is to reunite the Irish wherever green is worn under One Global Irish Community banner for the 32 Counties of Ireland with their Global Irish Diasporas as it co-creates one powerful Global Irish Community Voice. EriuVOX is a Community-based Ethical Brand for Ireland, built upon its Old Gaelic origins, Eriu, a country that is otherwise known by its modern Gaelic names of Erin or Eire, where EriuVOX is an integral part of I.O.N.A. (Islands of the North Atlantic), of EuropaVOX and VOXWorld. Also called a social brand, it is a role-model with an evolving story around social inclusion and empowerment for Communities stretching beyond borders. In doing so, it unlocks the potential of the Arts and other creative activities among the Villagers, whether residing in a rural area, towns, cities or Diaspora locations. This is achieved by embracing Community values rather than Corporate value that dominates society today. Dee W. Hock highlights “how Community values, the supply of which are unlimited, such things as empathy, trust, love, respect, generosity of spirit and tolerance are given without stint and never a loss to the giver.” Adding, it requires “no experts…no currency, contracts, laws, courts, economists, lawyers, accountants” to implement, “only requires ordinary caring people.” We are all in this together when Communities come together, “simultaneously independent, interdependent and intradependent.” In true Community, respect and toleration are of paramount importance. Families are at the core, the most powerful building blocks of every Community. We thus avoid the many pitfalls of the present-day Corporate World with its Value extraction model that benefits the few, their Stakeholders, while creating the Inequality Divide. Accordingly, going far beyond the Profit motive that dominated the Celtic Tiger Economy, EriuVOX has four chief concerns in prioritising Caring About as well as Caring For People first- People, Planet, Purpose and Profit.

Essentially, building those concerns into an Ethical Campaign, aiming to put People First as opposed to the current Profit First philosophy that dominates in the corporate World today, EriuVOX focuses on providing people with the option of ‘learning to live the Life they would love to live within their own Communities while simultaneously eliminating the need for Emigration to faraway lands’, the default solution Irish populations had to face in vast numbers over the past two centuries. Onward bound, the focus delves deeper to address those who feel left behind in our Corporate-dominated World among the ranks of our Ageing Populations (The Third Age), Unemployed, Low -Income Earners and the Digitally Disengaged.

Over 70 million People around the World, counted among the Global Irish Diasporas, are entitled to describe themselves of Irish origin even though this small island’s population has numbered less than one-tenth of that number for 150 years. In 2002, Irish author, Tim Pat Coogan, wrote his most insightful and in-depth book (746 pages) on our Irish Diasporas to date, entitled: “Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora” (2002). In it he describes how “every other person of his generation were being forced into unwilling emigration…nobody talked about those people, nobody did anything for them. Theirs was a fate that did not speak its name. Denial was all, where emigrants were concerned,” adding, despite all that “The history of Irish emigration is one of the success stories of the World. Dispossessed and ravaged by war, famine and centuries of economic decline, the Irish nevertheless managed to battle their way to the pinnacles of political and economic success, epitomised by the entry to the White House of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (fondly called JFK), the descendant of a Famine emigrant from County Wexford.” Forever embedded in Ireland’s memory by documentary, museum, books, newspapers and indeed parkland since his hugely celebrated ‘Visit Home’ in 1963, JFK’s story is evocatively retold in the book: “JFK In Ireland: Four days that changed a President”, by RTE’s Late Late Show TV host, Ryan Tubridy. While there were many other Irish American Presidents, JFK’s Roots and memories surpass all the others in Ireland. Indeed, there are almost 1,000 other recorded stories of Great Irish People who were actually born in Ireland and went on to accomplish great global successes in many fields, beyond the political and economic arenas – yet, JFK surpassed all in our minds. The bio of each of those Great Irish People, together with commissioned illustrations, are collected for us and arranged according to their 32 Counties of birth in the book: “Great Irish People”, by Seamus Moran (2013). They include Irish Nobel prize-winners for Literature as well as Victoria Cross winners from almost every County. In his preview, David Norris says “It is about Irish People who made a difference. There is no doubt, based on the evidence of this book, that they certainly did so, affecting change throughout Europe, North & South America and many other parts of the World including their own country…through science, the arts, politics, literature and environment.” Today, the Irish National Library of Ireland hosts an outstanding exhibition of one such Nobel prizewinner for literature: “The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats”, access to which is also available online.

