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Actor and former Cultural Ambassador Gabriel Byrne has severely criticised The Gathering, calling it a scam and accusing Ireland of using the diaspora solely to boost tourism numbers. Eddie Barrett disagrees. He writes:
GABRIEL BYRNE HAS it all wrong. I am actually quite astounded by the reception of negativity that The Gathering has received.
I am a member of the Stack family and we have our own event planned for next year. For three days in July, the Stack clan gathering is inviting all our descendants to Ireland and offering them a chance to connect with their past. It is purely a volunteer committee effort that is bringing about our event and it is organised by Damian Stack. Over the four days there will be a tree-planting ceremony, a turf-cutting exhibition, visits to Kilflynn (formerly known as Stackstown) and a townland connected with the name called Crotta are also planned, as well as many more activities.
Back to your roots
Ancestry is a huge thing and an industry in itself. I became very interested in it when we organised a trip over to New York and we went to Ellis Island. I found it a very emotional experience. When I first heard about The Gathering, I thought it was an absolute cracker of an idea. If you look at the Irish-America fund in relation to the North, where I visit regularly, the amount of funding generated in industry and community spending is excellent. So I am hugely in favour of extending that sort of thing to the rest of the country.
If you have 1100 events, as The Gathering say they have, can you imagine how many people are involved in this. There must be countless communities. And that is what it is about, community, not a money scam. For example, we are including the GAA clubs in the areas between Tralee and Listowel in our gathering event. We are involving the whole community in the parish – the youth groups and clubs, cultural groups like the Listowel players – the local drama group. So many people are getting involved.
Negativity
I can’t understand Gabriel Byrne – I think he must have been having a bad day to come out with such negativity. I have met him in the past, and he seems like a lovely, nice man, but I am hearing the complete opposite to what he said he is hearing. Last year we had 35 Stack visitors over from the USA in July. My cousin who lives in the States brought all his children and grandchildren to Ireland. He had four generations of his family here. They had an absolute ball and obviously they spent money in the community, which is great, but that is not what it is about.
Over a dozen of the same people are coming back next year for our event – now if that is not an indication of just how impressed they were with their trip home to Ireland, then what is? Most of them had never been here before, they are third generation. They could travel anywhere they wanted to in the States but they are choosing to come back.
This is not a “scam” as Byrne has stated. People do not feel they are being scammed for money. Most people that are coming over are hard-working people, who are lucky to have a job and have earned their wages and just want a nice trip home. They have all the same issues with unemployment in the States, maybe not to the same extent as we do, but they are people who work hard, get two weeks holidays a year, and are choosing to spend it in Ireland.
Diaspora
Gabriel Byrne said that we have abandoned our diaspora, but I think it is the complete opposite. He wasn’t listening to the ordinary people from around the world; he only referred to three people. People involved are full of buzz and enthusiasm about it.
The three people he spoke to were negative about it, but what about the 97 per cent that are positive about it. And it is not just about what he describes as “shaking people down for a few quid” – absolutely not. This is not just about Americans; this is for everyone, from Australia to South Africa, New Zealand, the UK and Canada – there’s an Irish diaspora everywhere.
There have been references by some that this is merely just a scam to get money from the government and that is not true. There is a 75 per cent grant towards the volunteer organisations that are organising events and that goes towards marketing. There have to be accounts presented to The Gathering section of Tourism Ireland, so to say that this is just a way for people to make money is just not true. There is only €5 million for the whole program, so it wouldn’t go very far anyway. This really is volunteerism at its absolute best. What I see with our project in North Kerry is that people are giving up their time voluntarily and they will be looking for nothing in return.
Eddie Barrett is on the committee organising the Stack clan gathering. If you would like more information on their event next year visit their Facebook page.
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80 million international passengers visited France, 7 million in Ireland. France is 550,000 sq km, Ireland is 77,000. France has more visitors and more people inhabitants per capita than Ireland. Ireland is a island, you can’t just drive into Ireland from Germany
@J Ven: We should build a Euro tunnel.
@Thesaltyurchin: normally its a wall first, then a tunnel?
@brian o’leary: It was a ‘pie in the sky’ bait comment anyway. Imagine us, with a Euro Tunnell Lol! Cant even build a train line.
@J Ven: try telling that to the Greens
@J Ven: If your figures for visitors – and visitors is a loose term – are correct, then France had 1.24 ‘visitors’ per person and Ireland had 1.39 per person.
