Abstract
This introductory chapter considers the compelling relationship between home and diaspora for those who claim an Irish heritage internationally and for those who inhabit the two states on the island of Ireland. It asks what has been swept aside in the cultural and intellectual imaginary of globalised Irishness and explores how The Gathering 2013 grappled with various meanings of Irishness, and with various representations of belonging, amid a deeply troubling and contradictory set of social and economic transformations. Contemporary post-Crash political tensions and long “Decade of Centenaries” (1912–2013) commemorative practices converged during The Gathering 2013 and successive years to problematise how Ireland (North and South) represented itself on a world stage.
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Notes
- 1.
Perhaps in response to criticism on the lack of inclusion of minorities in the festival, the souvenir book for The Gathering included a short chapter near the end entitled “The New Irish” (O’Brien 2013), which includes brief biographies of five immigrants but does not even mention whether they attended or participated in The Gathering events.
- 2.
The United States focus is borne out by North American visitor numbers for the first 10 months of 2013 which were up 14.6%, compared with an increase of 5.1% from Great Britain (Tourism Ireland 2013: summary headlines, n.p.). The Gathering was reported in several British newspapers and some roadshow events were held in British cities.
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Devlin Trew, J., Pierse, M. (2018). Introduction: Gathering Tensions. In: Devlin Trew, J., Pierse, M. (eds) Rethinking the Irish Diaspora. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40784-5_1
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