Much of their powerful, collective story of mass Exodus remains untold, and mostly hidden behind a great Wall of Silence. Between 1851 and 1921, an estimated 4.5 million Irish left home and headed mainly to the United States. These are extraordinary population relocation for one small island people. A bestseller book in America, entitled: “How the Irish Saved Civilisation: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe” by Thomas Cahill (1995) was the book that best sought to understand the origins of the Irish, their true role in and contribution to the World. It was promoted as follows: “In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilisation – copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were being forever lost — they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to that task” with Cahill delightfully adding, “So much of the liveliness we associate with medieval Culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of Culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated”. Thomas Keneally, the author of Schindler’s List, described Cahill’s book as “A shamelessly engaging, effortlessly scholarly, utterly refreshing history of the origins of the Irish and its huge contribution to Western Culture.”

And so the EriuVOX Story, a social brand for change, reveals how underneath our recently adopted Celtic Tiger Culture lies the social values of an original caring Gaelic Culture, the roots of which are now poised and capable of delivering a Social Innovation Island. The Great Silence has denied the Global Irish the opportunity of expression about centuries of oppression; to talk of their painful Journey to the new lands of opportunity, of how they suffered but yet survived and often prospered; how it denied them a chance to tell of their heroic deeds and the contributions they made as they built their new lives in strange lands, all the while leaving behind the people and land that they loved so well. But as they built America’s greatest cities, they created a contorted fantasy of a homeland they were never likely to see again, images that would later be beamed into households worldwide. Most prominent among these was the leprechaun. But the forty million who claimed to be Irish-Americans were suffering anxiety about money and a loss of roots. The Ireland they imagined was a so-called “safe place, and the benevolent leprechaun was the ideal warning figure for all their concerns about the evils of greed. They constructed our own crock at this time, selling the American vision of ourselves back to the world, with teddies, key rings, clothing and energy drinks emblasoned with the leprechaun, confident they had finally stepped so far away from the archaic vision of ourselves that we could mock it.” That being said by the Leprechaun Museum in Dublin today, it is also the perfect metaphor for what has happened to our little country in the last 20 years, “a monument to illusory wealth that eventually disappears right before our very eyes, having hopefully taught us all a very valuable lesson about ourselves.” Slowly the realisation is dawning of the monumental nature of their Global Irish Diaspora Journey as capture by the Epic Centre in Dublin today. In discovering their Voice, the Irish Diasporas are re-discovering a new depth in their once suppressed original Gaelic Culture, one that even those who remained, or had to remain at home for health or poverty reasons, seldom knew and was supplanted by that mock culture before we adopted more recently a Celtic Tiger culture. Yet! That Exodus Story remains locked away in the Social Memory of our Ageing Population custodians, both home and away, to this day because questions about the past were seldom encouraged, reasons for which we only now have come to understand fully. Yet this is an essential appreciation required if new bridges of connectivity are to be built. And this is very much a two-sided Voyage of Discovery – with distinct Local and Diaspora dimensions.

Finally, in the interests of balance, the true story of Ireland would not be accurate or complete without the inclusion of: “Political Corruption in Ireland 1922-2010: A Crooked Harp” by Dr Elaine A. Byrne (2012 ). It is the only scholarly account of Irish Corruption 1922-2010, leading from its independence in 1922 to its loss of sovereignty in 2010. Dr Byrne delves into the elaborate work of many Tribunals that sought and seeks (much of it in vain) to end these practices. Previewing, Dr Stuart C. Gilman, former head of UN Global Programme on Corruption said “Corruption was seen as a disease of the poor and coloured nations of the World…Dr Elaine Byrne challenges that presumption…Ireland is not an isolated case; it is simply symptomatic of the rest of EU…It has a far deeper impact on the social fabric of society. Dr Byrne’s research compellingly details the corruption problem, why it exists and how it can be dealt with.” This is about winning the argument for Change. Yes, that is one thing we do know for sure –the kind of Capitalism we have and know so well since 2008 has no Principles and what Values it has does possess favour Profit above and beyond all else – People, Planet, Prosperity and Purpose. We all know that to be true. It’s only concrete actions that Communities want to hear about anymore, not mere good intentions and soothing words. But can Communities lead the way themselves, find that Alternative Way, and on the scale that they need to make a big difference in their way of life? As John Fullerton, former Managing Director of JP Morgan who spent 20 years on Wall Street, continues: “The issues we have today are much more profound than I think we have collectively woken up to” he adds “Its (smart) people like us… who think we are so smart, that are the only people who don’t really understand how the world needs to work…we understand what is wrong with the (Financial) System, we just don’t know how to Change it. The will to fix the System begins with the will & curiosity to be open to rethink the way we think the world works. That’s threatening to Academics & those in Power…that’s threatening to their egos and personal desires. We need to realise the path we are on. We need to come together and do the right thing.” For those Communities who want to open up alternative ways to progress, they must first accept the need to change, win the argument for change, set down the conditions for change and then participate in collaborative action to deliver that change.   We’ve seen this work in small ways already, such as in Community Cafes, now is the time to scale-up. What better time to explore the idea of a Community Cooperative Chaord and its greatest production, Ethical Retailing delivering their Community-owned Brands? For these compelling reasons, the idea of EriuVOX took root as one Global Irish Community Voice.