What does ‘visitor’ mean in this context?
Tourist?
Does it include temporary workers, or any other group?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: International arrivals.
@J Ven: So, that includes all immigrants, and not just tourists, then?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: not to mention there was a World Cup in France last year.
As an Island economy we depend on air travel to sustain our economy. The main danger could be that flights are taken on by the Belfast airports and emissions are even further increased by a trip down the M1.
@Adrian: More air or is it freight?… Our goods supply is a joke currently, just lob it on the roads with everything else, no thought. Hopefully, they move Dublin Port, would be a start at least.
@Thesaltyurchin: where should they move it to mullingar?
@Adrian re. ” As an Island economy we depend on air travel to sustain our economy”
No.
@Martin Mongan: There’s plenty of coastline it could be moved to, I’ve heard both Louth and Arklow as possible locations. It’s madness that we have a port on the most expensive land in the country. It would also mean that the port tunnel could be repurposed for other uses e,g, buses, cars etc.
@Adrian: … or indeed by Shannon or Knock, Dublin can’t have that, can they??
Who would have thought there would be lots of flights to and from and island nation.
@Ciaran: No one.
@Ciaran: I wonder if Lanzarote are considering culling the number of flights to their island in an endeavour to reduce their emissions, eh No, they dont have an Eamon
But what about the environment?!?!? It’s cold because it’s hot and we need to migrate to get warm when it’s cold and visa versa !!!!!
@Shane C: it’s climate change now seeing as the Global warming ruse didn’t work out
@David Owens: The temperature of the planet creates the climates. Therefore Global Warming results in climate change.
Which part is tripping you up?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: like I said it’s a ruse, even your master Bill Gates acknowledges it now
@David Owens: your master bill gates has to be the dumbest thing I’ve read on here in a while and that’s saying something
@David Owens: That famous climate scientist Bill Gates?
What’s Bill Gates go to do with the price of coffee?
Anyway, I took the trouble to look up what this Bill Gates might have said recently regarding climate change, and got this:
“Essentially, his argument is that emissions will peak and then start to go down. They won’t go down as fast as we want them to, so temperatures will continue to rise. Reversing this trend will require massive carbon removal. The goal of staying below 2 degrees Celsius (much less 1.5) appears lost, but we will not find ourselves in worst-case scenarios, and it is unlikely we will go above 3C.”
How, pray tell, does that even come close to this Bill Gates character saying climate change is a ruse?
(Even if he was an expert on the subject.)
If he is saying that the extra flights won’t add hugely to omissions he needs to publish data or analysis to back it up.
Airplanes are more efficient today than 20 years ago and he knows what’s landing and taking off, he will also know other factors like how much fuel would be needed with the additional flights.
Obviously adding 8 million passengers will have cO2 emissions too.
Simply saying ” I’m supporting the economy” isn’t a very strong strategic approach.
@Cornelius Paul O Mahony: This CEO is not an economist.
He is hired to increase profits.
@Juri Hertel: An economist?
Any CEO must have a full understanding of the business to make decisions, simply stating something isn’t how business works, especially when the decisions made affect those outside of the business.
What economist or economics has to do with this has me baffled.
By all means increase the cap, but only after they improve the access roads and build a bleedin train!
“increase the annual number of flights at Dublin Airport from 32 million to 40 million”?
Either there’s a monstrous typo or flights have really rebounded post-covid …
@Connor Savage: they are not talking about overnight-
@You’re Not Serious: i think you’re missing the typo. 32-40m flights annually??? Thats 110,000 flights a day; from Dublin. bahahaha
@Connor Savage: it’s passengers not flights, still big numbers but it’ll take time to get to 40m
@Cornelius Paul O Mahony: i get that, bud. Am simply taking the pi*s about the sentence as it reads
“If governments want airlines to burn sustainable aviation fuel [SAF], they’re going to need to devote extraordinary sums of taxpayers’ money to make it happen,” Aengus Kelly, CEO of the world’s number one lessor AerCap, told the Airline Economics conference Lessors, bankers and airline executives meeting in Dublin last week, SAF is not realistic or viable means of cutting emissions that the taxpayer will end up paying for, so wealthy airlines can keep on making massive profits while being exempt from any sort of binding emission targets.
