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: A Village Vista 2020 