ERIU: Imagining Gaelic Ireland 2020

Covid-19 transported us back to our Irish Roots. It endowed us with a golden time in lockdown or cocoon for sober reflection on the Roots we share with the Global Irish wherever green is worn. The way of life in Ireland we observe today has risen from the ashes of the Celtic Tiger, in the decade before Covid-19.  But has it not left many people floundering in its wake, feeling excluded in our society? Is that who we are, who we want to be? Are those Values consistent with our authentic Roots? Do they satisfy us?  Why does everything then feel so different in 2020, everyone seems more caring? Has the virus reawakened us to a rich Values that we had begun to lose along the economic path of the Tiger. That reflection led us to a bigger question.

Who are the Irish, what are our exact Origins, our authentic Roots and related Values? While, thanks to the excellent preservation of our boglands, Irish Archeology has been able to date the arrival of very first people in Ireland as far back as 10500 BC, the primary evidence was dated after the Ice Age ended in 8000 BC. That was still thousands of years before the arrival of the early Celts in 1200 BC and their later waves in 500 BC.  By comparison, America we know today that was a Home from Home for the original Global Irish Diaspora is less than 250 years old, the founding fathers having sealed the declaration on 4 July 1776. Otherwise known as the Emerald Isle of the North Atlantic, Ireland is a little Island country of just 32,000 sq miles that is home to only 6 million people. But! It is also the Place the Global Irish Diaspora of 70 million people calls their Ancestral Home.  Ireland of more than 1,000 Villages in 32 Counties, remains connected down through the centuries through its Storytellers, Songwriters and Social Tourists. But the sphere of influence of the Global Irish today stretches far beyond its island borders, right across the globe wherever green is worn, and throughout an exceptionally resourceful global population of c.80 Million People. Together they have left an indelible mark on many great Nations of the World.

The original Old Gaelic name for Ireland was Ériu, from which is derived our cherished Gaelic names, Eire or Erin, the English word for which is of course Ireland. The Gaels were an ethnolinguistic group which originated in Ireland. A Gael was a Celt, a Gaelic-speaking inhabitant of Ireland, Scotland, or the Isle of Man. Their Gaelic language and associated Culture originated in Ireland. It is within that Gaelic language that we find that original Irish Culture as preserved down through the ages. Before the Norman invasion of 1169, Gaelic Ireland comprised the whole island. Gaelic Ireland was the political and social order that existed in Ireland from the prehistoric era until the early 17th century. Tracing the history of our Gaelic Language, Údarás na Gaeltachta tells us that the first speakers of Irish probably arrived on these shores from mainland Europe over 2,500 years ago. According to their research, the oldest remains of Ancient Irish that we have are inscriptions on Ogham stones that are dated the 5th and 6th centuries. Old Gaelic was written first in the Roman alphabet before the beginning of the 7th century which makes Irish the oldest written vernacular language north of the Alps. It is noteworthy that the English Language was not spoken widely in Ireland until the 1400s and only started to become the primary Language of Ireland after 1860s; it gained that prominence after over a million Irish speakers died due to famine and another million emigrated. The dates between 1200-1600 were when Classical Modern Irish began to emerge, as developed in the lay schools for scholars and poets throughout Ireland and Scotland.

