IF YOUR surname is McNamara and you live outside Ireland, expect a letter. Ireland Reaching Out, a non-profit organisation financed largely by the Irish government, has pioneered what it calls “reverse genealogy”. Rather than waiting for people to trace their Irish ancestry, it constructs family trees from root to branch, tracking down the descendants of those who left for America, Australia and other countries. Volunteers then invite them to visit the homeland. It is a mighty task: Mike Feerick, the outfit’s founder, wants to build a database of the Irish diaspora containing 30m or 40m names.
Last year Ireland appointed its first minister for the Irish diaspora; this spring it unveiled a diaspora strategy. As well as Ireland Reaching Out, the government supports hundreds of groups that serve needy Irish emigrants or court successful ones. One of them, Connect Ireland, uses the diaspora as spies for inward investment: it pays for tip-offs that lead to foreign companies creating jobs in the country.
In the early 1980s barely a dozen countries had a ministry, a government department or some other official institution dedicated to their...
from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1NeVMv7
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