Cycling lanes are a waste unless policed. In portlaoise where 2 new schools were built with perfect cycle lane access which cannot be used as at finish times for 1/2 mile either side of te schools the cycle lanes and footpaths are car parks making it extremely dangerous and impossible to cycle …..nothing is being done about it . Something will be done when a tragedy happens
@joe tobin: Well, how can a tragedy happen when no one uses the cycling lanes?
Cork Shannon knock all under-utilised increase use of these airports cheaper parking landing charges sell the alternatives , instead of bringing everyone through Dublin ,
@Tim Oconnell: It’s been explained many times,the passenger numbers are not there…..Ryanair said they would happily put in more flights if there were…
Let Cork, Kerry, Knock and Shannon bear some of the capacity load.
Those turnip munchers are always whining there’s not enough flights for them!
@Paul: Classy boy Paul eh?
@Paul: Sure Paul, you fork out more subsidies and we will bear more profit.
Mighty … what did you do when others went to school?
He’s right, the targets agreed on are what matter, if they can deliver more and be under the agreed limits then have at it, the real problem is access, if our ‘accountants’ could pull up their pants and get a light rail sorted, that would help.
All that extra walking and cycling will offset the extra carbon footprint from increased air traffic
@David Owens: That’s the plan.
On any given weekday Shannon airport is not much more than 2 hours from most major urban centres and the M50 . It can nearly take as long to get to Dublin airport from the south side. Extend and upgrade the rail line from Limerick to Hueston and make Shannon a viable alternative.
If Shannon was privately run it would probably be the busiest airport on this side of Europe. All transatlantic flights and European flights are internal clear customs and immigration for both on the one site. As far as I’m aware it’s only Dublin and Shannon have this luxury.
@Dermot Byrne: … and realistically, most tourists go to the Western coast.
Maybe a “this way in/that way our” concept could be run, incoming tourists to the Western airports and leaving from Dublin. Might need a bit of trickery, though …
It’s passenger numbers they want to increase from 32m to 40m. Not flight numbers.
40 million flights?? Flights?? Who is screening these articles
@Irish Citizen: No one.She writes a lot of BS as usual.
The Greens telling Porkies. Eamon Ryan on today defending his air travel, that he has to be there in person & that we shouldn’t be finger pointing, apportioning blame to anybody, bit rich from one of the biggest HYPOCRITES in Ireland, when he personally finger points those of us driving cars, farmers, those of us using air travel for holidays, one rule for Eamon & the Greens, another for Joe & Josephine Soap. Greens giving Aviation & Data Centers a free ride, even appointed an Aviation insider to one of their committee’s, Ciaran Cuffe wasn’t contacting the financial institutions, not to lend to the Aviation or Data Center industries, that hate is just reserved for farmers.
No principals or empathy left in the world just snuffling around in the dirt for cash. Seems every ceo has no problem with their own grand children suffering or dying. Its sad.
I would say could we not wait till we get the Metro built first? But, well, you know how long we will be waiting for that pipe dream to happen.
Strange. It’s up to Final County Council to decide. They have to date backed DAA in everything and they will again. Fingal County Council represents ??????
An absolutely foolish statement!
Planetary climate is the rate of change in surface, atmospheric and oceanic conditions across latitudes as our planet rotates daily and runs a circuit of the Sun. That rate of change is determined by the relationship of daily rotational inclination to the orbital plane.
The seasons are long-term weather, so attempting to railroad the relative success of short-term weather modelling into long-term weather modelling as ‘climate’ is a fraud, not a mistake or an overreach, but actual fraud.
Once people understand how mathematical modellers use contrived logic to suit themselves and their dire predictions, the more they see the horror of climate change modelling. The scam is getting to believe that empirical modelling equates to science.
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: you keep copy and pasting the same rubbish on every article. I look forward to your automated copy paste response
Junk science.
@brendan C5: No, just ignorance on your part.
Why not reducing his salary by 50 percent in the name of economy?
Only essential air travel should now be allowed, SAR, humanitarian airlifts, etc., no leisure travel should be tolerated.
In spite of your selfish opinion, you aren’t entitled to three holidays a year at the expense of the life still on the planet, degraded as it is.
Taking them just makes you a selfish a**h*le!
Protecting the economy:
-pv–magazine-de.translate.goog/2024/02/08/vertikale-photovoltaik-anlage-am-flughafen-frankfurt-wird-auf-174-megawatt-ausgebaut/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
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