The spoken language of the same period is called Early Modern Irish. Although the majority of the people spoke Irish, English was necessary for administrative and legal affairs. Irish, therefore, never became an administrative language, and the Irish speaking community never achieved political independence again. The status of Gaeilge as a primary Irish language was lost. Soon after the Great Famine (1846–1852), the language was on the point of extinction. The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language was established in 1876 and managed to gain recognition for Irish at every level of the education system from primary school level to university. By the Census of 2016, however, 1.77 million people in the Republic of Ireland could still speak Irish. Surveys have continually shown a deep affection towards the Irish language amongst the community all over the country. That appeal still exists in places as far afield as Canada and Argentina. That continuing appeal reaches out to a far broader an audience than mere Irish speaking Gaeltacht areas might otherwise suggest. So, the conditions are still ripe for a Gaelic Ireland 2020 to emerge, this time through trade connections with the Global Irish, if the argument can be framed appropriately in the context of One Global Irish Community.

So how do we begin to co-create this New Ireland 2020? The late and great John Hume, replying to a constituent’s letter asking about what his then-new Party was going to do about some big emerging issue, asked a bigger question: So, what are You doing about it?  If its to be it’s up to us and not just to others to act. We all have actions we can take, however small or large, about what we believe in, what matters to us. As in the famed wisdom of the crowds, together we can make a huge difference in our own lives, our families, in the broader community but also in the lives of Global Irish People who too need equality of opportunity and reward. Where do we begin, we ask? We are not yet as-one with the Global Irish Diaspora because of so many broken Diaspora Branches, broken by two centuries of enforced Emigration, as a direct consequence of our troubled history of oppression? To reconnect those broken Diaspora Branches back to their Ancestral Roots will need to find new methods of expression. Since the Financial Crash of 2008, we have been asking ourselves one pertinent and persistent question that Covid-19 is now driving us to answer. What if we could reimagine a Gaelic Ireland 2020 by reuniting Roots and Branches as one collective borderless Global Irish Community of c.80 million people based on our priceless legacy, our Gaelic Roots and original Values.  What then might we become?  

Eriuvation is the concept that emerged from our resultant thinking, research and particularly engagement with fellow travellers over the past decade and more. Reimagining that Gaelic Ireland 2020 was set out in Global Irish Community Bonds to inspire a Third Sector Economy through a Community Cooperative Chaord as published in our website post before this blog.  Eriuvation is a social innovation initiative that started taking final root in 2010 in response to that Financial Crash of 2008 but which is now ready to make its contribution to that emergent New Ireland. During the current Covid-19 pandemic, we saw how Ireland was at its best when our Communities all come together with a united purpose. The Eriuvation idea sprung to life with revitalised energy after that, driven by the consequential Global Economic Recession or Depression that now threatens us in its wake. What if there was One Global Irish Community of 80 million people? While the thought has been in development since 2010, a Village Vista 2020 is what emerged in a collaborative vision, called EriuVox, that would give new voice to that Global Irish Community. It visualised Villages rising in tandem like the phoenix from the ashes of their glorious and illustrious Ancestral Past, when Irish Diasporas reconnected again with their cultural roots in a robust exchange of shared Community Values. These Values are the things we do and the things we share because we care for and about others for the good of the Place, our Home or our Ancestral Home. That goal is achievable through building social and economic bridges across the rivers of time that have separated many generations for over two centuries. Extensive research explored and exposed the pervading Emigrant sense of longing and belonging, their embrace of roots and replicas and their deep search for identity which sustained the aspirations of the Global Irish Diaspora of 70 million for their beloved Homeland throughout the good and bad times. Today, what John O’Donohue called in his book, entitled: “Eternal Echoes- Exploring the Hunger to Belong” can finally be understood, crystalised and satisfied. Now is a time to listen until we understand each other’s authentic Stories. It is the time to share Stories never previously never told of their Great Exodus, their flight from the ravages of The Great Famine of 1845-52; a time to understand the plight of and heartbreak for their ageing and poverty-stricken families that had to leave behind too. These are Stories that have remained shrouded in silence among the generations that followed. It is also time to grasp the guile and enterprise still being exhibited by youthful waves of our people who must continue to make life-changing choices to uproot and leave the Land of their birth behind in Emigration. Like the enforced Economic Emigration of 1980s and 2000s, they had to leave their families and all they know and love behind as they go in search of a new life and seek to forge a better livelihood in strange Lands.

Eriuvation’s envisages this Gaelic Ireland 2020 as finally facing up to these facts in addressing them – as it to reaches-out, reconnects and re-engages with our Global Irish Communities as we reunite with them again in a co-sharing of our Gaelic Culture. While the Global Irish are a resilient and hard-working people who have achieved great things, even amassed considerable riches, many have also fallen through the social safety nett.  Many have become socially excluded because of health or poverty, perhaps lost touch, lost their way in life, or feel abandoned as a forgotten generation who have been left behind by their people.  Eriuvation visualises a unique solution in New Ireland 2020 as enabled by a Community Cooperative Chaord, an instrument for transformative Social Change, to be implemented in a unique, informal, borderless collaboration between the Global Irish Diaspora and their Roots through the medium of Ethical Retailing. That is when we become free to bridge that yawning gap, find our voice, discover our truth, unleash our story as we collectively emerge with one Global Community Voice. Equally, it presents a viable, alternative way for Global Communities to find the answers to the destabilisation of the Corporate World and the Inequality Divide it continues to generate; surrounded and protected by silence, secrets, lies, misinformation, media spin budgets, and willing fellow travellers. It is a vision for this time when the Global Irish can come together to build one Global Irish Community through such an Ethical Retail Campaign & Movement. It is when Global Communities can merge and collaborate online to become a Force for Change on a scale which they have never dreamed of seeing reflected in their lives, their families and that of their community.

Gaelic Ireland 2020 needs to reach-out and engage two kinds of Community organisations to succeed. Firstly, it needs Third Sector Orgs that are already looking for alternative ways to bring about the scale of change they already believe to be essential for society to function better. Secondly, it needs Third Sector Orgs that are open to being persuaded for the same purpose. Among these two groups are found the latent Changemakers, those willing to become active Investors in Change through engagement at Village level within their community, and those ready to become End Users of that Change as Conscious or Ethical Shoppers. To this end, the Global Irish concept of Eriuvation promotes their engagement through a Community Cooperative Chaord with Community-based Third Sector Organisations, their Affiliates, and membership as well as corresponding Diaspora-based Organisations. Our first focus was Social Tourists who already shared a deep sense of longing and belonging with their Place of Origin, then those who felt a sense of rootlessness or exclusion or being left behind by their Communities. Ultimately, this Eriuvation search for innovative solutions, the need to find order among the chaos we witnessed daily, led to the identification of a Retail Campaign and Movement with a Community Cooperative Chaord as possessing the answers we have long sought. The unfolding story of that journey became My Truth to Tell.

Eriuvation

As Founder of Eriuvation in 2010, Eriuvation’s Village Vista 2020 is a collaborative vision for a New Ireland, called EriuVox. It sees Global Irish Communities rising in tandem, like the phoenix from the ashes of our illustrious Past as their Global Irish Diasporas reconnect and are nourished by their cultural roots once again. It sees how to achieve that by the building borderless social and trading bridges across the rivers of time that has separated them for many centuries. It sees how that pervading sense of longing and belonging, search for identity, roots and replicas which sustained the aspirations of the Global Irish Diaspora of 70 million throughout that time can be understood, crystalised and finally satisfied. That is a time when their untold Stories can emerge from the shroud of silence that has existed ever since that Great Irish Exodus that followed the horrors of the Great Irish Famine (Gorta Mor) in 1845-50.

Specifically, it sees how an emergent Community Cooperative Chaord can foster a borderless collaboration between the Global Irish and their Roots, how it can spearhead the co-creation of an Ethical Retailing Movement. And how it can informally reach-out to embrace those who became disconnected, just lost touch, became socially excluded or were among those left behind. That is when they become free to bridge that yawning gap, find their voice, discover their truth, unleash their story to collectively emerge as one Global Community Voice as protected by the Ethical Brand they helped co-create. Equally, it presents a viable, alternative way for Global Communities to find the answers to the destabilisation by the Corporate World and the Inequality Divide it continues to generate – surrounded and protected by silence, secrets, lies, misinformation, media spin budgets, and willing fellow travellers. It is a vision of a time when the Global Irish can come together to build one Global Irish Community through such an Ethical Retail Campaign & Movement. It is when Global Communities can merge and collaborate online to become a Force for Change on a scale which they have never dreamed before Covid-19 of ever seeing reflected in their lives, their families and that of their Communities.

Read our first article on WordPress, or follow my Twitter link @eriuvation, as entitled: How Global Irish Community Bonds can inspire a Third Sector Economy. If it is of interest to your Community, I would love to hear from you. Let me know your views there or here on this Blog. Richard O’Farrell